My partner Heidi pointed out that the analogy (or is it a metaphor – I can never remember – another one of my brain quirks) that I used in my Letter of Intent: Structure – Asset vs. Stock post could have been better. An asset (or “artichoke” deal) is actually like eating the artichoke heart and leaving the leaves untouched since the heart is the good part and the leaves have thorns.
While price is usually first issue on every seller’s mind, structure should be second. While there only two types of deals (asset deal vs. stock deal), there are numerous structural issues surrounding each deal. Rather than trying to address all the different issues, Jason and I decided to start by discussing the basics of an asset deal and a stock deal.
In general, all sellers want to do stock deals and all buyers want to do asset deals. Just to increase the confusion level, a stock deal can be done for cash and an asset deal can be done for stock – don’t confuse the type of deal with the actual consideration received (if you start getting confused, simply think of an asset deal as a “artichoke deal” and a stock deal as a “strawberry deal.”)
Sarcastic venture capitalists on the seller side will refer to an artichoke deal as a situation “when buying a company is not really buying a company” (kind of like eating the artichoke leaves but leaving the artichoke heart untouched.) Buyers will request this structure, with the idea that they will only buy the particular assets that they want out of a company, leave certain liabilities (read: “warts”) behind, and live happily ever after. If you engage lawyers and accountants in this discussion, they’ll ramble on about something regarding taxes, accounting, and liabilities, but our experience is that most of time the acquirer is just looking to buy the crown jewels, explicitly limit their liabilities, and craft a simpler deal for themselves at the expense of the seller. We notice that asset deals are more popular in shaky economic times, as acquirers are trying to avoid creditor issues and successor liability. One saw very few asset deals (in proportion) in the late 1990’s, but in early 2000 artichokes became much more popular and there is still a significant hang over today.
While asset deals are “ok” for a seller, the fundamental problem for the seller is that the “company” hasn’t actually been sold! The assets have left the company (and are now owned by the buyer), but there is still a shell corporation with contracts, liabilities, potentially employees, and tax forms to file. Even if the company is relatively clean from a corporate hygiene perspective, it may take several years (depending on tax, capital structure and jurisdictional concerns) to wind down the company. During this time, the officers and directors of the company are still on the hook and the company presumably has few assets to operate the business (since they were sold to the buyer).
In the case of a strawberry deal, the acquirer is buying the entire company. Once the acquisition is closed, the seller’s company disappears into the corporate structure of the buyer and there is nothing left (except possibly some t-shirts that found their way into the hands of spouses and the company sign that used to be on the door (oops – did I say that?) just before the deal closed.) There is nothing to wind down and the historical company is well – history.
So is an asset deal “bad” or is it just a “hassle”? It depends. It can be really bad if the seller has multiple subsidiaries, numerous contracts, employees with severance commitments, disgruntled shareholders, or is close to insolvent. In this case, the officers and directors may be taking on fraudulent conveyance liability by consummating an asset deal. It’s merely a hassle if the company is in relatively good shape, is very small, or has few shareholders to consider. Of course, if any of these things are true, then the obvious rhetorical question is “why doesn’t the acquirer just buy the whole company via a stock deal?”
In our experience, we see stock deals the vast majority of the time. Often the first draft of the LOI is an asset deal, but as sellers that is the first point we raise and we are generally successful ending up with strawberries except in extreme circumstances whereby the company is in dire straits. Many buyers go down a path to discuss all the protection they get from an asset deal – this is generally nonsense as a stock deal can be configured to provide functionally equivalent protection for the buyer with a lot less hassle for the seller. In addition, asset deals are no longer the protection they used to be with regards to successor liability in a transaction – courts are much more eager to find that a company who purchase substantial assets of another company to be a “successor in interest” with respect to liabilities of the seller.
The structure of the deal is also tied closely to the tax issues surrounding a deal and – once you start trying to optimize for structure and tax – you end up defining the type of consideration (stock or cash) the seller can receive. It can get complicated very quickly and pretty soon you can feel like you are climbing up a staircase in an Escher drawing (or running the Manhattan part of the New York Marathon – each time you turn you expect to get to go downhill and see the end, but instead you continue to wind uphill forever – even when you’ve turned 180 degrees and are running the other direction.) We’ll dig into tax and consideration is other posts – just realize that they are all linked together and usually ultimately impact price which is – after all – what the seller usually cares most about.
Jason and I have engaged in a little foreplay with you in our Letter of Intent series. While you might think the length of time that has passed since my last post is excessive, it’s often the length of time that passes between the first overture and an actual LOI (although there are plenty of situations where the buyer and the seller hook up after 24 hours, just like in real life.)
