Learning Experience India 1 - 1

Dear all

Some of you wanted to know how I carried out my M & A work and business development in India.

So I thought in the course of next two months, I will conduct a virtual platform for you to follow me on my next projects in India

M & A is a specialise work, basically looking for businesses who want to sell and businesses who want to buy. For this experiment we will focus on India.

Planning Stage

Prior to going to any country, I will do the groundwork and check out businesses who are interested in India. This business can be from any countries outside India.

In this exercise for India, I have started with four potential projects and one in closing stage of negotiation (this will be the one that will pay for the expenses of this trip).

Project 1 is a food catering company based in Singapore with operation in China, Thailand and Dubai. Their customers are corporate function, contract catering (for school and business offices) and food court. They also own a restaurant chain. They are interested in finding a caterer / restaurant chain (listed in stock exchange or otherwise) who are keen to find oversea partners to help them to grow their business.

Project 2 is a Japanese company who supply connector parts for pre fabrication construction. I will be looking for precaster and distributors who are currently supplying to the prefabrication construction industry. Contractor and developer who are looking to diversify into supply will also be considered

Project 3 is a listed Singapore printer and publisher who owns a chain of bookstores in this region. They are looking to set up business in India through acquisition. My task is to find them the possible candidates.

Project 4 is an Indian company who wants to set up business in China and my task is to finalise on the mandate for this project. I need to know the scope and can they afford to pay my fees.

Project 5 is an engineering hardware company supplying bolts, nuts and bearings. This project is in the final stage of company formation and setting up the sales team to market the company's product. This is to prepare the business plan for the new startup.

My next task is to plan out the itinerary. I normally try to cover as many cities as possible in the shortest time. (Unfortunately I don't always get to do much sightseeing)

For this trip I plan to be in
- Delhi from 3rd to 6th Dec
- Goa from 6th to 7th Dec (to see a hotel chain)
- Mumbai from 7th to 9th.

On all my trips I will also try to meet potential client and also my reqular clientele, so that they know that you are still in business. Very important.

M&A

I always look at M & A as like going shopping. You must first of all know what you want to buy and how much is your budget. The starting to look for project is always the hardest and when I first started I get a lot of enquiries and not all can turn out successful. The success rate was for 15 - 20 enquiries maybe one will be successful enough to cover your cost. Nowaday my success rate is better. With six enquiries I will get the commission from one of them. What I do differently is that I am more selective in attending to enquiries. By the way the six enquiries or projects that I follow up can be over two to three years. In some of the project, I get to do the business development work that follows the acquisition. This help with the expenses.

Rules

In this learning experiment, I will allow you to ask questions so as you understand the technicality of M & A and business development work; and I will try to answer them as frankly as possible. To me this is real time learning and I hope you will benefit from this experiment.

I have set a time frame for this learning from now to end December as I progress to India and back.

I will update you on the various happening in the build up to the trip and also the follow up on my retrun.

Some of you may find this learning quite unique...... is it not what entrepreneurship is all about :)

Regards

Seng Choon