M&A Science

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When Deals Get Weird: Stories You Don't See in the CIM Jun 18, 2026

Show notes

Nathan Rust, Lutz Lehmann, Troy Pospisil, Jeremy Segal, Patrick Mumman, Tej Brahmbhatt, George Helock, and Angie Astle

A background check killed a deal a week before close, after the QoE and the IT and cyber diligence were already done. George Helock's fix: run background checks on everyone with money tied into the business, and ask for them at the NDA stage.

Recorded live at DealMax, this episode collects eight deal surprises the CIM never shows. Troy Pospisil was told revenue-by-customer data didn't exist, asked how the company invoiced, and pulled eight years of it off a late-'80s IBM. Jeremy Segal lost a deal at signing to a co-founder who was never fully on board. Angie Astle's first acquisition was heading toward bankruptcy mid-diligence, so Chugach bought the bank's debt and took ownership through Chapter 11.

George's lesson is about timing: the request that can kill a deal should go out first, not in the final week. DealRoom Diligence lets you create, assign, and track every request from day one and connect findings directly to the diligence data, so red flags surface while you can still walk away early. See how it works: click here.

The Real Work Behind the Close: When Judgment Beats the Checklist Jun 11, 2026

Show notes

Brent Baxter, Sam Delestienne, Steve Hoffman, John Strenger, and Matt Melsen

"Reputation and trust can make up for a $15 million bid difference." Sam Delestienne of Diploma PLC proved it. He won Peerless Aerospace Fasteners at a five percent discount to the highest bid, after a door blew off an Alaska Airlines jet mid-process.

Recorded live at DealMax, five practitioners walk through the moments when the checklist ran out. ACG CEO Brent Baxter gets a deal closed after the sellers came to blows over valuation. Steve Hoffman of Vensure works through a 14-month carve-out with 125 employees across 22 countries. John Strenger and Matt Melsen take SPS Commerce into its first European deal: documents in Dutch, a works council nobody could confirm, and diligence answers that turned out wrong after close.

Matt Melsen's rule for that handoff: "Decisions made during due diligence need to be executed in PMI." It's why SPS Commerce runs its M&A in DealRoom, so diligence decisions don't get lost on the way to integration. Read how SPS does it: click here.

The Nordic Compounder Playbook: How Jörgen Wigh Runs 85 Companies With 22 HQ Staff and No Integration Jun 04, 2026

Show notes

Jörgen Wigh, CEO of Lagercrantz Group

Lagercrantz Group targets a 10% deal failure rate. On purpose. "That's very un-American to say that, but there needs to be a failure rate," says CEO Jörgen Wigh, who runs 85 companies with about 22 people at headquarters.

Part 2 is the operating system behind that number. Jörgen walks through deal governance (a go/no-go before the bid, another before the LOI, board sign-off before close) and why the person who sources a deal keeps it afterward, with no handover. He also explains why the compounder model clusters in the Nordics, why a 30-page SPA beats a 300-page one, and how a founder who backed out twice finally sold.

New to the series? Start with Part 1 on the deal model.

Jörgen targets six weeks from LOI to signed deal, and he calls three-day diligence reckless. DealRoom Diligence gives a lean deal team one place to assign requests, track seller responses, and log findings, with a built-in data room. Cut 25+ manual hours without skipping steps: click here.

The Nordic Compounder Playbook: How Lagercrantz Bought 90 Companies and Never Sold One May 28, 2026

Show notes

Jörgen Wigh, CEO of Lagercrantz Group

New to the series? Start with Part 1 on the deal model.

M&A Integration Technology: What Actually Works May 21, 2026

Show notes

Jim Buckley, VP M&A Integration at Coursera | Todd Manley, VP of Corp Dev Integration at Intel | Carey Pugh is Sr. Director, M&A Corporate Integration at Ansys | Mahesh Ganesan, Sr. Director, M&A Integration at UKG

Someone asked a Microsoft general manager what platform the company used to run its integrations. His answer: "We use Word and PowerPoint." Jim Buckley's rule today is stricter: "If something exists somewhere other than that single source of truth, it does not exist in our world."

Four integration leaders from Intel, Coursera, Ansys and UKG compare what actually works. Todd Manley explains why a tool with too many knobs and dials gets abandoned, and why he thinks AI is still in the early innings for running a full integration program. Mahesh Ganesan walks through how he briefs functional leaders midway through diligence, so the people doing the work after close have the context they need. Carey Pugh names a common trap: integration tools that take data in but still send you back to PowerPoint. The panel ends on where value leaks: tribal knowledge, key people, and the lost art of the post-mortem.

Jim's single source of truth for diligence, workstreams and the integration plan is the problem DealRoom Integration was built to solve. Diligence findings carry into integration worklists, and each finding has an owner that can be linked to the task that resolves it. That way context doesn't drop at close. See how it works: click here.

Partner Before You Buy: The Pre-Acquisition Strategy Corp Dev Teams Skip May 14, 2026

Show notes

Tomer Stavitsky is SVP and Chief Corporate Development Officer at Omnicell (NASDAQ: OMCL)

At a previous employer, Tomer Stavitsky's acquisition started as a partnership. When a rival bidder came in for the whole company, the right of first refusal he'd negotiated is what kept the deal in his hands.