As with other “transactions”, there’s a time to get hot and heavy. In most deals, there are two primary thing that the buyer should have on his mind – price and structure. Since the first question anyone involved in a deal typically asks is “what is the price?” we’ll start there.
Unlike in a venture financing where price is usually pretty straightforward to understand, figuring out what the “price” is in a merger situation can be more difficult. While there is usually some number floated in early discussions (e.g. “$150 million”), this isn’t really the actual price since there are a lot of factors that can (and generally will) effect the final price of a deal by the time the negotiations are finished and the deal is closed. It’s usually a safe bet to assume that the “easy to read number” on the first page of the LOI is the best case scenario purchase price. Following is an example of what you might see in a typical LOI.
Purchase Price / Consideration: $100 million of cash will be paid at closing; $15 million of which will be subject to the terms of the escrow provisions described in paragraph 3 of this Letter of Intent. Working capital of at least $1 million shall be delivered at closing. $40 million of cash will be subject to an earnout and $10 million of cash will be part of a management retention pool. Buyer will not assume outstanding options to purchase Company Common Stock, and any options to purchase shares of Company Common Stock not exercised prior to the Closing will be terminated as of the Closing. Warrants to purchase shares of Company capital stock not exercised prior to the Closing will be terminated as of the Closing.
Hmm – I thought this was a $150 million dollar deal? What does the $15 million escrow mean? The escrow (also known as a “holdback”) is money that the buyer is going to hang on to for some period of time to satisfy any “issues” that come up post financing that are not disclosed in the purchase agreement. In some LOIs we’ve seen extensive details, in so much as each provision of the escrow is spelled out, including the percentage of the holdback(s), length of time, and carve outs to the indemnity agreement. In other cases, there is mention that “standard escrow and indemnity terms shall apply.” We’ll discuss specific escrow language later (e.g. you’ll have to wait until “paragraph 3”), but it’s safe to say two things: first, there is no such thing as “standard” language and second, whatever the escrow arrangement is, it will decrease the actual purchase price should any claim be brought under it. So clearly the amount and terms of the escrow / indemnity provisions are very important.
Well – that working capital thing shouldn’t be a big deal, should it? True – but it’s $1 million. Many young companies – while operating businesses – end up with negative working capital at closing (working capital is current assets minus current liabilities) due to debt, deferred revenue, warranty reserves, inventory carry costs, and expenses and fees associated with the deal. As a result, these working capital adjustments directly decrease the purchase price in the event upon closing (or other pre-determined date after the closing) that the seller’s working capital is less than an agreed upon amount. Assume that unless it is a “slam dunk” situation where the company has clearly complied with this requirement, the determination will be a battle that can have a real impact on the purchase price. In some cases, this can act in the seller’s favor to increase the value of the deal if they have more working capital on the balance sheet than the buyer requires – often the seller has to jump through some hoops to make this happen.
While earn outs sound like a mechanism to increase price, in our experience, they really are tool that allows the acquirer to under pay at time of closing and only pay “true” value if certain hurdles are met in the future. In our example, the acquirer suggested that they were willing to pay $150 million, but they are only really paying $100 million with $40 million of the deal subject to an earnout. We’ll cover earnouts separately, as there are a lot of permutations, especially if the seller is receiving stock (instead of cash) as their consideration
In our example, the buyer has explicitly carved out $10 million for a management retention pool. This has become very common as buyers wants to make sure that management has a clear and direct future financial incentive. In this case, it’s explicitly built into the purchase price (e.g. $150 million) – we’ve found that buyers tend to be split between building it in and putting it on top of the purchase price. In either case, it is effectively part of the deal consideration, but is at risk since it’ll typically be paid out over several years to the members of management that continue their role at the acquirer – if someone leaves, that portion of the management retention tends to vanish into the same place lost socks in the dryer go.
Finally, there’s a bunch of words in our example about the buyer not assuming stock options and warrants. We’ll explain this in more detail later, but, like the working capital clause, can affect the overall value of the deal based on what people are expecting to receive.
As Jason and I launch into our new series on the Letter of Intent (LOI), we thought we’d start out like most LOI’s do – with a little foreplay. To keep it simple, assume there are two primary parties in an M&A transaction – the “buyer” and the “seller” (for the time being, let’s not worry about complex deals that have more than two parties – this is a family blog after all – well, not really.)
By the time the buyer presents the seller with an LOI, there have been meetings, discussions, dinners, expensive bottles of wine, lots of conference calls, and an occasional argument. However, the buyer and the seller are still courting so they tend to be on their best behavior. The LOI is typically the first real negotiation and the true ice breaker for the relationship.
