For a first-time buyer of help
You have done M&A before but never used a consultancy to help.
The deals keep coming and the machine isn't there. You need help, not permanent overheads. But how can you trust an external firm to handle such sensitive projects? This page is the reassurance to explain what you are buying, who turns up, and how it ends.
What is different now
The process was never the hard part.
You already know how a deal runs. What has changed is everything that used to sit around you while it ran.
The functions that used to absorb the work are gone
Legal, HR, IT and the M&A team once carried the load between them. Now the same deal arrives with none of that behind it, and it lands on two or three people who already have day jobs.
Integration has no owner by default
Where an integration function exists, the work has a home whether anyone names it or not. Without one, it quietly becomes everybody's second priority until Day One arrives.
The next deal is the one that exposes it
The process you knew worked because of the machine around it. Run the same process without the machine and the gap shows up in the weeks either side of completion.
What you are actually buying
It starts free and grows only if it earns it.
A working session, before anything is scoped
We sit down with you and your team for a couple of hours and work on the real deal in front of you. No invoice, and no obligation to go further. You see how we think before you buy anything.
One scoped piece, priced before it starts
If it is useful, the first paid piece is small, specific and fixed. You know the number and the deliverable up front. Nothing open-ended, and no retainer.
A decision at each step, not a default
Every stage after that is something you choose, tied to a specifically scoped piece of work. Nothing rolls on because nobody stopped it.
Not a retainer, not a body shop, and not a bench of juniors learning your sector at your cost.
Stated up front
The answers before you have to ask.
Procurement will ask for most of this eventually. It reads better volunteered than extracted.
A fee agreed before work starts
Fixed and scoped to the deal. If the scope needs to grow, it is priced and agreed in writing before anyone starts on it.
Named people, not a bench
The people you meet on the first call do the work. We cap for quality: only three mergers simultaneously, which is how that promise holds.
Reports you can actually use
Plain English, written for a board rather than for the file. Every finding carries a number, an owner and a date.
Confidentiality handled properly
ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified, and an NDA in place before anything sensitive is shared. Deal material is handled as deal material.
Insured, and no conflicts
Professional indemnity cover in place, details on request. We do not work both sides of a deal, and we tell you the moment a conflict could appear.
No lock-in
Notice terms are agreed in writing before we start, and there is no minimum term hidden behind the first piece of work. When it stops, you get a handover.
References you can ring
Sponsors at comparable acquirers who have been through this with us, available on request. For a first-time buyer a peer conversation beats a statistic.
How it ends
The point is that you need us less.
The fear nobody says out loud is that a firm like ours arrives for one deal and is still there three years later, quietly indispensable. We build the opposite: the capability stays with your team when we leave.
You keep the templates, the trackers and the way of running it. Your people sit inside the work rather than receiving it, so by the second or third deal they are running parts of it themselves and calling us for the pieces that are genuinely specialist.
Every deal should be easier than the last.
MergeOlogy
How we work together, agreed before we start.
We are Merger Synchronisation Builders, and this is how Builders work. MergeOlogy is the study of how two companies are blended: cultures, ways of working and people, agreed at the outset rather than discovered later. We do not offer a guarantee, because diligence is the art of finding things and we can only be responsible for the information we are given. What we can do is write down what each side owes the other.
What you get from us
- Never a cookie cutter. The work fits the deal in front of you.
- You will understand the report. Plain English, written for the most critical reader in the room, not for the file.
- An astute financial eye. Every finding carries a number, an owner and a date.
- We will challenge you to put enough money in the pot to realise the value, and show you the numbers behind it.
- The unfiltered truth, including the difficult decisions, always.
- Buy-and-build and bolt-on experience runs through the work, not technology alone.
- Named people do the work. The people you meet on the first call write the report.
- Opportunity as well as risk. We look for what the deal could be worth, not only what could go wrong.
What we ask of you
- Your investment thesis. If we do not know why you are buying, nobody knows what they are doing.
- Your investors' standards, and airtime with your investors.
- Access to capable people, not whoever happens to be free.
- Access to interrogate and train the target's management.
- Willingness to be challenged on how you operate internally.
- Openness to redesigning your own M&A process.
- Financial investment in the process, not only in the deal.
- Openness to the people work, including a willingness to fix your teams.
Not a supplier and not a subordinate. Both lists are read together on the first call, and either side can say no to one of them.
Answered plainly
What people say the first time.
"Consultants never leave."
Ours is the opposite model. We teach your team how we run it, leave the templates behind, and expect to be needed less on each subsequent deal. There is no minimum term to keep us in the building.
"My board will ask why we cannot do this ourselves."
Often you could, if your people were free, and if they did not have to work with the target's team the day after asking the hard questions. We do the asking that damages a relationship and hand your team the answers.
"I do not know how to scope this."
That is our job, not yours. The free working session exists exactly for this: we look at the actual deal and tell you what the first useful piece of work is, including when the answer is a smaller piece than you expected.
"What if we do not get on?"
Then you have lost a couple of hours rather than a budget. Chemistry comes before any contract, and we will say on the first call if we are not the right firm for what you need.
"I cannot justify the spend before I know what I am buying."
You should not have to. Nothing is invoiced until there is a reason for it, and the first paid stage is deliberately small enough to approve without a business case.
We have done acquisitions before but never used a firm like Beyond M&A. Where do we start?
With a free working session on the deal in front of you. A couple of hours, no invoice and no obligation, at the end of which you know what the first useful piece of work is and roughly what it costs.
What does the first paid piece of work look like?
Small, specific and fixed price, agreed in writing before it starts. There is no retainer and no minimum term, and every stage after that is a decision you make rather than something that rolls on.
How do we stop this becoming a permanent consultancy relationship?
By design, it cannot be. Beyond M&A works inside your team, leaves the templates and trackers behind, and expects to be needed less on each subsequent deal. Notice terms are agreed before the work starts.
How is confidential deal information handled?
Beyond M&A is ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified, and an NDA is in place before anything sensitive is shared. Professional indemnity cover is in place, with details available on request.
Could Beyond M&A work for the other side of our deal?
No. We do not work both sides of a transaction, and we say so at the first sign a conflict could arise. Only three mergers run simultaneously, so the position is easy to check.
Can we speak to someone who has used Beyond M&A?
Yes. Sponsors at comparable acquirers who have been through diligence and integration with us are available for a reference call on request.
Selected engagements
- IRIS Software Group (Hg)
- Civica (Blackstone)
- Citation Group (Hg)
- Equiniti
- Acacium Group
- Puma Growth Partners
- Blixt
- Mobeus Equity Partners
- DJH
Start with a conversation, not a contract.
A working session on the deal in front of you, at no cost. No invoice until there is a reason for one.
Try a free target assessment