Acquiring another business can accelerate a decade of growth, or jeopardize everything you have built.
This is the best place to start. Tell it where you are, in your own words, and it will orient you properly. It is not a salesperson, there is nothing to sign up for, and it will happily tell you that it is too early to be doing this at all.
The acquisition world is fragmented by design. The banker runs a process, the broker sells a listing, the lawyer documents the deal, the lender assesses credit, and the integration consultant arrives after closing. Each sees one piece. The Institute sits above the fragments and helps an owner understand the whole journey.
Work through where you actually are with the Acquisition Concierge, whether to acquire, whether you are ready, and what to do next. The Readiness Diagnostic will put the honest answer in writing. Start a conversation.
Six stages, from acquisition strategy through integration, plus a section for owners considering a sale. Written to be useful before you hire anyone, and backed by the Acquisition Library: sixty-six works, each with the Institute’s candid reading. Explore the stages.
Bankers, brokers, lawyers, lenders and diligence firms differ enormously in what they actually do. The Institute helps you work out which you need, and when the answer is none yet. Speak with the Institute.
Start a private conversation with the Acquisition Concierge. It is built to orient rather than to sell, including telling you when the honest answer is that it is too early, or that what you need is a program rather than an adviser. Choose a stage to begin.
Some owners reach a point where another article or directory will not resolve the difficulty. The problem is integrating strategy, sourcing, adviser selection, financing and execution into one coherent process. The Institute occasionally serves as a private acquisition advisor to owners facing exactly that, as their independent adviser, alongside rather than instead of the transactional professionals.
The sixty-six works on private-company acquisition worth an owner’s time, each with the Institute’s candid reading: what it argues, what to do with it, and where the authorities disagree.
These come before the stages of the journey do. If the answers are unsatisfying, nothing further down the page will help.
Describe where you are. The Institute will orient you, with no process to enter and no obligation. Not ready for anything active? The Confidential Registry keeps what you are looking for quietly on file, and nothing is shared without your express permission.