Pejman Makhfi | Easier Acquisitions for Mid-Market Companies

There comes a stage in every company’s life where organic growth is no longer enough. A strategic acquisition is the only way forward.  

But for middle-market companies, this is a tricky proposition. The management team is running the business… they don’t have time to research potential targets, negotiate price and terms, and all the rest that goes with an M&A deal.

Pejman Makhfi, the founder of Silicon Valley-based Synrgix, which provides a process management system to support growth through acquisition for middle-market companies, has a solution. And it’s vital that it’s implemented now because data shows that mid-market companies that aren’t acquisitive are likely to fail.

Tune in to find out…

  • One thing any CEO or CFO must know to manage M&A deals
  • How to manage ongoing M&A activity with minimum impact on resources
  • A strategy to balance organic growth and growth through acquisition
  • Why lack of resources doesn’t have to mean stalled growth
  • And more

Listen now…

Mentioned in this episode:

Transcript

Patrick Stroth: Hello there. I’m Patrick Stroth.

Welcome to M&A Masters where I speak with the leading experts in mergers and acquisitions. And we’re all about one thing here. That’s a clean exit for owners, founders, and their investors. Today I’m joined by PJ Makhfi. PJ is the founder of Synrgix, a Silicon Valley-based startup company with tools and services to support the execution of the processes in the mergers and acquisitions domain.

Middle market companies hit a stage in their journey where they face pressure to sustain growth, pressure from the board and shareholders in one direction, and market agility and competition out there from the other direction. Both of these make ma critical to a strategy for middle-market companies if they want to grow. I noticed the immense importance of this effort based on recent discussions I’ve had with PJ and his team, which is why I asked him to join us to talk about synergetics and how they can solve the problems for the middle market.

PJ. Thanks for joining us today. Welcome to the podcast.

PJ Makhfi: Thank you, Patrick. Pleasure to be here and thanks for the opportunity.

Patrick: Tell us before we get Synrgix to tell us what brought you to this point in your career.

PJ: As you may know, my background is in software with many years of experience in BPM. For those not familiar with BPM, it is business process management. BPM help optimizes and automate business processes, and let you put tools in place for continuous improvement. In the past, I’ve been a part of several acquisitions both on the buy and the sell-side of the deal. What I noticed was that while the deal rationales made sense, and clear synergies, where there, acquisitions didn’t fully deliver on the promises, so I decided to take on the challenge, dig deeper and see if I can make the M&A process more controllable and rewarding. I talked with many executives and practitioners and studied past successful and failed acquisitions. These gave me the insight and a chance to solve the problems that directly impact M&A success rate, lined up a strong team of like-minded members and advisors, and built a solution to help our executives take up M&A without hesitation.

Patrick: I didn’t know that happen. That’s fascinating. What markets when we talk about middle-market now, what markets are you targeting? And specifically, what are the challenges that they’re facing? How do they know, not succeed in these M&A deals?

Middle-Market Challenges

PJ: We’re focused on helping mid-market companies. I would say our sweet spot is from 50 million to 500 million revenue. Our typical clients are companies that strive for rapid growth but have reached a stage where organic means are no longer sufficient. They would like to reignite and accelerate their growth. Just think about what it takes to take a new product from conception to market and scale or taking your existing product to different markets, domain expertise, engineering, marketing, sales, partnership, etc. The organic means are often too slow and uncertain in an age where disruptions are happening every day and everywhere.

Patrick: I didn’t think about that. Well, when you consider you’ve got a choice for growth is either you get Do It Yourself organically or you grow through acquisition. There are merits to both sides of the equation. And I would just think, anecdotally about Coke and Pepsi where it’s cheaper and faster for them to acquire another flavor than to develop their own sports drink. I think it’s easier for them to just go buy Gatorade, but there’s still that tug between organic and an M&A. Why do you think M&A is the solution over organic for growth?

PJ: There are some numbers that can share with you, Patrick that support this. Over the past decade, 73% of mid-market companies have disappeared. Of those who survived 70% were acquisitive. historical data shows that M&A helps companies grow three times faster and give a 75% higher chance of success, even an economic downturn. Surveys also show that 60% of mid-market companies considered M&A, but only 22% building into their strategy is M&A gets quick access to revenue and reduces costs. You would ask why don’t all adopt this?

Patrick: Well, those numbers are compelling. Why is that? Why are more companies not going for acquisitions if it’s such a no-brainer?

PJ: Good question, this goes back to lack of experience and resources in a very complex and delicate process. On average, our CEOs have point nine acquisitions in their lifetime. There is uncertainty, complexity, risks and high expected costs. Plus there is still the existing business that they need to run, leaving them with little time and resources to commit to the m&a initiative. There are also concerns about using third parties. Today, the M&A ecosystem is suffering from misaligned incentives for service providers. And the corporation’s several players in the M&A process work in silos and are compensated regardless of their returns.

Patrick: Yeah, that would pretty much make me pause. I always look at this as if you’re running a medical corporation and you want to acquire another medical corporation. You’ve got to go out and almost get finance and a law degree. Just understand what’s happening, and fortunately can’t do all that at one time when you’re running a company. So what does Synrgix do to offer these companies so that they’re stepping out into the unknown, and they can do so confidently?

