The Deal

The art of successfully putting together a business deal, whether a merger, an acquisition or a sale, is often about balance, skill and dogged determination. What follows below are some thoughts to guide you on just some of the issues which you may face.

The Deal

The question from the start is: can you negotiate your own deal?

A controversial one.

The answer is both ‘yes’, and ‘no’.  You do, and you don't, need outside help.

The answer might be ‘no’, because you'll find it is incredibly hard to bring that objectivity which is the essential of all good deal-making.  Kenny Rogers has a song called 'The Gambler' and he has some interesting advice.  Paraphrasing him, a good dealmaker has to know:

• When to hold the cards and to continue with the deal

• When to fold the hand and cease negotiations

• To be able to know when the terms are not right for you and it’s time to walk away

• And to know when the deal is toxic and you need to run away!

We can tell you now that most players would just stay in their seats, hoping for a better hand at the next turn of the cards!

Only a seasoned player knows what to do, how to guide you, when things aren't going quite as well as you might hope.

So, if you have an experienced General on the field of battle, then your chances of winning the war (or the hand) just increased.

However, the answer in your own mind might be ‘yes’, in that you believe you won't need much outside help to carry out an amicable agreement between two interested parties.  Most people are capable of striking a deal, of some sort.  If you have an appetite to do so, you'll likely reach some agreement.  But it is also possible that you'll never know what you might have missed, without an expert hand to guide you.

We were reminded of this recently when a contact - who had consulted us but had decided not to appoint a lawyer - wrote and outlined the deal she had just struck on her own, without outside help. By doing so, she believed that she had just saved herself the cost of a professional negotiator. The price and payment terms of her deal looked favourable and she had done well in that respect.

However, the deal’s structure was actually a bad one overall, in tax terms and it was going to cost her considerably in the longer run.

‘Dealmaking’ is actually a marriage of a number of different disciplines. You cannot be expected to cover them all and so you may welcome the value of a helping hand.