Tomer breaks down the partner-first approach. It's for when the target is too early, the PE owner is in the middle of its hold, or your own team can't take on an integration yet. He covers scoping a 6 to 12 month proof of value and paying for exclusivity. He also covers keeping two to three targets warm and managing the target, its PE owner and your own leadership without sending mixed signals.

The most common mistake is moving too early. Someone with a loud voice sees six months of data from a handful of customers and wants to buy. His fix is to define the milestones that justify the deal before the partnership starts.

Tomer's warning about going back to a year-old target list and finding half of it gone is the problem DealRoom Pipeline was built for. Every target, deal note, contact and follow-up task stays in one place, so the companies you're nurturing don't go cold while you chase the one in front of you. See how it works: click here.

How M&A Turns a Chemical Company Into a Tech Business May 07, 2026

Show notes

Chandradev Mehta, SVP Strategy and Business Development at Hexion Inc.

"You can execute a really strong deal, get a really good price, but unless you integrate that transaction well and create the synergies you built into your thesis, everything else is irrelevant." Chandradev Mehta learned that after 10 years in banking and 10 on the principal side.

At Hexion, he is using M&A to move a commodity chemical business toward a chemistry-as-a-service model. The first step was buying an AI and MarTech company. He explains how he ran the build vs. buy vs. partner analysis and which must-believes he tests after the IOI. He also says integration planning belongs in diligence, with a named leader who owns the plan from the start. Then he covers why small deals are often harder than large ones, and why you negotiate a JV's divorce before the marriage.

Chandradev wants integration planning to start right after the IOI, with one accountable owner. DealRoom Integration was built for exactly that. Diligence findings become an integration plan before close, and every task carries an owner, status, dependencies, and a due date. See how it works: click here.

CPG Exit Strategy: How to Build a Consumer Brand Strategics Will Acquire | Keith Levy Part 2 Apr 30, 2026

Show notes

Keith Levy, Operating Partner at Sonoma Brands Capital

Roughly $50 million in top-line revenue, with EBITDA approaching double digits. That's the minimum Keith Levy says a consumer brand needs before a strategic acquirer takes it seriously.

Keith has sat in the buyer's seat. He led the Kind acquisition at Mars Wrigley and now positions brands for that kind of exit at Sonoma Brands Capital.

In Part 2, he gives his three exit criteria: a brand that stands for something, a product that fills an unmet need, and real scale. He explains why you have to reach the operators who feel the gap as well as corp dev, and why most investments break down on execution. He also covers the pre-LOI red flags that end deals early.

Keith's warning about messy data rooms, where you ask the same questions and never get a coherent answer, is the problem DealRoom Diligence was built for. Every request has an owner, a status, and a due date, and each seller upload links to the request it answers. Reduce your due diligence time by 50% by centralizing your diligence process: click here.

CPG Due Diligence: The Operator Framework Behind a $1B Exit | Keith Levy Part 1 Apr 23, 2026

Show notes

Keith Levy, Operating Partner at Sonoma Brands Capital

Keith Levy won't open the P&L until the founder passes. "If that one doesn't pass the sniff test, you don't even get to the product, the margin structure, the P&L, none of it."

Keith is an Operating Partner at Sonoma Brands Capital and spent years buying companies for Mars Wrigley. He walks Kison through his five-pillar diligence sequence: founder, product-market fit, go-to-market, how the product is made, and financials last. A deal can fall apart at any one of those steps.

He covers how a founder's candor about risk tells you whether to trust the numbers, what Touchland and Bachan's got right on product-market fit, and why he now asks what a brand owns instead of defaulting to asset-light co-manufacturing.

Five pillars means five places for a deal-breaking finding to get lost. In DealRoom Diligence, each request carries an assignee, status, and due date, and each finding logs the risk, its owner, and a mitigation plan, linked to the data behind it. See how it works: click here.

400 Acquisitions and a Failed Process: What Happens When You Don't Integrate Apr 16, 2026

Show notes

Matt James, EVP, CFO & Chief Acquisition Officer at Oakbridge Insurance

Billion-dollar roll-ups are failing their sale processes because buyers find multiple ERPs, separate payroll systems, and financials stitched together in spreadsheets. That's aggregation, and the market no longer pays a premium for it.

Matt James co-founded Oakbridge Insurance in 2020 and has closed 60+ acquisitions. Every one was integrated from day one, with most workstreams done within 90 days. He explains why culture fit is a binary gate that comes before any financial criteria. He also covers how a VP of New Partner Operations carries diligence knowledge from pre-LOI through the first 90 days, and why data readiness is non-negotiable.

Early on, Matt closed deals and threw them over the wall to HR and accounting to figure out. That broken handoff is what DealRoom Integration was built to fix. Diligence findings carry into integration worklists, and task timelines adjust as dependencies shift. It's the same setup Matt's lean team uses to run three to five integrations at once.

Click here to learn more.

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