In ancient times, when the first LOI was presented, someone crafted an introductory paragraph that starts off with something like the following:
Dear CEO of Seller:
We have greatly enjoyed our conversations to date and are honored to present you with this letter of intent to acquire <Seller’s Company>. We look forward to entering into serious discussions over the next several months and reaching an agreement to acquire your company. We’d like to thank you for entertaining our proposal, which follows:
While every company has their own style, most LOIs start off with some variation of this boilerplate paragraph. Of course, you’ll find – later in the LOI – a qualifier that states that most everything in the LOI is non-binding, including the appearance of civility as part of the negotiation. What would you expect in a world where ABC can launch a series called “Commander in The West Wing Chief”?
Next up – some real stuff – namely a discussion about one of the keys terms in the LOI – price.
Coming off the high of a manic Monday in the tech business, Jason and I have decided to follow our Term Sheet series with a new series scintillatingly called “Letter of Intent.” Deals like eBay / Skype (wow – what a deal – congrats to DFJ, Bessemer, Index, and especially the Skype guys) have to start somewhere, and often the first real “document” that gets negotiated after the foreplay turns serious is the infamous “letter of intent.”
Now – our friend Jack Bauer doesn’t bother with these – he rarely has time to call the lawyers or review documents. However, most deals – especially those involving private companies – involve a letter of intent. This sometimes delightful and usually non-binding document (except for things like a no shop agreement) is also known as an LOI, indication of interest (IOI), memorandum of understanding (MOU), and even occassionally a term sheet.
As with the Term Sheet, there are some terms that matter a lot and others that don’t. There are plenty of mystery words that an experienced deal maker always knows how and where to sprinkle so that he can later say “but “X” implies “Y”, often resulting in much arguing between lawyers. We’ve had LOIs get done in a couple of hours and had others stretch into periods of several weeks – experience, knowledge, and understanding matter and the LOI negotiation is usually a first taste of the actually negotiating style you will experience from the other party.
We look forward to walking you through this and hopefully concluding before Jack comes back.
Jason and I hope you enjoyed reading our term sheet series at least as much as we enjoyed writing it. While we won’t be competing with our friend Jack Bauer for any drama awards (I tried to make it 24 posts, but could only get to 20), we’ve tried to take a balanced and pragmatic approach to explaining the mysterious “VC term sheet.” Remember – we’re not lawyers (ok – Jason is) and this isn’t legal advice so you should not rely on it for anything, yada yada standard disclaimers follow. In other words, use at your own risk.
For ease of reference, following are the various sections (linked to their corresponding post) that we covered.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for things we missed, email me anytime. We have had numerous requests for republishing this content – if you are interested, please contact me. We’re usually happy to oblige – we just want to make sure we know about it. Until next season …
We’re down to our last two sections on a typical VC term sheet. Since they are both things that most entrepreneurs simply live with as part of a financing, we decided to combine them into one post.
The first clause is indemnification and usually looks as follows:
“Indemnification: The bylaws and / or other charter documents of the Company shall limit board member’s liability and exposure to damages to the broadest extent permitted by applicable law. The Company will indemnify board members and will indemnify each Investor for any claims brought against the Investors by any third party (including any other shareholder of the Company) as a result of this financing.”
Given all the shareholder litigation in recent years, there is almost no chance that a company will get funded without indemnifying its directors. The first sentence is simply a contractual obligation between the company and its board. The second sentence – which is occasionally negotiable – indicates the desire for the company to purchase formal liability insurance. One can usually negotiate away insurance in a Series A deal, but for any follow-on financing, the major practice today is to procure director and officer (D&O) insurance.
The next clause – assignment – looks as follows:
“Assignment: Each of the Investors shall be entitled to transfer all or part of its shares of Series A Preferred purchased by it to one or more affiliated partnerships or funds managed by it or any or their respective directors, officers or partners, provided such transferee agrees in writing to be subject to the terms of the Stock Purchase Agreement and related agreements as if it were a purchaser thereunder.”
The assignment provision allows venture funds to transfer between funds and make distributions to their limited partners (their investors). This is something companies must normally live with and is a term that is rarely availed upon by investors.
Neither of these terms should be controversial. The company should be willing to indemnify its directors and will likely need to purchase D&O insurance in order to attract outside board members. The assignment clause simply gives VC firms flexibility over transfers which they require to be able to run their business and – as long as the VC is willing to require that any transferee agrees to be subject to the various financing agreements – the company should be willing to provide for this (although entrepreneurs should be careful not to let the loophole of “assignment without transfer of the obligation under the agreements” occur.)
