M&A across three worlds: Large-cap, aggregators, private equity
Mergers and acquisitions absorb enormous amounts of capital and management attention, and most large deals still fail to deliver the value their architects promised. What separates the transactions that work from those that do not usually sits outside the valuation model: who is buying and why, what the buyer’s own economics demand, and how much of the promised value survives the years after closing.
Over this four-part series discover how leading organisations approach M&A, from executing public company transactions to building acquisition-led growth and creating value in private equity.
Each session is led by an experienced practitioner and built around a real transaction: the Sky takeover battle, acquisitions within a high-growth software company, and the 2005 Hertz buyout.
Participants will:
- Understand what drives M&A and why many deals fail
- Examine how different buyer economics shape pricing, strategy and returns
- Analyse landmark transactions from deal execution through to integration and exit
This session
This session
A financial sponsor sees a different asset from the strategic buyer across the table: no industrial synergies to bank, no permanent hold and a fixed fund life within which capital must be returned. Time is explicitly priced into returns, so acquisition price is an output of the model rather than the starting point. This session sets out that decision logic from the inside — how fund economics shape deal behaviour, how an LBO is structured and financed, and how equity returns are created through operational improvement, deleveraging and exit timing.
In this webinar, Antoine Mallard, Partner at Arkanum Partners, applies the framework to the 2005 buyout of Hertz — a $15bn carve-out from Ford funded with $2.3bn of sponsor equity. Working through its fleet-backed financing, the dividend recapitalisation six months after closing and the staged public-market exit, the session shows how capital structure and cash-flow timing affect returns, and what higher financing costs, longer holds and constrained exit markets mean for private equity today.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand how closed-end fund economics, holding periods and return requirements shape sponsor behaviour, acquisition pricing and exit discipline
- Analyse how an LBO converts operational improvement, deleveraging, multiple movement and the timing of cash distributions into equity returns
- Evaluate the Hertz buyout from asset-backed financing and dividend recapitalisation through its IPO and staged public-market exit
Who Should Attend?
This event is is suitable for portfolio managers, research analysts, asset owners