Alexandre Malaspina (MEBS): Mebs Expands into Transaction Advisory Services 

 

Private equity markets have significantly evolved over recent years, due to the democratization of capital raising and investing standards. The versatility of value proposals and pricing structures for transaction advisory services, however, has lagged behind this rate of change.  

 

Why has Mebs decided to expand its activities into transaction advisory services? 

The core activity of Mebs across all its service lines is to provide competent individuals and implement procedures that limit risk and promote value creation. Over the last three years, Mebs has observed a surge in interest for transaction advisory services from existing and new clients, all seeking quality-priced solutions. The implementation of transaction advisory services thus came naturally and gradually, as both demand and customer satisfaction grew.  

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“The true value of a private investment lies in the appraisal and management of its risk profile” 

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Who are the clients targeted for this new activity? 

Simply put, buyers and sellers which require transparency and assistance at a cost that is within their budget. Our transaction advisory mandates vary from standard risk assessments and valuation exercises to complex operations entailing the effective planning and coordination of multiple cross-border stakeholders and providers. Therefore, our client profiles range from simple, individual investors to corporate and institutional buyers and sellers. Our focus is to define tailor-made solutions, designed to meet the agreed terms of complexity, transparency, and pricing for each client.  

  

What are the key challenges clients face and how does Mebs assist them? 

The first challenge is pre-transaction. Investment proposals, unless prepared by transaction professionals, frequently suffer from one to three key issues: Documentation is missing, assumptions are not backed by sufficient data, or the proposal does not rely on intrinsic or fair value. Very often because there is a lack of formatting experience, not a lack of quality. These issues then affect both buy-side parties in their capacity to adequately evaluate an opportunity and sell-side parties in their ability to effectively raise capital. Our Risk Assessment & Valuation protocols are built, not only to identify and appraise key investment variables but also to provide solutions on how to manage or leverage inherent risks. Allowing our clients to either manage their proposal’s risk profile or inversely, better value an opportunity and negotiate terms. The second challenge occurs during the transaction where most of them include six steps, each requiring significant amounts of time, resources, and expertise, in addition to the coordination of multiple parties and stakeholders. Ultimately, unless assisted by experienced practitioners, both buy- and sell-side parties face significant risks of losses in value when addressing these steps on a standalone basis. Assisting our clients throughout a transaction is our key responsibility. Our focus is to free our clients from non-essential duties and ensure downside risk is managed at all times (costs included) across all tasks and objectives in a given transaction.  

 

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