PJ: So we started exactly what the mission to address the challenges that I just talked about. We created a software platform to guide the execution of the M&A process. The platform allows CEOs and CFOs to track and manage the entire M&A process successfully. From strategy planning all the way through integration, and synergy realization, we offer on-demand services to augment the in house team, our need basis. And we aligned our compensation with our client’s success metrics to create a truly trusted relationship.

Patrick: So you can make the process as simple or as hard as it needs to be. The client has full control There is less of a chance of a conflict of interest because of compensation structures different. That’s fantastic. I’m sure there’s a lot more in it when people dig deeper with the platform and so forth, you can’t be the only one out there. So with other players out there that are providing services to M&A parties, how does Synrgix differentiate itself in the space?

Why Synrgix is Different

PJ: The first and foremost difference is that Synrgix uses a process-based approach with end to end transparency. In other words, it gets rid of silos, there is so much at stake in a transaction our CEOs and CFOs want visibility throughout the entire process. Second, objectivity, experience, and control are in the fabric of our solution. We target its identification, due diligence, valuation or integration. We provide visibility and decision support to execute a successful deal. And finally, the curated on-demand services give our clients and the extended deal team they can tap into when needed. That allows them to manage m&a initiatives with minimum resource impact and risk to their in house projects and day to day business. So you’re providing transparency, objectivity, and the ability to pick and choose the services as you need is need fit so that you’re controlling costs. I think that’s fantastic with everything you’re offering there. Is there anything else you’d like to share with the listeners when it comes to this platform? Yes, I like to encourage our CEOs and CFOs to think more about how long and what it takes to prepare for M&A.

We have learned that M&A transactions take a lot of upfront work before you have a solid plan and a green pilot pipeline of targets. My advice to you or executives is to be proactive in order to stay on top of your game. And ahead of the competition. You can start big or small, build a strong strategy, and in house capabilities and have the processes and tools in place ahead of the time. Be the one-off acquisition or scaling through several acquisitions, make sure you have a repeatable process that builds on top of and learns from the past deals.

Patrick: I think was really important to keep in mind just something that we forget from time to time is there’s always the focus on a potential target company, thinking that they’ve got a plan ahead and get organized and think about all the things they have to do to get organized to be acquired. And we don’t really think about the other side of the equation we’re all the pre-work has to be done. Done. If you’re thinking about an acquisition, and you shouldn’t wait until you have a clear target in mind, you’ve got to start doing a lot of this pre-work ahead of time and kind of get yourself staged up for that. And it’s helpful to have someone out there that can guide you and do that pre-work without this big, long, cumbersome commitment. Why don’t you run us through a scenario on how you work with a client? Let’s say you’ve got a company that has a concept they do want to grow, and they want to get started, but they don’t know exactly where they’re going. What would it look like for them if they commenced engagement with you?

PJ: It’s very simple. Patrick. On sign up. What we do is we work with our clients to understand their situation and needs. Our success manager helps them capture their acquisition and growth strategies, selection criteria, and process templates to follow best practice execution. Clients can kick the tires and go at that point, they can use our sourcing services to get a pipeline of pre-scored targets, or do their own target sourcing. It’s as easy as that.

Patrick: So they can sit down with you get some guidance on a profile and not only get their processes for acquisition and bringing somebody on board, but they can also talk to you and get guidance on where they could find targets with your sourcing services. So that really is a big value add out there. Tell us about the pricing for this out. How is it based?

PJ: Our pricing is very competitive. It’s a very reasonable monthly subscription fee with no upfront cost or yearly commitment. Our clients get a success manager to help them onboard and run a smooth process. On top of that are on-demand sourcing and other supporting services are there for those clients who like to tap into with a pay as you go, payment model?

Patrick: Well, I think one of the things we can overlook on this is what you’re doing if you’re an acquirer, what’s the difference between an acquirer and a serial acquirer? A serial acquirer has done more than one acquisition. And I imagine with Synrgix if you can get the templates set up for processes here, and you may come up with more than one target, but you may go for one target at a time. I think it was great as this sets up an individual platform for each and every company. So you’re not only equipped and ready to go ahead and process assessable transition and acquisition for one target. But you can set the template for this being used again and again and again. And I think that’s very valuable that this is not just a one-off tool. This is something that can be deployed and after successful deployment, it can be used as an Again and again and again. And so I think that leads to more acquisitions, which we’re happy about because the smoother acquisitions become, the more there will be and we love more, not fewer acquisitions.

PJ how can our clients reach you?

PJ: Your audience, you can reach us by visiting our website www.synrgix.com or email us at info@synrgix.com. We can offer a free readiness assessment or a demo as our client requests.

Patrick: Well, that’s outstanding and to our listeners out there, I would strongly encourage you, you have absolutely nothing to lose in these processes to learn something that is a potential tool that can be an absolute game-changer for you, if not for making something easier, at least giving you peace of mind to know that There’s something out there that you can use as a reference point. PJ, thank you for joining us and we look forward to talking to you again!

PJ: Thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to working with you.

 

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