A potential acquirer of one of my portfolio companies is proposing an extended (6 week) tech DD period. How do I convince them that this is unreasonable?
I think this is very common for an “elective” BigCo acquisition. 6 weeks seems to be what they always ask for.
And it turns out — they need it.
In both of my acquisitions, I pushed back and got this down to < 4 weeks. They agreed to it.
But they couldn’t get organized enough to end up getting there. They missed the deadlines even with firm, hard schedules.
So push back hard. Tell them you have options. Create some drama here.
But getting 27 meetings scheduled, reviewing them, etc. etc. blah blah in Huge Tech Co. Does. Take. Time.
