Rodrigo Slelatt is a Partner at A.T. Kearney. based out of New York. He has 15 years of consulting experience and leads the M&A Integration service offering in the Americas with a focus on Mergers, Acquisitions, Divestitures and large Pre and Post-Merger Integration programs. Rodrigo has led several large M&A deals on a global scale, mainly in the Consumer, Industrials and Automotive sectors. Slelatt recently spoke to ALM Intelligence's Gabe Walle, Analyst, Financial Consulting Research.
ALM Intelligence: With the increase in cross-border deals as was seen in 2015, are there any particular geographies you are focusing on in 2016?
Slelatt: Geographically North America has had a disproportionate share of deals in 2015 and one of its strongest years on record. The majority of mega deals announced were for targets based in North America and the region continues to be a focus for A.T. Kearney. We have also seen several deals in which foreign buyers have purchased major U.S. targets across industries as we have begun 2016, and we remain optimistic on cross-border M&A for the coming year. The only region we see some holding pattern would be South America; until its main two economies, Brazil and Argentina, present a clearer path to investors from a macroeconomic standpoint.
ALM Intelligence: Describe any commoditization in service delivery in how localized industry and sector expertise is being applied in deals that cross into new markets?
Slelatt: As any dedicated M&A practice we have learned years ago that in order to go to market the M&A horizontal alone is not enough, and we need to approach each deal with both the service and the industry angle. Each of our M&A practitioners has two industry verticals they specialize on. In addition we partner with our Industry practices and thus better approach the holistic elements of a sector as well as the M&A deal process. Buyers have become more sophisticated and expect that the M&A offering will be tailored to their sector. In the same fashion, whenever there are different geographies in a deal, we have localized teams complete the trident of: M&A Service, Industry and Geography. This "trident" approach has helped us differentiate well against competition.
ALM Intelligence:: You provide the front-end strategic advisory in the deals process and also due diligence services. How are you combining these two services?
Slelatt: We view the M&A process from M&A Strategy to Due Diligence to Pre-Close Planning to Post Merger Integration as one journey for our clients. Our methodology is built to feed from each stage. For example, in the strategy phase we conduct a robust outside-in assessment of the most attractive M&A targets, which serves as a basis for the due diligence. In due diligence, we stretch the synergy analysis as far as possible via clean teams to help the pre-close planning teams pick up from a more robust fact base.
ALM Intelligence: We talked previously about the importance of data capabilities in transaction advisory. Are you providing it more frequently?
Slelatt: Yes, online and user friendly collaboration tools to navigate deals have become more prevalent. M&A Collaboration tools have become a necessity for large, often geographically-distributed deal processes. However, there are two obstacles that have not made these tools table stakes yet. One, many advisory firms have tools which help to address some of the needs in an M&A deal; but not all are fully tailored to M&A. Two, several companies may prefer in-house or even offline tools, to which providers like ourselves need to adapt and use instead of the more tailored M&A collaboration tools.
ALM Intelligence: Providers are expanding end-to-end services, but clients have varying needs. How are you positioned to serve both needs?
Slelatt: Our service offering includes broad-based advisory roles which cut across stages of the M&A process and across functional areas. However, we have also performed many engagements that were very focused on one stage of the process or on a function within the company. The service can take place at either of the four steps of the deal cycle; or on each of the corporate towers; or all of the above. We play in the whole matrix, or in just one square, depending on the client's need. This breadth helps to enable a flexible model in which we can tailor our approach to a client's specific needs.
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