Route-based Services
Customer & Market Due Diligence of Plumbing and Drain Cleaning Services Company: Establishing Target’s Brand Reputation and Growth Opportunities
Conducted 4-week customer & market due diligence to: (1) validate defensibility of target’s residential business; (2) establish/confirm growth opportunity in the commercial business; and (3) validate the opportunity to expand into the water damage restoration market. Gotham undertook an exhaustive fact-based approach: consumer panel and customer surveys; commercial customer surveys and interviews across 11 end-markets; deep-dive analysis of several years of job-level data; and detailed competitive landscapes in each of the target’s territories. Gotham’s fact-based conclusions allowed our client to gain confidence in defensibility of the target’s market position and viability of its growth plan leading to the successful close of the transaction.
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Customer & Market And Operational Due Diligence Of Leading Propane Distributor: Determining Branch-level Margin Expansion Opportunities And Market Position
Conducted 2-week customer & market and operational due diligence to: validate capture of pricing and operating efficiencies at acquired companies; establish local market dynamics and target’s competitive positioning; and assess regulatory and substitution threat. Gotham: surveyed ~750 propane consumers in target’s service areas; identified/profiled key competitors and conducted 32 competitor interviews in target’s local markets; analyzed zip-code-level propane supply, consumption, pricing, and heating degree day trends; determined pricing optimization and segmentation opportunity; assessed substitution threat from natural gas, electricity, and heat pumps; and analyzed pricing, delivery, and backoffiice expenses at 25+ acquisitions. Comfortable with the target’s opportunity to acquire family-owned local propane distributors and capture pricing/operations improvements, our client was able to move forward with an aggressive but well-informed bid.
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Operational Due Diligence of National Coffee Roaster and Distributor: Establishing Quick Read On Cost Savings to Support Early Stage Go/No-go Decision
Conducted 2-week operations assessment of target to establish initial read on cost reduction opportunities. Despite limited access to the target’s management, plants, and operations data, Gotham was able to create a clear picture of the target’s cost structure in both operations and its DSD network. While the cost reduction opportunities needed to achieve our client’s financial target did exist, capturing those savings posed significant culture and business strategy challenges. Given the high valuation of the target and the significant hurdles standing in the way of savings, the client leveraged our work to make a fact-based decision at the early stage of the process to exit the auction process.
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Customer & Market Due Diligence Of Industrial Wastewater Treatment Service Provider: Establishing Pricing Structure, Margin Risk, And Growth Outlook
Conducted a 2-week customer & market due diligence ahead of the check-in bid to establish the pricing structure, oil price exposure, recession risk, and growth outlook of a leading industrial wastewater treatment service provider. To this end, Gotham: built an oil price sensitivity model; built a recession impact model; conducted 50+ interviews with customers and competitors; and leveraged available industry data and secondary research. Gotham’s fact-based analysis of the market, the target’s pricing structure, exposure to oil price fluctuation, recession risks, and growth outlook provided our client with the facts to put this opportunity into perspective and price the deal accordingly ahead of its check-in bid.
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Customer & Market Due Diligence of Municipal/Utility Services Company: Deciphering a Niche Market to Validate Target’s Growth Plan
Conducted 4-week customer and market due diligence to: (1) establish municipal budget outlook; (2) establish market size and growth outlook for wastewater infrastructure services; and (3) understand the target’s competitive positioning. The effort included: 124 interviews with municipal and utility officials; in-depth research of environmental regulations; top-down/bottom-up municipal budget analysis; and creation of 3 bottom-up marketing sizing models. Gotham’s comprehensive, fact-based approach verified that the target’s aggressive growth plans were realistic and the target had established a strong reputation with its customers. This allowed our PE client to gain confidence in the target’s ability to meet its revenue plan and move forward with the acquisition.
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Operational Due Diligence of Leading Dry Ice Manufacturer: Rapidly Pinning Down Capacity/CapEx, Manufacturing Cost, and Distribution Situation and Opportunities
Conducted 2-week operational due diligence to pin down capacity and CapEx situation, and to identify margin improvement opportunities in manufacturing, distribution, and branch operations ahead of a competitive auction bid. Created plant-specific profiles of 150+ pieces of production equipment and determined target had ample capacity for growth with minimal replacement CapEx risk. Analyzed and reconciled financial data from the target’s ~100 P&Ls and reallocated costs to establish true operational costs and production and distribution cost benchmarks across plants, branches, and routes and identified up to $6MM in margin improvement opportunities through disciplined distribution and pricing practices. Gotham’s due diligence enabled our client to move forward with a competitive bid.
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