We work with our clients to help them understand and achieve their strategic objectives within a particular financial and operational environment.
These objectives are not always obvious. Even for a single shareholder, a balance must be struck among the shareholder’s control preferences, his or her liquidity needs, and the capital needs of the business. A diverse shareholder base and independent management team make the balancing more complex and the objectives more obscure. Cronus provides the services to ensure success.
Evaluation of Strategic Alternatives
Owners or managers of successful businesses understand the importance of typical business planning and budgeting, but there are certain company and shareholder-specific developments in a corporate lifecycle that require different kinds of strategic and financial planning. An acquisition, divestiture, major shareholder redemption, financing or recapitalization can be significant events in a company’s history and must be carefully planned. We work with our clients both to identify their strategic alternatives and to help them understand the relevant financial consequences of different strategic paths.
Corporate Capital Planning
A business enterprise requires capital to execute its strategic plan, and we work with our clients to help them optimize their capital structure. This involves analyzing the true cost of capital to the enterprise and whether or not it has an inefficient capital structure (balance of debt and equity), including the utilization of unsatisfactory debt or equity instruments or the failure to make full use of alternative financing options. If our clients determine that their capital base is not sufficient or if their capital structure is not efficient, we can assist them in obtaining new sources through private placement financings.
Fairness Opinions
Cronus will opine to a board of directors of a company evaluating a proposed transaction whether such transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to the company’s shareholders. The opinion that Cronus will offer addresses the fairness of the potential transaction from a financial point of view and is not a recommendation to shareholders as to how they should judge the transaction; and, of course, such an opinion of Cronus is independent of any opinion held by the board.
Valuation
We are corporate finance professionals experienced in valuing business enterprises. We work with our clients, be they private or public companies, to help them develop an understanding of the value of their business and how this informs their evaluation of strategic and financial alternatives. As when Cronus does valuation work in conjunction with its issuance of a fairness opinion, the appropriateness and relative weight of any particular valuation methodology will depend upon the specific circumstances.