“Many thanks for the meeting yesterday. We really enjoyed it and the quality of the feedback was amazing. Great to talk to so many talented and experienced people.”

“The feedback is beyond valuable.”

“You’ve really reminded me of the scope and scale of our opportunity, and that’s very exciting.”

"This is one of the most insightful meetings I've ever had in my entire life... I've never had this much value thrown in my face at one time."

“It's really nice to have this team and to be able to get all of these points of view—this has been awesome. In some ways, it almost reminds us a bit of our Accelerator Day going through Techstars and having all these really smart people give you things to think about. So I'm very pleased right now.”

These are quotes from Corum clients about one of the things that differentiates Corum from other M&A advisors: the Initial Presentation Meeting or IPM for short.

The IPM is a meeting where the seller presents to an elite audience of 15-20 Corum experts, including Point staff (Corum dealmakers, all of whom are former CEOs), researchers, domain experts, writers, analysts, and valuation experts. After the presentation, the experts provide feedback designed to tune the presentation and make it highly receptive to buyers. In essence, the IPM is a simulation of the seller's presentation to prospective buyers. In addition, during the IPM, Corum’s valuation experts present a list of potential buyers for the seller’s company.

Surrounding the IPM is a well-honed, highly collaborative client process developed over 30 years of Corum experience.  Elements of the client process include:

  • Data gathering. Soon after a client signs with Corum, key members of Corum's team gather deal-relevant information from the client such as their products or services, their customers, their revenues, their competition, and perhaps most importantly, why another company should be interested in buying them. That information goes into a CEO Worksheet, a document that serves as a guide for Corum to fully understand the client company. It also gives the client an opportunity, prior to further steps in the process, to think about and tune their message to prospective buyers.
  • Mapping the client to disruptive trends in the market. Every year, Corum leverages its unique vantage point in the marketplace to develop the top 10 disruptive trends that it sees driving M&A deals. Corum's team of experts maps the client's business and future plans against these disruptive trends to demonstrate the company’s value to prospective buyers. 
  • Presentation coaching. Corum's team helps the client prepare a 30 minute slide presentation intended for delivery to prospective buyers. Corum's assistance includes presentation coaching as well as help in developing strategic messaging such as the value the seller's company presents to a buyer.
  • Presentation Feedback. After the client’s presentation during the IPM, every Corum expert in the meeting lists their top five observations about the company and provides feedback to improve the presentation.
  • Executive Summary Preparation. Corum's staff of professional writers prepares an Executive Summary, a short - 8 pages or less - document that summarizes the client's company, its market, competition, products, and future plans. The writing of the Executive Summary is a highly refined undertaking in which every word of content is painstakingly reviewed by the account team to ensure it gets the buyer's attention.

Getting the right message in front of a prospective buyer is of paramount importance in an M&A. That's why a perfected Executive Summary is extremely important. In the words of Henry Hu, Vice President, Strategy and Transformation, at 1010Data, "You get one breath to get his attention, so the writing has to be extraordinary."

As for the IPM, Corum Vice President Arnaud Viviers puts it this way, "I can tell you that the people who sign up with Corum as clients are blown away by the IPM. It's just an incredible experience and very valuable because it really gives you a chance to adjust your presentation to be better and more receptive to buyers."