M&A advisor uses Ideals for its speed and transparent pricing when doing renewable energy deals
Renewables & Energy
Industry
Renewables & Energy
Overview
Marc Alavedra is a Spanish M&A advisor specializing in mid-market cross-border deals. Over the years he has closed around 175 deals, mostly on the sell-side for family-run Spanish firms, but he is increasingly acting on behalf of foreign companies attracted to the growing Spanish renewables market.
Marc has tried a range of data sharing platforms during due diligence and now recommends Ideals to all his M&A clients at Lanfil Partners SLP as it helps accelerate the deal process. “It’s so much more efficient, you can do everything in half the time it used to take,” he explains.
And after bad experiences with other VDR providers, Marc appreciates the clarity and predictability he gets from Ideals subscription plans. “Having transparency on pricing is the key to avoiding nasty surprises!” he says.
The context
Marc began studying economics and law in 1999 at a time when most Spanish companies were still largely family-owned and there was little M&A. Since then there has been rapid development of the country’s investment and PE (private equity) landscape, which required new technologies to help securely manage and accelerate transactions.
Marc first used a VDR around 2010 after a renewables project had fallen through because of a missing document. He recognized that a VDR would provide a secure and auditable way of managing document sharing, which would help avoid the problem occurring again.
He was also increasingly aware of the need to ensure confidentiality during the deal process. “With other free document management tools you sign the SPA (sale and purchase agreement) at the end, but you have no idea which documents have been seen by the various users,” he explains.
Key challenges
Marc’s firm has handled a range of different deals, many of which have been in the energy sector. Spain’s booming renewable energy sector attracts interest from global investors, meaning he typically works on complex cross-border projects.
Marc had also faced problems with a previous VDR provider which relied on a misleading pricing model to mask the true cost of the transaction. This resulted in an unexpected VDR invoice for €90k.
To ensure he avoids these issues on future M&A deals, Marc needed a user-friendly VDR that would provide:
- A clear pricing structure
- A centralized secure document repository
- Tools to track all the documentation
- Different permission levels to control user access
- A Q&A feature to track questions from multiple parties
For solar projects in particular, the team also needed to be sure that all the documentation was accurate and up to date. As Marc explains, “It’s super technical, because in Spain the daily price depends on how energy efficient the mix is, so that’s serious volatility we have to try and factor in.”
“Relying on email or other platforms is time-consuming and means information can get lost. We needed all the most recent documentation in one secure place to properly manage the due diligence process,” he says.
Solution
Marc chose Ideals after being impressed with the simple user interface and clear pricing structure. Using Ideals, his deal teams could:
- Get a clear picture of their VDR costs
- Upload all the documentation from different teams in one place
- Control who could access, download, or edit documents
- Improve efficiency and save time on queries
- Ensure full traceability for their due diligence.
Marc also found the Q&A tool was a more efficient way of dealing with unanswered queries. Rather than having separate email exchanges with each of the four teams, he could see in the data room how many queries were still pending.
“It’s much more efficient and you can reduce the time it takes by up to 50%,” he says.
The future
Marc currently has two Ideals data rooms: one for a €25 million deal involving a private healthcare provider, and the other handling a €7 million transaction for a TV and film production company.
He has a mandate to acquire more renewable projects, especially those that are already in operation or ready to build. He will continue using Ideals because his clients consistently give great feedback. “We asked all the teams and everybody is really happy with your platform,” he says.
After his unhappy billing experience with a different provider, Marc is clear that the main attraction for him is the transparent pricing: “You have a range of subscription plans with tariffs related to the volume of data storage required, and that’s absolutely what I need to know.”
And faced with a choice of providers he will always recommend Ideals, “Because I’m your number one fan!”
