Most mergers and acquisitions financial specialists didn't plan to end up in such a specialized career. That was the case for Guy Belanger, a mergers and acquisitions financial specialist. "Basically, my consulting business led me to this," he says. "I was giving my clients advice on how to do business, then they started asking me to sell their businesses."
With that little twist of fate, Belanger ended up in a business that was not at all what he started out doing. "I had no educational degrees in mergers and acquisitions or finance," he says. "And it has been my experience that you don't need one. You need to be a salesman in this business, but education does help.
"Basically, I'm a marketing person who discovered that I loved marketing late in life," he continues. "I've sold products and projects and ideas, but it was never as much fun as selling the whole thing wrapped in one package. Now, I sell the history and the projections and the everything else, too."
Belanger loves selling, but it's not an easy job. "This is a very high-risk, very frustrating business," he says.
"A lot of people don't have the integrity it takes to make it in this business. And integrity is something that takes a long time to learn. So I think the older you are, the better you will be at this business. Knowing about life is a big component to being successful."
Of course, business knowledge is a big component, too. "I think for anyone who wants to go into mergers and acquisitions, one of the keys is to learn the natural aspects of how to evaluate a company."
It's tricky, he says. There are many aspects, like employees and intellectual capital, that are hard to quantify.
"It also helps to specialize in an area," he says. "In one specific area of business, like medical or technology, you know the ins and outs and have a better idea of what is more valuable at any given time. Specializing in a geographic area helps, too. It's very hard to travel and work a deal at the same time."
In all, it's a business that Belanger enjoys. It keeps him guessing. "There are some deals that you work for one or two years to close, and it just doesn't sell. Then there are others," he says.
"Like one deal I did where I brought in a partner. I did very little work, and he sold it very quickly. It's always a guessing game about what is going to work."
Jean Hutcheson likes the guessing game too. "One of the aspects that drew me to mergers and acquisitions," she says, "was the unpredictable nature. I like working at something and then seeing it come to fruition, especially when it works out for everyone involved."
She adds, however, that she could live without the stress of the unpredictability.
Hutcheson started her career as an accountant. "I like numbers. And when a client asked me to help them sell their business, it was easy for me to say yes, because it was a deal based mostly on numbers."
But she's done a lot of mergers and acquisitions since then, and not all of them are as financially centered.
"There is a synergy about a business that is hard to quantify. And that's one of the toughest aspects of buying or selling any business. Especially now with the move toward technology, it can be difficult to valuate a company. Sometimes, it's a very slow process," she says.
"You have to look at all of the documentation for a company, whether you're helping to buy or sell it," she says. "And you have to make a judgment about how much that company is worth. Then you have to negotiate that worth. It's complicated, and details matter."
While getting to the deal might be a slow process, it speeds up as you get nearer the end of the deal. "One thing I like, as a deal progresses, it accelerates. It's like a snowball effect. The farther into you get, the faster it moves. Then sometimes, when a deal falls through, you feel almost like you've been let down.
"I guess that's why I couldn't work in a larger market. The mergers and acquisitions I have a hand in are smaller....I think to work in a larger market with multimillion-dollar deals would be more than I am willing to attempt," she says. "This is comfortable for me."
There are some things she would change if she could. "This is a confrontational business. And there is the opportunity to make a lot of money. But if I could work without the confrontation, I would. It's stressful, and I'm always looking for ways to ease that stress.
"I'm more driven by making the deal," she says. "To see a buyer or seller come away from a merger or acquisition happy and feeling that they have reached their goal is what keeps me going."