Why Use Hahnbeck
You’ve built an incredible business.
When it is time to sell, you need a partner who understands your industry, has the right connections, and really cares about getting you the best possible result. Let us take care of this for you.
Leading DTC and retail brands use Hahnbeck to sell for these reasons:
A materially better deal - in a sector where the closing price for the sale of a business can vary by 25% or more, having the right advisors to manage the process just makes sense
Extensive support from a senior team. MBAs, chartered accountants, investment bankers with decades of experience and $billions of transactions. Leading 9-figure brands and publicly-traded companies trust Hahnbeck
Actually closing the deal. Our focus is not on merely getting competing offers. Non-binding offers are worthless. Our focus is on all of the conditions that have to be in place to ensure that the deal closes at the offer price
Get started today by emailing us at info@hahnbeck.com or completing our free valuation calculator. For more details about Hahnbeck read on.
So Why Use Hahnbeck?
Hahnbeck Are The Experts
You are exceptionally good at operating and growing consumer product brands: to get to where you are today you must have these skills. But we are specialists in selling them: it’s a different skillset. Let us take care of it for you.
We are genuine specialists in this sector. We’re constantly in touch with consumer private equity investors and strategics in a broad range of CPG categories, including many of the largest and most acquisitive firms in the world.
We will log into your Shopify backend and your attribution software, whether that be TripleWhale, Northbeam or any others, to understand your brand’s performance relative to benchmarks.
We understand e-commerce management accounts intimately and will help you restructure yours to optimise for maximum value.
As we analyse your business we will make recommendations that will enable you to improve the business and its valuation, covering every area from branding to customer acquisition, from supply chain to fulfilment, from compliance to human resources. We’ll connect you to valuable contacts in disciplines from legal to brick & mortar retail to specific industry contacts in your category. Clients often work with Hahnbeck years in advance of an exit in order to optimise and grow their business to its maximum potential.
We’ll identify every possible opportunity for a buyer in your business, some of which you might not have even realised yourself. We’ll bring all of this together into a powerful business case which we will utilise in our discussions with the ideal buyers for your business.
We will negotiate the best possible deal for you and continue to support you right up until the deal closes.
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And now there is even more reason to choose Hahnbeck:
The GW Hahnbeck Partnership
The two most highly-regarded M&A boutiques in the consumer products sector have now joined forces.
With a larger team of exclusively senior dealmakers and a global footprint, GW Hahnbeck is the ultimate investment banking firm for the founders of consumer brands who want the highest-calibre M&A firm on their side.
The GW Hahnbeck partnership is unquestionably the leader in this sector, for these reasons:
CONSUMER SECTOR EXPERTISE
GW Hahnbeck advisors are true specialists in the consumer products sector, with many years of experience, detailed knowledge and an extensive network within this space. In addition, we have strong networks in sectors adjacent to consumer products such as e-commerce SaaS, e-commerce compliance and third-party logistics.
Both GW Partners’ and Hahnbeck’s prior transaction experience is in 7, 8 and 9-figure consumer product deals. Let yours be next.
GLOBAL PRESENCE
With offices in the US, the UK and the EU, our connections to the buyer ecosystems on both sides of the Atlantic is second to none. From our offices in these three locations we provide global coverage including the Asia-Pacific and MENA markets.
BEST-IN-CLASS M&A ADVISORY TEAM
Your advisory team at GW Hahnbeck will consist exclusively of Director and Partner-level advisors, all working on your deal. You will have constant access to senior specialists, giving you the best-in-class M&A team on your side throughout the entire process.
REPUTATION
Hahnbeck and GW Partners are the two most highly-regarded firms in the lower-middle market consumer products space. Both firms are known for their high-touch investment banking services, for their insight into consumer M&A, for their outstanding deal results and for their high standards of ethics & professionalism. Clients speak extremely highly of both firms, as witnessed in our testimonials and public reviews.
INSIGHT
GW Hahnbeck executives are regularly sought-out for their insights into the consumer products M&A space and have been quoted in publications including the Financial Times, TechCrunch, Online Retail and Digital Commerce 360. We are just as comfortable talking about LTV:CAC ratios and attribution analysis as we are talking about roll-up strategies and capital allocation, which makes us unique in the market.
COMPREHENSIVE SKILLSET
With a team consisting of MBAs, chartered accountants, investment bankers and CPG executives with decades of experience and $ billions in career transactions, GW Hahnbeck has the comprehensive skillsets required to advise clients on all aspects of their business strategy, as well as their exit strategy.
