M&A advisory services are sold on relationship and bought without a specification, which is unusual for something that costs $712,500 on the transaction this site uses throughout. There are five deliverables. Listing them before appointing anybody makes the comparison between firms concrete and makes the engagement letter easier to write, because most disputes later are about something nobody wrote down at the start.
Deliverable one: the buyer list, wider than you would have made
Financial buyers, adjacent strategics and overseas acquirers you have not heard of, tiered and agreed with you. A list that contains only names you could have written yourself has added nothing, and it is the most common quiet failure in a mandate because nobody checks it against a counterfactual.
Deliverables two and three: the materials and the process
The teaser, the CIM and the model, then the market process run on one clock. The CIM alone is 121.2 hours and $11,514 on this site's arithmetic. Running the process means holding deadlines, because competitive tension exists only while buyers believe others are moving at the same pace.
Deliverable four: negotiation to and through the LOI
Getting several parties to indicate, ranking them on more than price, and taking one into exclusivity on terms that protect you. This is where an adviser earns most of the fee, because a seller negotiating alone against a buyer with a deal team is negotiating from the weaker side of an information gap.
Deliverable five: managing diligence to close
The request list, the seller's own capacity to answer it, and the handover of whatever the seller keeps running afterwards. On this site's worked example, chasing 68.4 open requests over six weeks is 164.16 hours, and that is the adviser's side of a cost the seller also carries.
Questions people ask about m&a advisory services
What do M&A advisory services include?
A buyer list, the materials, a market process on one clock, negotiation through the LOI, and management of diligence to close.
What do they cost?
On the worked example here, $112,500 of retainers plus $600,000 at close, or $487,500 at close if retainers are credited.
What is the most common quiet failure?
A buyer list containing only names the owner could have written down. Nobody checks it against a counterfactual.