In July 2016 we were approached, somewhat unexpectedly, by Avedon Capital Partners. They expressed a very sincere interest in WCC. After several initial conversations we felt great chemistry with the people of Avedon. Their presentation about their vision with WCC won us over to the point that we decided to have exclusive conversations.
As we had worked with Wim Heijting before, he was our first choice to help us through the process. Early on we developed our set of priorities, to guide us in the conversations with Avedon. Our first priority was a shared excitement about the future of WCC, followed by the need for the acquirer to provide a good home for WCC, in particular its staff, customers and partners. The price point only came third. Typical advisors only try to maximise valuation as they are on commission. We felt that Wim for us was the ideal ‘M&A advisor’ candidate as he had not only brokered transactions with Avedon before, but as we had trust in his integrity to honor our priorities.
During the whole process we benchmarked Avedon against our priorities and vice versa. Wim played a crucial role as he not only knows the process and can anticipate on it, but also at times where we as shareholders wanted to bail out he was able to convince Avedon to make a meaningful gesture that won us back in. The result was a well anticipated and friendly process. The transaction was successfully closed on December 14th 2016. The whole process took less than five months.
December 2016 – Peter Went, Co-founder & CEO, Mark Wegman, Co-founder & CTO of WCC Smart Search & Match (www.wcc-group.com)
