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CORPORATE ADVISORY

CORPORATE FINANCIAL ADVISORY: Many middle market companies lack experience in the corporate finance tools used extensively by Chief Financial Officers of larger companies.  Bentley’s professionals can help management and owners by analyzing their company’s current financial status and help prepare for the future.  Advice can be provided, on a timely and cost effective basis, on a wide variety of issues facing a Chief Financial Officer, such as:

  • The appropriate mix of equity and debt.
  • Balance sheet restructuring to increase profitability and to permit flexibility which can enable the company to take quick advantage of situations as they arise.
  • The recapitalization of both healthy and distressed companies, and the strategy to best accomplish these goals.
  • Preparing a company for a public offering and guiding a company through the public offering process.
  • Taking a company private in a management buy-out or related strategy.

CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES: Similarly, most middle market companies do not have their own, full-time Corporate Development departments as in many larger corporations.  Corporate Development is a critical function for companies seeking external growth through mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Acquisitions often provide the fastest and most efficient means for companies to enter new products and markets, expand geographically (domestically and internationally), obtain new technologies, capture new customers, and achieve economies of scale.  Divestitures allow companies to raise needed growth capital through the sale of businesses that no longer fit with their longer-term strategic direction.

Bentley provides expert Corporate Development services to companies, usually at a fraction of the cost of employing their own Corporate Development departments.  Large corporations use our Corporate Development services to supplement their own professionals in periods of higher than average acquisition “deal flow” or when their planned divestitures are too small or specialized to capture the interest level of  the larger investment banks. CEO’s and CFO’s of small to mid-sized firms also retain Bentley as their expert Corporate Development advisors on important acquisition, divestiture and strategic alliance transactions.

Although most Bentley professionals are experts in M&A, some Managing Directors have even served as senior officers in charge of Corporate Development for some of the leading corporations in the U.S. and abroad. This direct experience makes Bentley uniquely qualified as a Corporate Development services provider.

EXPERT WITNESS, LITIGATION SUPPORT: Bentley’s senior professionals are experienced in providing expert testimony in a variety of investment banking issues in litigation or arbitration.  Our Managing Directors have been hired by some of the largest law firms in the country, as well as small boutique law firms.

VALUATIONS: Although Bentley performs a valuation as part of every one of its M&A and financing assignments, Bentley also does valuation work on a stand-alone basis resulting in a more formal report.  Most all of the business valuation assignments undertaken by Bentley are based upon a “going concern” assumption.  Bentley does, however, value financial assets, including both marketable and illiquid investments.  Although the firm does not provide formal “fairness letters,” below is a list of some of the different purposes for a valuation assignment:

  • Gift, Estate and Inheritance Taxes, and Estate Planning
  • Buy-Sell Agreements
  • Marital, Partnership and Corporate Dissolutions
  • Bankruptcy Reorganizations
  • Litigation or Arbitration