Earlier this week I did a brief post on the “no shop agreement” that is a common feature in a term sheet. I compared signing a no shop to the construct of serial monogamy in a relationship. I had a couple of comments (one that was intellectual, one that was a little harsher and painted VCs as “duplicitous.”) I was mulling over my obviously (in hindsight to me) asymmetric view when Tom Evslin very clearly and coherently articulated why my analogy was really unilateral monogamy (e.g. the VC isn’t signing up for serial monogamy – only the entrepreneur is.)
Tom – and the comments I received – are correct (although I don’t agree with the generalization that “VCs are duplicitous.”) After reading Tom’s post, I thought about my own behavior (at least my perception of my own behavior) vs. the general case and realized I’ve mixed the two up. I’ve been on the giving and receiving side of unilateral no shops many times and – when on the receiving side – have usually been sensitive to why the other party wouldn’t sign a reciprocal no shop. In most cases, I simply don’t put a lot of weight behind the no shop due to the ability to bind it with time (30 – 45 days), plus whenever I’m on the receiving end, I’ve done my best to test commitment before signing up to do the deal.
In addition to Tom’s post, Rick Segal wrote up his thoughts in a post titled “The Handshake Clause” where he makes the point that his firm doesn’t sign a term sheet until they are committed to doing a deal. His explanation of how he approaches this is useful, but it is important to acknowledge that there is a wide range of behavior among VCs – the group that doesn’t put a term sheet down until they are committed are at one end of the spectrum; the group that puts down a term sheet to try to lock up a deal while they think about whether or not they want to do it is at the other. I’d like to think that we are at the “good” end of this spectrum (e.g. we won’t issue a term sheet unless we are ready to do a deal.) Obviously, your mileage will vary with the VCs you are dealing with – hence the value of doing your own due diligence on your potential future partners.
As I mulled this over, I came up with a couple of examples in the past 10 years where the no shop had any meaningful impact on a deal in which I was involved. I could come up with an edge case for each situation, but this was a small number vs. the number of deals I’ve been involved in. In addition, when I thought about the situations where I was a VC and was negatively impacted by not having a no shop (e.g. a company we had agreed with on a term sheet went and did something else) or where I was on the receiving end of a no shop and was negatively impacted by it (e.g. an acquirer tied me up but then ultimately didn’t close on the deal), I actually didn’t feel particularly bad about either of the situations since there was both logic associated with the outcome and grace exhibited by the participants. Following are two examples:
As I said earlier, these are edge cases – in almost all of my experiences the no shop ended up being irrelevant. But – as both of these example show – the quality and the character of the people involved made all the difference. Near the end of his post, Tom makes the point that it’s “good negotiating advice to make sure that every clause which can be mutual is mutual.” I completely agree.
As an entrepreneur, the way to get the best deal for a round of financing is to have multiple options. If you’ve been a studious reader of our term sheet series, you are painfully aware that there are many other terms – beside price – that help define what “the best deal” actually is. However, there comes a point in time where you have to choose your investor and shift from “search for an investor” mode to “close the deal” mode. Part of this involves choosing your lead investor and negotiating the final term sheet with him.
A “no shop agreement” is almost always part of this final term sheet. Think of it as serial monogamy – your new investor to be doesn’t want you running around behind his back just as you are about to get hitched. A typical no shop agreement is as follows:
“No Shop Agreement: The Company agrees to work in good faith expeditiously towards a closing. The Company and the Founders agree that they will not, directly or indirectly, (i) take any action to solicit, initiate, encourage or assist the submission of any proposal, negotiation or offer from any person or entity other than the Investors relating to the sale or issuance, of any of the capital stock of the Company or the acquisition, sale, lease, license or other disposition of the Company or any material part of the stock or assets of the Company, or (ii) enter into any discussions, negotiations or execute any agreement related to any of the foregoing, and shall notify the Investors promptly of any inquiries by any third parties in regards to the foregoing. Should both parties agree that definitive documents shall not be executed pursuant to this term sheet, then the Company shall have no further obligations under this section.”
At some level the no shop agreement – like serial monogamy – is more of an emotional commitment; it’s very hard to “enforce a no shop agreement” in a financing, but if you get caught cheating, your financing will probably go the same way as the analogous situation when the groom or the bride to be gets caught in a compromising situation.
At some level, the no shop agreement reinforces the handshake that says “ok – let’s get a deal done – no more fooling around looking for a better / different one.” In all cases, the entrepreneur should bound the no shop by a time period – usually 45 to 60 days is plenty (and you can occasionally get a VC to agree to a 30 day no shop.) This makes the commitment bi-directional – you agree not to shop the deal; the VC agrees to get things done within a reasonable time frame.