CreditReport.com Case Study
“I still can’t believe we received the price we did. I would have been happy with $150mm-$175mm, but $220mm was beyond my wildest dreams.”
~Sheldon Kasower
Ascend sold Mighty Net (parent of Credit Report.com) a credit monitoring, ecommerce, and financial services company based in Calabasas, Ca. to Experian for over $220 million. The company originally signed with a large investment banking firm. The top offer they received was $125 million. The owner was not satisfied and ended up engaging Ascend. Because of certain governmental regulation changes and strategic needs Ascend identified Experian as a top prospect. Originally, our client did not believe they were a good fit. We conveyed our reasons for wanting to reach out and eventually they allowed us to do so.
We worked with our client to create a business plan and the projections, along with increasing the EBITDA from $10 million to $18 million by identifying a significant number of unique and previously unidentified add-backs. These add-backs withstood the scrutiny of Ernst & Young, a Big Four accounting firm retained by the buyer. Included in the sales price was a $13.5 million working capital deficit assumed by Experian that Ascend negotiated. We knew it could be an issue later in the process, therefore, we worked with the seller’s legal counsel to ensure it was bulletproof in the LOI. Experian did challenge it, but Asend’s LOI language prevailed.
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