M&A Sourcing
Buy-side deal sourcing that helps private equity firms, search funds, and strategic acquirers find, contact, and screen companies that fit their acquisition criteria.
Overview
Most good acquisitions never reach a banker’s auction. They come from finding owners who have not yet decided to sell and starting the conversation early. Pease Bell’s M&A sourcing service helps buyers build that proprietary deal flow. We start with your investment thesis, then identify companies that match your industry, size, geography, and ownership criteria, run outreach to owners, and screen responses so your team spends its time on opportunities worth pursuing.
As a CPA firm, we look at targets the way a diligence team eventually will. Early screening goes beyond a company description to the financial and operational signals that tend to predict whether a deal can close. When a target moves forward, our quality of earnings, tax diligence, and valuation teams can support the next steps under one roof, so the people who sourced the deal understand it when the numbers get tested.
How We Help Buyers Find Deals
Thesis and Criteria Definition
We work with your team to translate an investment thesis into concrete search criteria, including industry codes, revenue and employee ranges, geography, ownership type, and deal-breakers.
Target Identification
We build target lists from industry databases, public records, associations, and web research, then clean and verify them so outreach reaches real companies and the right decision-makers.
Owner Outreach
We run structured outreach campaigns to business owners on your behalf by email, phone, and letter, tracking responses and follow-ups so promising conversations do not stall.
Screening and Qualification
We screen interested targets against your criteria and early financial indicators, summarizing fit, open questions, and red flags before your team commits time to a meeting.
Pipeline Management
We maintain an organized pipeline with status, contact history, and next steps, and provide regular reporting so you can see activity and conversion at each stage.
Add-On Search
For platform companies, we run focused searches for add-on acquisitions that complement existing operations, customer bases, service lines, or geographic coverage, using the same identification, outreach, and screening process.
Sourcing Challenges We Help Solve
- ✓Relying on intermediary-led processes with competitive pricing and limited exclusivity
- ✓Deal teams spending too much time on list-building instead of evaluating companies
- ✓Target lists full of outdated contacts or companies outside the criteria
- ✓Owner conversations that start strong but lose momentum without follow-up
- ✓Little visibility into pipeline activity and conversion over time
Frequently Asked Questions
What is buy-side M&A sourcing?
Buy-side M&A sourcing is the work of finding acquisition targets for a buyer rather than marketing a company for a seller. It typically includes defining search criteria, identifying companies that match, contacting owners to gauge interest, and screening responses. The aim is to generate proprietary or lightly shopped opportunities instead of relying only on deals brought to market by intermediaries.
Who uses outsourced deal sourcing?
Private equity firms, independent sponsors, search funds, family offices, and strategic acquirers all use outsourced sourcing. It is especially useful for lean teams that want more deal flow without hiring full-time business development staff, and for platform companies pursuing add-on acquisitions in specific niches or geographies.
How is proprietary deal flow different from a banker-led process?
In a banker-led process, a seller’s intermediary markets the company to many buyers at once, which usually drives competitive bidding. Proprietary deal flow comes from contacting owners directly before they run a formal process. That can create room for a direct relationship with the owner, though it often requires more patience and more outreach to find owners ready to talk.
Can the firm that sources a deal also perform diligence?
Yes. Pease Bell can support a sourced deal with quality of earnings, tax diligence, and valuation work as it advances. Engagement terms and independence considerations are reviewed for each transaction so that the scope of each service is clear to the buyer and any lenders relying on the work.
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