Commercial Due Diligence
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MCi is a Manchester and Birmingham based company offering commerical due diligence for financial institutions and vendor due diligence for business managers.

Your Investment

The future profitability of any business is significantly affected by its market environment, so when evaluating investment opportunities, commercial due diligence has become an essential part of the decision making process. It provides major insight into the current standing and future prospects of the company. However, time constraints, a lack of internal resource and/or sector expertise frequently prevent the process being undertaken in-house.

MCi offers a real solution to this requirement. Our consultants have strong commercial due diligence experience, combining the professionalism you expect with a level of service you will value.

Our Service

For a number of years MCi has performed focussed commercial due diligence reviews, providing a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the commercial and market dynamics facing an investment. During this time we have worked closely with a number of financial institutions in order to develop a review that is tailored to meet the demanding requirements of an investor. We fully understand the tight deadlines for such analysis.

These reviews are undertaken by our highly experienced team of Chartered Marketers, who specialise in business to business market research to interrogate the market and commercial dynamics affecting a proposed investment. That experience enables the team to quickly identify potential 'hot spots' and bring these to the attention of the client on a timely basis. This allows us to fully tailor our work during the project so the report provides you with the precise information you need.

Following an initial briefing to take a client's instructions we will agree the full terms of reference along with the time scale, reporting procedures and the fee structure.

We co-ordinate our time with management and the financial due diligence team, and initially undertake brief desktop research in order to assess the availability of information on the market, the dynamics of the sector and the growth expectations. We will then discuss the business plan with the management after which we will comprehensively examine the projections, the anticipated profit development and customer base.

We will also agree with management how to approach the sensitive issue of customer and supplier interviews to gain the required detailed information without divulging the confidential nature of the enquiries. These discussions are usually required to 'get close' to the market, and we have found that they offer essential benefits of accuracy and detail compared with published information.

The emerging information from the commercial investigations may change the requirements of the remainder of the research. The flexible MCi approach ensures that not only are the agreed terms of reference met, but those terms will, following agreement with the investors, change to reflect the emerging information. The data invariably has an impact on the sensitivity analyses of the financial due diligence team, and as such we always keep the investors, and other advisors informed of information developments as they arise to ensure that all the information you receive accurately reflects the market and industry dynamics.

We thoroughly research the agreed areas using an appropriate mix of desk research and original interviews. We test the research results before undertaking the full analytical assessment. Forecasting is undertaken using a pragmatic approach, and is facilitated by the training of the consultants who are never satisfied with a response to a question until we understand the reasoning for that response. Only when this is achieved can the future developments be projected.

We detail the findings in a concise and clearly presented report. The executive précis forms an invaluable appendix to your credit committee report, and enhances your decision making.

In addition the management gain a working document providing an independent, critical analysis of the key issues to further the company and your investment potential.

Terms of Reference

We conduct business to business research in a variety of markets.

The range of industries covered is constantly expanding, but recent research projects include the following markets and industries:

automotive products
building product
chemicals
contracting
engineering
healthcare
software
utilities
waste management

We agree the terms of reference with the investor(s) and the management before commencement. We uniquely design each assignment to concentrate on the critical issues for the specific investment. However, major areas of investigation that typically form the heart of the assignments include:

Company Issues:

Ability to achieve forecasts
Critical success factors
Exit potential
Key account sensitivity
Management appraisal
Reputation with customers/market standing and share
Strategy evaluation
Supplier issues
SWOT analysis
Viability of gross margin projections

Market Issues:

Competitor performance and strategy
Industry structure/ distribution routes
Market dynamics, size, trends and structure
Market forecast

The reports are presented to you, your financial syndicate members, and management, in face to face presentations to ensure a complete understanding of the content, and implications, of the research findings.

Fees and Timing

MCi is a Manchester and Birmingham based company offering a highly flexible service designed to meet your time deadlines and attend meetings at short notice. We follow your time critical information needs. We maintain contact throughout the assignment to keep you informed of the progress and developments, and to highlight the emerging information that has a crucial bearing on your investment decision.

We always agree fees before commencement of an assignment.

Click here to see the MCi client list.