Stout advised both the Buyer and Seller through the successful execution of a complex business combination and supported post-close integration during the first 100 days.

The Buyer, a private equity-backed, highly acquisitive company pursuing inorganic growth through M&A, engaged us based on our integration expertise, established relationship with the Buyer, and ability to provide continuity from diligence through integration to support an accelerated transaction timeline. Given the importance of acquisitions to its growth strategy, the Buyer also viewed the transaction as an opportunity to gain practical exposure to our integration approach as it continued to develop a more repeatable internal integration model.

Client Challenge

The acquired company was founder-owned, and its management team was transitioning into a larger corporate environment with new systems, reporting requirements, governance expectations, and integration processes. The transaction also created incremental demands on the acquired company’s finance team at a time when the organization needed to prepare for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system migration and cutover.

In addition to recurring accounting responsibilities, the team needed to address the closing balance sheet, month-end close activities, financial reporting requirements, data migration, and broader integration priorities within a condensed timeframe. The Buyer also sought greater visibility into the acquired company’s finance and accounting processes to inform the development of a future-state operating model for the combined company and define how those processes would transition into the broader operating environment following the ERP cutover.

Stout Approach

At the onset of the engagement, we performed a current-state assessment of the acquired company’s core finance and accounting processes, including order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, and record-to-report. The assessment evaluated existing workflows, roles and responsibilities, accounting procedures, and dependencies on existing personnel and practices. This gave the Buyer an early understanding of how the acquired finance function operated and established a baseline for integration planning.

The assessment found that the finance function maintained reasonably sound books and records despite operating on a tax basis of accounting, with opportunities to strengthen processes and reporting to meet the requirements of the combined company. We therefore focused on targeted improvements and the specific integration requirements needed to transition the business into the Buyer’s operating environment. This included identifying process differences, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and determining how existing processes would need to adapt to the Buyer’s systems and reporting requirements following the ERP cutover.

From day one, we supported data migration activities in preparation for the ERP transition. Customer, vendor, and item master data resided across multiple source systems, requiring us to consolidate, cleanse, reconcile, and validate information to develop complete and accurate migration-ready datasets. This effort required close coordination across finance, operations, IT, and other functional stakeholders to resolve data gaps and inconsistencies and confirm business requirements.

We worked closely with the Buyer, Seller, acquired company’s management team, and integration management office (IMO) throughout the transaction and post-close period. In addition to preparing and validating the closing balance sheet and supporting month-end close procedures, we coordinated finance integration and data readiness activities with the broader ERP migration and cutover plan.

Following the cutover, the acquired company’s finance and accounting processes transitioned into the Buyer’s operating environment. We remained closely involved through the first 100 days, helping the acquired management team adapt to new systems, processes, reporting expectations, and governance requirements while maintaining continuity across recurring finance activities.

Throughout the engagement, we also worked alongside the Buyer’s integration team, providing practical exposure to integration planning, workstream coordination, issue management, stakeholder communication, and execution. This gave the Buyer a reference point for refining its own integration practices as it continued to pursue inorganic growth through an active M&A strategy.

Value Delivered

We helped the Buyer maintain momentum through a compressed integration timeline and complete the transition of the acquired business to the new ERP environment within the required timeframe.

By establishing an early understanding of the acquired company’s finance processes and integration requirements, preparing complete and accurate migration-ready data, and coordinating closely with the IMO and functional stakeholders, we helped address critical dependencies ahead of the cutover and reduce execution risk during the transition.

The engagement also provided the founder-owned management team with hands-on support as it adapted to a larger operating environment and gave the Buyer’s integration team practical experience it could apply across future transactions as the company continued to pursue inorganic growth through M&A.