Curious to hear feedback on deal timeline slip?

April 11, 2023

by a searcher from Manhattan College in Port St. Lucie, FL, USA

The larger 9, 10, and 11 figure deals always take the normal time to get closed. Everyone at that level knows what has to get done.

However, the smaller 7, 8, and low 9’s seem to be stretching out longer than necessary.

We’re finding sellers not fully committed or worse having sellers remorse. I know this has been the case since the beginning of time, but it seems to be more of an issue recently.

Would be curious to hear if you’re seeing the same?

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Reply by a professional
from Villanova University in West Chester, PA, USA

Hi ^redacted‌! Yes, I see this a lot as an M&A attorney. Some of the deals of $50M+ get done in a few weeks while smaller deals sometimes take many more months. I think the speed on the bigger deals is due to efficiency of everyone involved, and the pressure to get the deal done due to external reasons can be much higher. For example, in a distressed acquisition, it could be a looming cash flow crises, quarterly crunch to include the deal in quarterly reported financials, etc. Whereas, the external time crunch is less pressing if the reason for the sale is just retirement, or something of that nature. In addition, on bigger deals, there is a lot more pressure on service providers to get deals done on crazy timelines because that's the expectation, strategic acquirers have long standing relationships with service providers, and there's room in the budget for the cost to get a deal done that quickly which is exponentially higher when you have so many team members needed to do so. Whereas on the smaller deals, I experience more of a delay from opposing counsel that may take 3-4 weeks to review an initial draft purchase agreement and prepare comments. We treat all of our clients with the same level of priority, however bigger firms or firms where you've lost your lead attorney can de-prioritize smaller deals.

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