Distributor of hardware, electronics and software licensing to K12 and colleges

The Company distributes hardware, electronics, and software licensing to public and private K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.

Company management had recently taken over and successfully grown the company. They wanted to identify opportunities for improving its profitability and evaluate potential deal valuation variables and considerations for a planned sale of the Company.

FDP interviewed all executives and middle management to gain an understanding of how the company and its various business lines, locations, and services interact.

Fort Dearborn reviewed all critical contracts and agreements.  FDP also reviewed the financial statements and detailed sales data to review profitability by product line, geography, vendor, customer, end market, and other metrics to develop insights into the business.

FDP reviewed the gross profit margin data and prepared a sum of the parts analysis to ensure that all business units were covering overhead costs and producing a profit.

FDP reviewed valuation metrics using discounted cash flows (DCF), comparable companies, precedent transactions, and leveraged buyout (LBO) analysis to evaluate the company.

FDP reviewed the deal characteristics or concerns that could derail the sale in an effort to resolve them prior to running a sale process.

FDP prepared a report of its findings and presented it to management.  Certain items and areas of concern warranted additional analysis, which was initiated, and those additional findings were submitted to management.

Based on the work performed, the owners developed a plan on how and where to lead the Company over the next three to five years and decided to buy out one of the current owners.