M&A strategy

M&A strategy

If your business or private equity firm is dealing with a merger, acquisition, recapitalization, or divestiture, our team can help you throughout the entirety of the M&A life cycle, helping to handle the details, sort through the challenges, and maximize value. 

Start your deal off strong with our M&A strategy services


It’s easy to let your M&A get bogged down in the details. Our team can help you get a running start, offering a responsive and flexible approach that can help you mitigate risk and maximize value.

Whether this is your first M&A or your hundredth, it can be overwhelming right from the start. Our M&A strategy services team is here to help your organization or private equity firm throughout the entire process, from valuation and pricing to regulatory risks and synergy realization. Plus, we can help you work through integration challenges, including merging processes and cultural fit. With deep experience working with both buyers and sellers, our team can help you identify challenges, address issues, and put your best foot forward.

Ways we can help


Whether you’re buying or selling, your needs are unique. Our team can offer support throughout the entire transaction process, or we can meet specific needs for particular aspects of your transaction.

Buy-side services

When you’re considering an acquisition, you have specific goals, and we have developed a proprietary filtering process to evaluate a targeted acquisition quickly and completely, determining how it might help add scale, reduce costs, gain technology, or increase market share for your business. Our buy-side advisory team can support you during all phases of the acquisition process with a variety of services, including:

  • M&A strategy development
  • Target screening and selection
  • Targeted buy-side searches
  • Letter of intent development
  • Management of diligence processes
  • Transaction negotiation and consummation support
  • Dynamic financial modeling
  • Post-close transaction support

Sell-side services

No two transactions are the same – which is why, at Crowe, we don’t just pull a plan off the shelf. Powered by our extensive experience and supported by our deep knowledge, our team can help you negotiate and structure a transaction based on your specific needs. Whether you’re looking for end-to-end transaction support or require assistance in just a few areas, we offer a variety of sell-side services, including:

  • Assessment of company operations
  • Strategic plan review including analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis)
  • Competitive positioning and industry analyses
  • Industry trend evaluations and capital markets analyses
  • Financial projections review and challenge of assumptions
  • Assistance in identifying prospective acquirers
  • Preparation of offering materials
  • Procurement of appropriate confidentiality agreements from prospective acquirers
  • Evaluation of proposals
  • Transaction negotiation and consummation support
  • Due diligence preparation, guidance, and responses
  • Post-close transaction support
  • Data analytics

Tax planning

Let our team help you achieve tax efficiency and create optimal transaction structures for domestic and cross-border deals, aligning them with your business, legal, and financing objectives. Our integrated tax solutions can help you optimize your plans for onshore and offshore activity, including:  

  • Asset versus equity, including qualified small business stock
  • Step-up in basis planning
  • Fund and investment vehicle structuring
  • Entity classification
  • Flow-through versus corporate analysis

Explore our M&A tax services

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M&A and transaction advisory services
Whether you’re on the buy side or the sell side, our transaction advisory services team can help you handle the details.
Due diligence services

Due diligence

Due diligence is essential in every transaction. We can work with you to harness the data, locate issues, find solutions, and help keep your deal on track.

Explore due diligence services

Portfolio optimization

Portfolio optimization

Our team is here to help you optimize your portfolio in a variety of ways, from finding synergies and efficiencies to allocating capital and identifying growth opportunities to managing risk.

Value realization

Value realization

You want to maximize the value of your investment – and our team has the experience you need to uncover the value you’re seeking, working with you through challenges and opportunities.  

Private equity services

Private equity

We help private equity groups and their portfolio companies create lasting value at any stage of the investment life cycle.

Explore private equity services

Work with us


Drawing on deep industry knowledge and extensive M&A experience, our team helps companies maximize the value of their transactions through our proven, relationship-based M&A advisory method. Grounded in The Crowe Way, we use our One Crowe approach to bring the right talent and expertise together at the right time to meet our clients’ needs. Contact us today to see how we can guide you through the M&A process.

Mary Ann Travers - social
Mary Ann K. Travers
Office Managing Principal, Chicago and Oak Brook and Valuation Services Leader  
Brian Keller - Large
Brian Keller
Partner, Private Equity Tax Leader

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