“But why do I need an advisor at all? I can sell my business on my own.”
To answer this question, it is important to understand a few key concepts:
1) Offers Don’t Matter
Our focus is not on merely getting competing offers. Non-binding offers are worthless. Hahnbeck’s focus is on all of the conditions that have to be in place to ensure that the deal closes at the offer price.
Retrading is very common in the world of e-commerce, retail and e-com SaaS acquisitions. It’s very easy to make a non-binding offer and then, once the seller has signed an exclusivity agreement, calculate the real price, which is almost always lower. But retrading can be avoided.
Getting non-binding offers is easy. Closing the deal for the offer price is an entirely different matter.
2) Deal Value Can Vary Enormously
Getting the best deal, as compared to just getting a sale, really matters. The opportunity cost of selling in a suboptimal way can be in the $ millions.
When deal values can vary by more than 25% it makes sense to have experts on your side to manage the process properly. We’ve had clients with offers on the table before engaging us, and through our process we achieved a selling price 25% higher than the best previous offer. In one case the result we achieved for the client was approximately double the value he thought was attainable. In other cases we’ve identified significant threats to a deal not closing and helped our clients to address these threats, then sell for an outstanding price and terms.
The sale of your business is too important to
be handled flippantly.
Not all advisors are equal. See what makes Hahnbeck different.
Our Team
The Hahnbeck team is the best in the business. Made up of investment bankers, MBAs, chartered accountants and consumer industry specialists, our team is unsurpassed in the e-commerce M&A sector.
Global Presence
From our offices in the UK, EU and North America we are leading transactions ranging from $5m to well over $100m across the United States, UK and Europe.
Industry Connections
Hahnbeck is deeply connected within the consumer products ecosystem, with extensive knowledge of and connections to private equity and strategic buyers across a range of consumer product categories. We also have extensive connections to DTC brand aggregators and acquisitive brand houses.
In the e-commerce SaaS market, Hahnbeck is extensively connected to the SaaS aggregators and many of the other highly acquisitive firms in this space. We also have extensive experience and connections in other sectors adjacent to the consumer space, including e-commerce accounting & tax compliance.
Reputation
What makes Hahnbeck the leading M&A firm in e-commerce?
A track record of closing deals where:
Brokers had failed to find a buyer or close the deal
The owners had taken the business to market and failed to find a buyer
A track record of turning a “no” from a buyer into a “yes”
This is not easy. It requires relationships and gravitas
In one case, this firm (whose M&A team had said “no” but where Hahnbeck asked the CEO for a second opinion), actually became the highest bidder and acquired the business
A track record of closing “difficult” sales:
Resellers
Businesses in categories that are not highly favoured, such as apparel and consumer technology
A track record of working with, and closing deals with, strategic buyers
These are not things we just talk about, or predictions about what we’re “going to do” in the future, like some brokers in this sector make.
These are things we have actually done.
Strategics & Private Equity
The main acquirers of substantial, growing consumer brands are strategic buyers and private equity. Brand aggregators can still be considered, although they are less acquisitive than previously, while individual buyers should largely be excluded from serious sale processes, with rare exceptions.
Strategic buyers often stand to make the most from the acquisition and can therefore afford to pay more than any other type of buyer. Identifying and connecting with the right people at these firms is critical to the process.
Private Equity firms are heavy investors into and acquirers of consumer product brands. We’re connected to all of the main PE firms, family offices and other private equity vehicles that invest into the main consumer product categories.
Free Valuation
The best starting point is always an accurate valuation. We are very happy to have detailed, no-obligation discussions with any e-commerce business owner who would like to know what their business is worth, whether it is for an immediate sale, a sale in future, or just for information. A useful starting point is the simple valuation calculator on our website, or you can of course just contact us by email (info@hahnbeck.com) and we will be happy to help.
Track Record
Our results speak for themselves. Hahnbeck consistently achieves above-market results for its clients.
Clients have come to us with strong offers already on the table and we have, through our process:
Found the true highest price in the market (significantly higher than their existing offers)
With optimal terms
While protecting our client’s interests in other ways
And closing the deal without retrading
Most of the discourse from brokers is around point 1 above. But points 2, 3 and 4 are absolutely critical. Without these, point 1 is meaningless.
Selected Hahnbeck Client Testimonials:
Perhaps even more importantly, our happy clients are a testament to our work. Besides getting them the best possible financial result, they tell us that they really valued our support, our availability, our ideas and our tireless effort throughout the process. We are extremely grateful and humbled by the fact that our former clients are passionate advocates for Hahnbeck. The following are brief excerpts - see our Testimonials page for the full reviews.
“We partnered with Hahnbeck to sell our portfolio of CPG brands and I can’t say enough good things about this group. The Hahnbeck team were more than a selling party, they were true partners interested and passionate about understanding our business to help connect us to the right buyers. They have a deep network of potential buyers and guided us through every step of the process. The team was always available, supportive and very responsive; they felt like an extension of our internal team, and we couldn’t have done it without them. I would highly recommend Hahnbeck!”
— Tisha Pedrazzini, CEO of Scott’s Liquid Gold, Inc (a publicly-traded US consumer brand house)
“Hahnbeck quite literally obtained multiple offers that were about double what I would have expected to achieve going at it alone.
Not only that, but working with Hahnbeck meant I had someone to lean on during the process... To anyone considering selling their FBA business,
while it might seem tempting to contact the aggregators directly, doing so leaves serious money on the table.”
— Jordan, owner of a successful US based personal care brand
“The Hahnbeck team did an incredible job of helping us navigate through the challenging process of selling our ecommerce brand of leather goods. Their team really helped shape up our accounts, as we weren't 100% accrual based and they did a great job working alongside our accountant to achieve this. Their friendly support helped us so much through the long sales process which took twice as long as it should have done - mainly because our buyers were in the middle of a merger and only told us over half way through. We were definitely getting deal fatigue and without them we might have given up! Loved their team culture which compared to other brokers meant they offered a real dedicated and personal service. It was such a pleasure to work with them and if we were ever in the position of selling again, we would definitely use their services again! Highly recommend!!”
— Pete Moon, owner of an outstanding UK-based leather goods brand
Our Strengths
The Business Case
We invest a lot of time into understanding our clients’ businesses, to really identify what makes them great acquisitions. Although DTC brands within each specific vertical do share similarities, each business is unique. Using methodologies from our backgrounds in investment banking, strategy consuting and CPG, we appraise the business from the buyer’s perspective, allowing us to build a very strong business case. Often during this process we can identify areas where quick improvements or adjustments can add value before taking the business to market.
With experienced corporate finance professionals (including chartered accountants) on staff, we are able to optimise our clients’ financials to develop an adjusted EBITDA that is optimal and defensible. More complex analysis (carve-outs, forecasts and more) are possible too.
Once we have developed a thorough business case for the acquisition, focusing on the company’s key strengths and the opportunities for each type of acquirer, we create high quality CIM and pitch materials designed to convey the opportunity to buyers in the most compelling way. These are bespoke to each business and each client.
Honesty & Confidentiality
Hahnbeck is a breath of fresh air in an industry that is sometimes over-hyped and sadly is not always populated by good actors. At Hahnbeck we hold the highest standards of professionalism and we’re always straight with our clients. Confidentiality is also critical and we maintain the highest standards of discretion.
Negotiation
Our process finds the best buyer and the best deal for each of our clients. But negotiation is about much more than the LOI - it starts much earlier, positioning our clients optimally to have a strong hand in negotiations. And our support continues through due diligence to negotiating the commercial terms of the final (binding) agreements.
Speed
Timing is important in M&A. Part of the strategic advice we give to clients relates to the question of when to go to market, which is tied to the related question of “What else does this business need to have in place before sale, in order to optimise the exit outcome?” Often there is a lot that needs to be done to reduce risk for the client and maximise the value of the business, before going to market.
However, in other cases it makes sense to go to market sooner rather than later and we advise our clients accordingly. We will never rush a business to market - we always ensure optimal preparation, within time constraints. It is important to note that in extreme situations where speed is essential, we can move very quickly.
Results
Ultimately it all leads to this. Hahnbeck simply attains the best results for its clients.
For a free initial consultation just email us at info@hahnbeck.com.
Pricing
Hahnbeck’s fee structure is always completely aligned with our client’s interests.
And we always add far more value than our fee.
In monetary deal value alone, our fee is outweighed several times over in additional deal value for our client, without even considering the value of our support throughout the process.
Every client engagement is bespoke and we tailor our engagement terms and fees to each client.
For a free initial consultation just email us at info@hahnbeck.com, or click below: