M&A - Finding Your Path to Liquidity and Growth

Years of your hard work, sweat, and tears have made a successful company. Now you want to sell and reap the rewards – or conversely, you plan to acquire other companies, execute a rollup strategy, and accelerate your equity value.

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But what’s your strategy? How do you execute the strategy? How do you find your strategic targets? When should you pull the trigger?

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Navigating the M&A process, including developing a strategy, determining appropriate valuation criteria, and identifying and approaching targets can destroy equity value if not done correctly.

Leading the discussion will be:

• Stephen Kuhn, Chairman, AFN Moderator

• Christian Lagerling, Co-Founder & Senior Advisor at GP Bullhound, and CEO & Founder of Beluca Ventures

• Mike Wyatt, Head of Global Technology Mergers & Acquisitions, Morgan Stanley

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We will be joined by an esteemed panel of CEOs who will share their past M&A experiences:

• Keith Buckley, CEO, Federos

• John Foster, past CEO, Aiqudo

• Craig Hinkley, CEO, NTT Application Security

• Mark Holland, CEO, Ascend Staffing

• Kristen Valdes, CEO, b.Well Connected Health

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We will review the M&A process with an emphasis on practical advice to streamline and accelerate the end-to-end process to maximize success. Among the critical questions we will address:

• Should I be looking to sell or to acquire?

• When should I start planning for my transaction?

• What can I do to maximize the value of my transaction, and when should I start to work on that?

• How proactive or reactive should we be to enable M&A interest? 

• How do I balance company vs. shareholder motivations?

• Should I have an investment banker and what should I expect from them? What are their expectations of me and my team?

• How do I build my M&A pipeline of target buyers or sellers?

• What’s a typical M&A timeline?

• How can I, as CEO, optimize my chances to succeed with my explicit or indirect M&A strategies?

• How important is post-merger integration? What are the group’s experiences? What should I do to prepare for it?

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​The fee for this CEO Roundtable is $195 and is open only to CEOs who have already attended a CEO Roundtable and whose companies have revenue in the $5M - $100M+ range. If you have not attended a CEO Roundtable in the past, please join us here.

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Note that completing a company profile does not guarantee your spot - you must be accepted to attend. If you are not accepted, a full refund will be issued.

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If you are an AFN member, there is no fee to participate. Please email us directly at rsvp@afn.global to register.