Due Diligence
At Weaver, our team of experienced professionals has the expertise to give your business the critical pieces of information you need to gauge whether a particular deal makes sense and how to assess the real value of a target or divestment’s operations. The Weaver Transaction Advisory Services team has completed a variety of due diligence engagements for companies in many industries, throughout the country, with transaction prices ranging from $1 million to over $500 million.
What is Due Diligence?
Due diligence involves gathering and synthesizing a wide range of information about a company’s financial reporting and accounting processes, tax compliance, and information technology (IT) applications and infrastructure. The findings can give decision makers critical information that can minimize the risks and maximize the value of a potential deal.
What Necessitates Due Diligence?
Mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures are major events in the life of an investor or a company, and incomplete or inaccurate information may lead to poor decisions that can significantly impact the potential value of a proposed transaction.
Why is Due Diligence Important?
For strategic and private equity investors, effective due diligence provides a more complete understanding of a target company’s financial, accounting, tax, and IT environment. This allows potential unknown risks and exposure areas to be identified and quantified. For companies looking at a divestiture transaction, effective due diligence can be viewed as a preemptive step toward an informed buyer that will be doing due diligence of its own.
What Due Diligence Services Does Weaver Offer?
Finance & Accounting
For strategic and private equity investors, capitalizing on our financial expertise provides clients the ability to direct their attention to other important areas—including better assessing a company’s business strategy, management team, and future growth prospects. For companies looking at potential divestment opportunities, this process allows the company to address concerns and issues that may be relevant to even the most demanding purchaser.
Weaver can provide a wide range of financial and accounting due diligence services, including but not limited to:
Tax
Understanding a company’s tax compliance history can identify tax attributes with potential exposure or benefits. Key information can be obtained in areas including, but not limited to:
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U.S. federal, state, and local income taxes
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State sales and use taxes
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Personal property taxes
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Real estate transfer taxes
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Transfer pricing
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International taxes
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Foreign taxes
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Payroll taxes
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Franchise taxes
In addition, this process can identify tax planning opportunities that could mitigate some of the potential exposures identified during the tax due diligence process.
Information Technology (IT)
Integrating your IT environment and data with that of a potential target company is crucial to the success of any acquisition. Only by gaining a detailed understanding of the other company’s IT environment can you avoid costly mistakes that can result in significant unplanned post-acquisition investment in IT systems. Areas for evaluation include, but are not limited to: