Services
M&A Advisory
Touchstone Advisors is a boutique M&A advisory firm serving the lower middle market. Every business represents more than years of dedication, it’s an owner’s legacy. We bring decades of experience and a proven four-step process to every transaction, combining hands-on leadership, senior-level advisor attention, and disciplined execution.
Our mission is clear: We maximize the value of our client’s life’s work.
Main Components of Our Practice
Sell-Side Mergers and Acquisitions
Our merger and acquisition advisors and M&A investment bankers specialize in selling privately held businesses, primarily with revenues between $5 million and $100 million. Our process is designed to be thorough and confidential, and to attract a strong pool of qualified buyers, with the goal of maximizing the value of our client’s life’s work.
- Competitive sell-side process resulting in multiple competing offers
- Exclusive representation for sellers and buyers
- Multi-industry experience
- 500+ completed transactions
Creating Markets
Creating a Competitive Marketplace
THE CONTROLLED AUCTION
Placing strategic and synergistic buyers in competition with one another produces a better price and better terms for the seller. Our sealed-bid process gives buyers only one chance to submit their highest offer, which puts pressure on them to come in strong rather than negotiate down over time.
How We Run a Competive Process
Identify the strategic opportunities available to buyers in the market.
Market the business without a price to strategic and synergistic acquirers, private equity groups, family offices, individuals and others.
Identify acquirers that would benefit from those opportunities.
Place acquirers in competition with one another to maximize the value of our client's life's work, both in price and in terms.
Exit Planning
Exit Advantage℠ is a proprietary 10-step program developed by Touchstone Advisors for business owners planning to exit in the next two to five years. It prepares the business for a future sale, with the goal of maximizing value at the time of transaction.
- Owner Readiness Review
- Company Readiness Review
- Business and Financial Assessment
- Recast Financials
- Range of Values
- Tax Optimization
- Acquirer Risk Assessment
- Transition Options
- Value Enhancement Recommendations
- Bi-annual Performance Review
Buy-Side Services
Touchstone’s buy-side services help identify acquisition targets in the lower middle market that match a buyer’s strategy and criteria.
Our process delivers:
- Preemptive “off market” deals
- Focused efforts leading to private one-on-one negotiations
- Multiple choices for investment
- Strategy-driven deals that add value on multiple levels
- Proven multi-step process that develops screening criteria to identify, select, and negotiate the best deal possible.
Estimate of Value
Estimate of Value
Touchstone’s Estimate of Value (EOV) gives owners a realistic understanding of what their company is worth in today’s market. Evaluating a company’s financials and market position takes both analysis and judgment, and our EOV reflects both.
With more than 20 years’ experience in mergers and acquisitions, we apply time-tested EOV procedures to provide accurate, timely, and realistic information for well-informed business decisions.
Purposes and Uses
Our Estimate of Value evaluates your company’s position in the market and establishes a realistic baseline for what your business is worth, whether sold internally or to a third-party acquirer. This information supports strategic planning for the future of your company.
Our EOV process uncovers data crucial for:
- Evaluating exit options available to business owners
- Establishing a baseline value when buying or selling a business
- Transitioning internally to the next generation from current management
- Benchmarking and strategic financial planning
EOV Process
Step 1: Comparing Industry Business Sale Data
Our EOV process begins with multiple databases that detail company valuations and prices based on actual transactions in the private sector. The financial metrics we focus on include sales, gross profit, and adjusted cash flow-based earnings (EBIT and EBITDA).
Step 2: Internal Financial Model Used to Assess Market Value
Our internally developed financial model utilizes a private company specific cost of capital approach to help determine earnings multiples and, thus, value ranges. In addition to this financial analysis, we use sales data from the current market to help assess the fair market value of a business.
Step 3: Normalizing Adjustments
By utilizing financial statements previously prepared for tax reporting purposes, we adjust the evaluation to more accurately represent the value of a business to a third-party buyer. These adjustments are crucial to presenting a fair and complete view of the company on the market from an unbiased perspective.
Step 4: The End Result
The result of Touchstone’s EOV is a comprehensive report including every component we used to evaluate and arrive at our market-based recommendation. When working with larger companies, we often reach out to Private Equity Groups to request their opinion about the value of your company. These active financial buyers provide a range they would expect to pay for a business of your size, sector, and level of revenue and EBITDA, that we can incorporate into our report.
Investment Banking Services
Investment Banking Services
Touchstone Advisors provides investment banking services through Four Points Capital Partners, LLC, an independent broker-dealer. Touchstone provides personalized services with a focus on integrity and ethical conduct. Our investment banking team is highly skilled and, along with Four Points Capital, collectively touts over 100 years of banking experience resulting in billions of dollars in transactions. We partner with you to achieve your financial goals.
Equity Capital Advisory
Touchstone Advisors provides capital raise services and focuses on filling the gap for growth-oriented, emerging enterprises ranging from early-stage ventures to more mature, middle market companies. We work closely with individuals to secure equity capital to fund growth initiatives, recapitalize the balance sheet, provide a level of shareholder liquidity, finance M&A transactions, and support management buyouts.
Touchstone Advisors provides the following services:
- Convertible equity
- Preferred equity
- Venture capital
- Majority equity
- Minority equity
- Mezzanine debt
- Venture debt
Debt Capital Advisory
Touchstone Advisors advises both privately owned and sponsored companies to secure debt capital or leverage finance for organic growth, acquisitions, dividend recapitalizations, and refinancings. We work with each individual, optimizing debt structures and securing the best long-term partners for our clients.
Touchstone Advisors provides the following services:
- First-lien/senior secured loans
- Second-/split-lien facilities
- Mezzanine debt
- Unitranche facilities
- Asset-based loans (ABLs)
- Bridge and stapled financings
- Structured equity capital.
Four Points Capital
Four Points Capital Partners, LLC, is an independent broker-dealer whose mission is to provide financial services for individuals. Four Points Capital offers services including investment banking, asset accumulation, estate planning, sports advisory, institutional trading, wealth management, and more.
We partner with Four Points Capital because of our shared commitment to providing personalized financial services to our clients.