Our Services
Business Valuation
To assess the value of your firm, we must look beyond the financial statements to the additional factors that make it unique: the institutional knowledge, the intellectual capital, and the markets and clients which it serves. We provide an independent perspective supported by our many years of experience, combined with the most relevant industry and economic data to ascertain and help you understand the true value of your firm.
Valuation services offered include:
- General corporate planning
- Internal share transfers
- Merger & acquisition analyses
- Estate and gift tax purposes
- Incentive compensation plans (stock options, stock appreciation rights & phantom stock, employee stock purchase plans)
- Stock formula design
- Valuation maximization
- Strategic alternative assessments
Additionally, we offer valuation review services for those clients who need additional or alternative insight to a valuation that has been developed previously. This involves assessing the assumptions, data, methods, and analyses that were previously used and adding our own, independent perspective.
Taking a ‘critical friend’ approach, our role is not to contradict or undermine existing work but to revisit it, using our industry expertise and experience, reconciling what you have with what we know. We then use the differences, and the similarities, between your valuation and our review to enable you to gain new perspective or reassure you of the validity of your prior information. Of particular importance in this process is confirmation that the appropriate industry data have been utilized and proper valuation standards adhered to, and that the valuation has been conducted in accordance with generally accepted practices.
M&A Advisory
Our M&A advisory services are centered around the principle of value creation for A/E firms. We support our buy-side and sell-side clients by facilitating objectives from discrete tasks to full-fledged M&A representation. Understanding the nuances of any M&A process is essential to increasing the likelihood of consummating a transaction, and our goal is to provide the most apt guidance toward a successful closing.
By clarifying and understanding the motivation for your M&A activities, we assist on everything from a robust assessment of alternatives to value expectations, cultural compatibility to potential negotiation errors, and everything in between. Our deep experience and dogged adherence to managing a confidential and efficient relationship with you as your advocate allows you the most important benefit for any and all stages of the engagement: the ability to remain focused on running your firm.
Rather than relying on professional relationships alone, we also emphasize data-centric modeling to help you accomplish successful outcomes. Tailoring our advisory services to be as flexible as your circumstances demand, we relentlessly endeavor to help your M&A rationale come to fruition.
M&A services include:
- Buy-side representation
- Sell-side representation
- M&A strategy development
- Target firm research
- Target firm valuation
- LOI/Term Sheet analysis
- Deal structuring and negotiation
Ownership Planning
Our approach to ownership transition planning is based on finding the most suitable option for your firm that meets the desires and demands of owners and future owners, with an ardent focus on your firm’s longevity and success. We have worked with A/E firms through all conceivable stages of planning for the next generation and are keenly aware of how important a role firm culture plays in identifying and assessing the proper path to transitioning ownership. This important intangible serves as the backbone of a well-defined plan, and a hefty portion of the viability of any ownership planning exercise rests on it.
Additionally, we conduct a thorough evaluation of where our clients are in their arc of ownership transition that allows us to design a plan of action and overarching strategy to address the interplay of timing, wherewithal, and the specific goals of all constituents involved, in conjunction with the firm’s financial performance and precedent behavior toward the transition process. Regardless of how your firm is positioned vis-à-vis any of the aforementioned factors, we strive to align participants’ motivations with the long-term evolution and vision of their firms, while mitigating the risks of unexpected changes, both internally and externally.
Our experience working with ownership groups of all sizes and the knowledge gleaned from such opportunities is what affords us the ability to deliver sustainable frameworks for the future that lead to material increases of transferable value for our clients.
Ownership transition services include:
- New Plan Formulation
- Existing Plan Review
- Feasibility Study
- Buy-Sell/Shareholders’ Agreement Review
Benchmark Study
Our benchmark study service helps you analyze your company in the context of the wider world of A/E firms. We provide an ‘intelligence interface’ between the specifics of your company and the multitude of industry-wide data. We utilize a vast quantity of available data to provide an aggregated view of the industry, rather than you having to rely on headline data, invest in multiple reports, or risk purchasing just a single report which provides only one viewpoint.
This study affords clients the ability to save time and minimize the risk of analytical errors when comparing their financial and operational performance vis-a-vis an array of study data, all in a comprehensive snapshot. With the assurance that your firm’s data is being applied and compared accurately, we help you to understand where and why your business performance statistics may vary from the industry “norm,” and how this may be a positive, a negative, or simply a reflection of where your company is in its evolution.
An increasingly data-driven world means that there is more access to quality data now than ever before. Our benchmark study harnesses this information to help A/E firms understand how their performance compares to the industry as a whole by identifying areas of exceptional results as well as of potential concern, thereby allowing them to reliably prioritize areas of improvement.
Our Services
Get in Touch
If you’d like to learn more about how AVA can bring unparalleled assistance to your firm or are just interested in hearing our insights about the A/E industry outlook for 2023 and beyond, let us know.