2017 Business Excellence Awards

12 Acquisition International - Business Excellence Awards 2017 Best M&A Consultancy - Europe Best Scientific Communications Agency - Connecticut Keller & Coll. is an independent, family owned M&A consultancy firm specialized in supporting German SMEs. We invited Founder Michael Keller to provide us with a fascinating overview of this dynamic and vibrant firm and the range of services it offers. Company: Keller & Coll. Trusted Advisers for M&A GmbH Contact: Senator h.c. Michael Keller Address: Bockenheimer Landstrasse 13-15, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Phone: +49 69 370020111 , Email: [email protected] Web: kellercoll.de BE170118 Established in 1992, Keller & Coll is an independent consultancy specializing in German small and medium-sized companies for more than twenty years. With his consulting firm, Founder Michael Keller can rely on extensive experience in the M&A field. In this area, he is clearly on top of the field. As a specialist, he is a highly-appreciated contact for the German media, and Keller is much sought-after both as interview partner on TV, as well as a speaker for an experienced business audience. Privately, he holds his own as a single father of three daughters. He discusses how he works to ensure that his clients receive the service they need from both himself and his firm. “Keller & Coll. is a classic Anglo-Saxon M&A boutique. Over the years, the firm has mainly been specializing in the acquisition and sale of enterprises. In this area, the consultancy has a proven record of several hundred transactions in more than twenty countries. My own extensive expertise therefore also shines on an international business level. More than half of Keller & Coll.’s transactions were successfully carried out with international partners. “The range of services of the M&A boutique Keller & Coll. covers all essential aspects of corporate finances; the main emphasis, however, is on M&A. The consultant’s business activities focus on projects in the segment of small and medium-sized companies. At the same time, the excellent team at Keller & Coll. has successfully concluded projects for finance investors and large corporations. Specifically n the area of mergers and acquisitions, i.e. when arranging ownership successions and takeovers, the most essential skill to have is to be able to assign the respective vendor to the right buyer. When the matching pair has finally been found, at the end it is essential to successfully merge the two with the right price and contract.” Besides medium-sized enterprises, well-known investment companies and international concerns belong to the agency’s exclusive customer base. In addition to company transactions in the small and medium enterprises, the services offered by Keller & Coll. also comprise of e.g. spin-off projects of large companies. The portfolio of the consultancy also includes fairness opinions, i.e. objective assessment reports. In this area, the clients range from family-owned companies to banks to investors to large corporations and courts. The team of Keller & Coll. consultants distinguishes itself with entrepreneurial thinking, drawing on a vast international network. Michael himself has decades of M&A experience, which qualifies the company as a reliable partner for small and medium enterprises when conducting company transactions. Over decades, he has continuously been fine- tuning and fostering the process for company assessments, resulting in a very solid concept for his projects that he can make use of and is almost a guaranteed success factor. Michael never rushes into assignments, but takes plenty of time to prepare his business projects. The experienced M&A consultant studies every detail of the company before selling it. Extensive research and knowledge building are essential instruments prior to going ahead with any transaction. In doing so, he is fully aware that his business transactions are never pure sales procedures; every new project he implements usually also involves human challenges of the most different kind. That’s why the M&A industry is considered to be one of the most emotional branches in the economic field. “For everyproject we take about two months to draft an extensive informationmemorandum about the company, comprising sixty to eighty pages. Because for us, addressing the potential buyer in the sincerest way possible is one of the key criteria for success .”