I am often asked, “how do I learn more about mergers and acquisitions” or “how do I get a glimpse into the insider’s view of the industry”? The answer — it is rare to have a glimpse into the details of privately held companies. Many say it is still a seller’s market, yet so much of our M&A industry is private and confidential. So how do we know?

MacLaurin Group’s Intimate Conversation series continues with our guest Lisa Hedrick, Partner at Hirschler and Issue Group Leader for the American Bar Association’s biannual “Private Target Mergers & Acquisitions Deal Points Study”, as Lisa visited our MacLaurin Group office to dig deeper into the study as it related to each of our guests. And, as one guest described the time with Lisa — “pure gold”.

How will observations from the American Bar Association’s Private Target Deal Points Study impact what’s ahead for 2020? Along with sharing her insights among those attending our event, Lisa talked with Jim Headley for our podcast series.

The biannual market trend analysis is drawn from 2018 and 2019 acquisitions ranging from $17 million to $500 million, giving a broad overview of this very active market and what it means going forward for both seller and buyer alike. Lisa explained, with the extensive data to back it up, that it is still very much an active seller’s market.

In addition, there were many highlights as we might expect, a few surprises, and then those … well … we will need to continue monitoring to truly understand their impact on 2020 and beyond.

Lisa sat down with a live audience, presenting the highlights, then fielding many active questions, ranging from the typical sale cycle duration to the things that are popping up in due diligence.

Lisa also explained at length the indemnification process that sellers are more and more turning to, to protect their investment in the event of something going wrong — even up to 20 years after the deal.

Extremely insightful and engaging session as Lisa took us through the study as well as what she is seeing first hand as she helps companies complete a sale.

If you would like to learn more about our series, have a topic, or would like to be considered as one of MacLaurin Group’s distinguished guests in our series, please let us know by emailing events@MacLaurin-Group.com

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