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Case Study

Entrepreneurship through acquisition: Vanessa Monestel’s search fund

By Benoit F. Leleux, Joseph Kovacs, Kristel Rouiller, Sebastien Braun and Thierry Meouchi

16 pages

November 2024

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Reference: IMD-7-2514

GENEVA (SWITZERLAND), OCTOBER 2023. Vanessa Monestel was ecstatic. a day earlier, she had just signed the letter of intent (LOI) to acquire an Amsterdam-based fashion company. This was the culmination of her 18-month search for a company to acquire, conducted with the support of Novastone Capital Advisors’ (NCA) Entrepreneurship through Acquisition (ETA) program. The signed LOI was not the end of the story but the beginning of the next phases, namely successfully completing the due diligence, putting together the financing package, signing the purchase agreement (DPA ) and hopefully finally running the company as its new CEO. The journey to that point had proved the emotional rollercoaster. The frustration of the “deals that got away” soon passed with the excitement of the next one that came up; nothing tempered her enthusiasm to acquire and run her own company..

Learning Objective

Understand the characteristics of various forms of search funds and other mechanisms to effect an acquisition
How to conduct a professional search for a company to acquire?
Elaborate the profile of the ideal buyout target.
What is the experience of the supported searcher?
Discover the complexities inherent to an acquisition in the luxury sector.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship, Finance, Strategy, Search Fund, Acquisition, Buyout, Small and Medium-sized Enterprise, Mergers and Acquisitions, Private Equity

Settings

Europe
Novastone Capital Advisors, Finance and Insurance, Private Equity
2020-2023

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

Related material

Teaching note, Video

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