V2 Specialization Types: Mergers & Acquisitions

Deloitte is a leader in M&A. We advise on some of the largest and most complex deals made each year. That level of work requires us to employ multiple specialties within M&A. Opportunities range from ones that lean toward strategy and diligence to others that are squarely focused on applied IT. As an M&A professional, we encourage you to explore all that M&A offers. In part because it will give you a broader picture of our teams and how we function, but also because you just might find an even better fit than the one suggested for you.

Deloitte’s M&A team helps our clients identify and quantify risks associated with bringing together distinct organizational cultures and operations. Our due diligence encompasses the deal risks related to HR operations and technology, organizational culture, and broad labor and talent, as well as traditional financial risks inherent in compensation and benefit programs. We also help our clients with post-merger integration and divestiture issues, including compensation, benefits, HR operations and technology, HR strategy, and talent, as well as change management and workforce transition.

A business needs to know where it’s going before it determines how to get there. That’s why Deloitte’s M&A strategy & execution team isn’t called the M&A execution & strategy team. We work with each client to understand its individual strategic direction first: how and where it wants to compete in its industry. We help our clients identify and analyze prospective M&A paths to get there. We help screen acquisition targets based on potential synergies, organizational and cultural fit, and the feasibility of a deal. And our services span the M&A life cycle. With well-crafted growth strategies and execution plans, our clients are better prepared to embark on M&A actions that can help them achieve their ultimate goals.

M&A services can help clients identify potential tax savings opportunities, as well as help mitigate tax risk. That’s why buyers and sellers alike need guidance on tax implications. Deloitte is recognized as a market leader in providing tax services tailored to the specific needs of buyers and sellers. Our team provides corporate and private equity buyers with a continuum of tax advisory services to advise clients on mergers, acquisitions, carveouts, investment and financing structures, disposition alternatives and post-transaction activities. Working with clients before, during and after their transactions, we look at various corporate functions to evaluate the tax profile and to implement planning that helps our clients achieve their objectives.

It takes a deep understanding of accounting issues and reporting requirements to successfully execute a deal. At Deloitte, we evaluate a broad spectrum of technical accounting matters, including complex issues in business combinations, consolidations, share-based compensation, revenue recognition, leases, intangibles, and financial instruments. Our team evaluates business, industry, financial, accounting and tax issues related to transactions, identifying opportunities as well as risks. We perform due diligence on a target’s historical and projected earnings and cash flows; its hidden contingencies, commitments and tax exposures; and its quality of assets and internal control structure.

As one of the most complex events in a company’s life, a merger or acquisition calls for careful technology integration planning. Deloitte’s team helps clients integrate the technology infrastructures of two entities to help limit duplicated costs, conflicting processes, or inconsistent and ineffective systems. We proactively help our clients plan and implement post-merger integration activities, as well as navigate complex carveouts. We offer a full suite of M&A-related IT services, from IT capability development and diligence through IT integration or divestiture implementation. Our singular focus is on helping our clients achieve the initial drivers for the merger or acquisition—including planned synergies, identifying potential cost savings, and building a strong foundation for accelerated growth.

Deloitte’s team of M&A professionals assist our clients with financial and strategic advisory services ranging from sellside and buyside M&A to capital raising to evaluation of corporate finance alternatives, including ESOPs. We are often at the center of deals, bringing into sync the activities of all teams, at the client and throughout Deloitte. Utilizing models and analytics, we create business case and marketing documents that can help position a client’s business to the market. On the back end of transactions, we work alongside our clients to assist them with their negotiation strategy and tactics, and we advise on business issues in definitive agreements.