Transportation
Customer & Market Due Diligence Of Specialty Chemicals Logistics Service Provider: Establishing ISO Tank Container Growth And International Expansion Opportunities
Conducted a 2-phase due diligence of a leading provider of ISO tank container services to establish: specialty chemicals import/export dynamics and trends; ISO container growth outlook and penetration level; understanding of target’s competitive positioning; and international expansion opportunities. To this end, Gotham: built a bottom-up market sizing model to establish ISO container penetration using 600 million-row PIERS database of all U.S. import/export bills of lading; conducted 93 anonymous interviews with NVOCCs, chemical manufacturers, and ISO tank manufacturers and lessors; developed a port-by-port view of competitors in the U.S. and Europe; identified and analyzed all U.S. chemical plant investments; and conducted a deep-dive into a key account to assess potential risks. Gotham’s comprehensive, data-driven assessment of the market trends, the target’s competitive positioning, and growth outlook provided our client with facts to prevail in the hotly contested auction and gain exclusivity.
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Customer & Market Due Diligence of Leading Road Maintenance Equipment Supplier: Assessing Revenue/Growth Risk Pre-LOI
Focused Pre-LOI due diligence effort on establishing state DOT/municipal budget dynamics (the target’s greatest dependency), the target’s competitive positioning, and growth trends of the target’s road maintenance equipment market. Gotham: 1) compiled 10 years of state DOT budget details for 30 key states; 2) conducted ~50 interviews with state DOTs (and some municipalities); 3) built a state DOT equipment fleet profile, including fleet size, replacement cycle, age distribution, and manufacturer by equipment type; and 4) established the competitive landscape of the road maintenance equipment market. Because Gotham’s fact-based assessment painted a less optimistic picture than management’s projections, our client decided not to pursue the acquisition.
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Proactive Investment Strategy In Engineering Services: Establishing A Robust Market And Competitive Fact Base For Evaluating Targets
Conducted a 4-week proactive investment strategy effort to provide a large PE client with a dependable fact base for assessing potential acquisition targets in the highly localized and fragmented engineering services market. To this end, Gotham: built a granular market sizing model and a dashboard tool to allow the investment team to visualize served addressable market size and growth rates based on a target’s end-market and geographic presence; established competitive intensity by market segment; shortlisted the 3 most promising targets from a list of 12 engineering services firms tracked by the client; and conducted ~80 interviews with engineering services buyers in geographies served by the shortlisted targets to understand the firms’ positioning. Gotham provided our client a robust fact base and tool for evaluating targets and provided the deal team a jump start in its investment process.
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Exit Preparation/Positioning Of Leading Construction Supplies Manufacturer: Developing A Fact-based Growth Story
Conducted a market and competitive dynamics assessment to craft a fact-based growth story to inform management’s growth case and provide potential buyers with an understanding of client’s business and competitive positioning. Gotham: developed an in-depth industry primer; conducted customer interviews and surveys; built a competitive database profiling each player in the market; used industry data to detail historical and projected industry growth; built a bottom-up market size model; and established a detailed picture of client’s growth opportunities. Gotham’s assessment provided the client with extensive customer feedback and allowed management to develop a strong growth case and provide potential buyers with a fact-based market and growth opportunity understanding.
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Customer & Market Due Diligence Of Engineering Consulting Firm: Validating Market Opportunity To Create A Super-regional Player
Conducted a 4-week customer & market due diligence of an engineering consulting firm to confirm that the target was a solid platform with acquisition targets available to create a super-regional player. To this end, Gotham: conducted 100+ interviews and 100+ online surveys with engineering services customers; built a bottom-up market sizing model using Dodge construction activity data to establish market growth trends and market share by end-market and state; backtested the target’s sales mix to determine potential impact of a recession on the target’s business; and analyzed over 1,475 engineering services firms to identify 110 potential acquisition targets. Gotham’s comprehensive assessment provided our client with the facts and comfort level necessary to compete aggressively in a hotly-contested auction.
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Operations Improvements at Multi-disciplinary Engineering Services Firm: Improving Profitability and Revenue Performance
Conducted a 6-week operations assessment to turn around the company’s margin performance and position it for a successful exit in 2-3 years’ time. Analyzed historical project and employee utilization performance; developed target staffing leverage model; and created target business development model to improve efficiency of business development effort while driving profitable revenue growth. Our detailed assessment gave our client a solid understanding and roadmap of the levers to achieve the target margin performance (5-7% points growth); client requested Gotham to provide ongoing support through quarterly performance audits.
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