Global Company Separates Divested Business Ahead Of A Major Acquisition
A QUIET ACQUISITION OF A COMPETITOR MEANT AN INTEGRATION WITHOUT ACCESS TO DATA OR SYSTEMS
Federal and international antitrust regulators require large corporations to meet strict requirements for acquisitions.
When a leading American oil & gas services corporation planned to acquire a major competitor, the two firms had to continue to act as competitors until the deal was complete. This meant the integration effort had to begin without access to the competitor’s systems and data.
Concurrent with this challenge, regulators required the firm to divest enough of their business to meet antitrust requirements. The firm had to put together its divestment entities for sale and remove those same entities from its financial system in hopes that those businesses could stand alone until a future buyer appeared.
Problem
Without available data for the integration preparation, the process of moving from an assumptions-based model to a final product that would reflect reality appeared daunting and complicated. With numbers and systems being “assumed,” the firm needed to be prepared to handle the massive influx of data they would gain from the acquisition.
With the interests of multiple stakeholders moving simultaneously, the scope of the divestiture and integration work threatened to balloon out of control.
Solution
The firm turned to Archetype to help disentangle the divested business from their financial systems and to prepare for the integration of the potential acquisition. To address the challenges, Archetype:
Set up an environment to validate the integration setup
Created baseline cases with various iterations of the divested business’ systems to address the uncertainty of prospective buyer demands
Prepared the divested businesses to meet future buyer needs
Result
After working with Archetype, the firm successfully separated the divested businesses into stand-alone financial systems. Moreover, with Archetype’s guidance, the client prepared the systems for the acquisition (and thus the impending integration) and established an environment that validated integration efforts. Archetype continues to have a relationship with the client and is still readily available for updates, technical expertise, and augment their team as needed as a trusted advisor.
