Excel in M&A Transaction Advisory Services / Deal Advisory
Navigating the intricate world of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) requires a unique blend of financial acumen, strategic insight, and precise execution. At the heart of these high-stakes transactions lies a critical tool that has stood the test of time—Microsoft Excel. In the realm of M&A Transaction Advisory Services, Excel’s unmatched versatility and familiarity make it an indispensable asset.
This article delves into why Excel continues to reign supreme in deal advisory and how mastering this powerful tool can give you a competitive edge in the fast-paced world of financial consulting.
Work Faster with Accelerate Excel
Streamline your Excel work with the Accelerate ribbon comprising tools for M&A Transaction/Deal Advisory, FDD and other Excel power users.
What is M&A Transaction Advisory Services / Deal Advisory?
Deal Advisory, Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) or M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions) consulting refers to services provided by financial consultants, investment banks, and accounting firms to assist companies with various aspects of mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, restructuring, and other major transactions. These services typically include:
Financial Due Diligence (FDD): Evaluating the financial health of a target company as well as adjustments to the purchase price of a target company.
Tax, Commercial, Operational and Legal Due Diligence: Identifying potential risks and opportunities across various aspects of the target company.
Valuation: Determining the fair value of a company or assets involved in the transaction.
M&A Advisory: Guiding clients through the merger or acquisition process, from strategy development to deal execution.
Financial Modeling: Creating financial models to project future performance and assess the impact of the transaction.
Integration Support: Helping companies integrate acquired businesses or assets post-transaction.
Restructuring Services: Assisting companies in financial distress with debt restructuring, turnaround strategies, and bankruptcy proceedings.
Why Excel is King and Will Remain So for Some Time
Despite the rapid advancement of new technologies like AI and specialized software, Excel remains the backbone of every project in transaction services, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and consulting. Its unmatched flexibility, widespread adoption and evolving capabilities make it an indispensable tool in these fields.
Unparalleled Versatility
Excel's versatility is second to none. Unlike rigid software solutions that offer limited customization, Excel empowers users to build custom analyses and models that cater specifically to their needs. You can modify anything on a cell-by-cell basis—from values to an extensive range of formatting options—allowing for a degree of personalization that other tools simply cannot match. To stand out in a commoditized market and maximize client satisfaction, Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) teams prioritize highly tailored and customized analyses.
Nature of the Work
In consulting, the nature of the work often demands that analyses be set up from scratch or by populating pre-existing templates. The expectation is to analyze data and deliver initial results swiftly, leaving little time for creating elaborate dashboards or integrating advanced data visualization tools. This time-sensitive environment is why Excel remains irreplaceable by more sophisticated tools like Power BI. Excel’s straightforward, flexible interface allows consultants to build and modify models quickly, ensuring they can meet tight deadlines and client expectations without getting bogged down by the complexities of more advanced software.
Everyone Can Use Excel
One of Excel’s greatest strengths is its universal adoption and understanding across industries. This widespread familiarity ensures smooth collaboration between teams and clients. When analyses are shared, they often include intricate details that are easily comprehensible, thanks to Excel’s intuitive interface. By sticking to Excel, professionals ensure their work remains accessible and understandable to everyone involved, fostering clear communication and reducing the risk of misinterpretation.
Adaptability and Familiarity
Excel’s balance of powerful features and user-friendly interface makes it easy to get started quickly, a crucial advantage in fast-paced environments like TAS. Every year, new professionals join the workforce, and Excel’s simplicity ensures beginners can become productive swiftly. This adaptability is a significant reason why Excel remains the go-to tool for businesses looking to train their teams efficiently.
New Excel Features
Excel is far from stagnant; it continues to evolve with new tools and features. Extensions like PowerQuery and PowerPivot have expanded Excel’s capabilities, enabling users to handle larger datasets and perform more complex analyses. These enhancements ensure Excel remains relevant and powerful, even as the scale and complexity of data continue to grow.
What about AI?
Let’s address the elephant in the room: AI. While AI, particularly large language models (LLMs), is making waves across various industries, its impact on Excel users in deal advisory is expected to be limited. By limited, we mean AI's role will primarily involve:
Assisting in writing formulas via tools like ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Copilot.
Offering guidance on how to perform specific tasks.
Enabling more small-scale automations created by users, involving VBA macros or other programming languages.
Future advancements will integrate automation, traditional coding, and AI-powered interfaces, but these innovations will be geared more toward mainstream users rather than experts in niche fields like Deal Advisory. In FDD, the fundamental technical work in Excel hasn’t changed much in the last 20 years, and this stability is likely to continue due to the nature of the business and its highly specialized focus and need for customization.
Why Windows Desktop Excel Reigns Supreme for Excel Power Users
Given the recent push towards cloud and cross-platform thinking, it is time to acknowledge that while accessibility across devices is important, the core power of Excel lies in its Windows desktop version. For basic review tasks, the platform you use for Excel isn’t a big deal. But when it comes to in-depth data preparation and analysis, especially in fields like Deal Advisory, Excel on Windows desktop is the clear choice. Here’s why:
Performance, Flexibility and Depth: Windows Desktop Excel delivers superior performance, especially with large datasets and complex calculations. It handles heavy workloads with a speed and stability that other platforms simply can’t match, making it the go-to choice for power users. Plus, it offers the most comprehensive feature set.
Add-ins Compatibility: Most third-party Excel add-ins - like Accelerate Excel, Arixcel, Macabacus, and Upslide - either don’t work on other platforms or have very limited versions. The infrastructure for developing cross-platform add-ins is very limited, meaning that power users who rely on these tools are effectively tied to Windows.
PowerPivot and PowerQuery: These essential tools for data modeling and manipulation are only fully functional on Windows. On a Mac, they are severely limited, which can be a deal-breaker for anyone needing robust data processing capabilities.
Mac Excel Falls Short: Despite significant improvements, Excel for Mac still lacks key features that matter to power users. Missing advanced functions and incompatible add-ins make it less suitable for those who need Excel’s full capabilities.
Excel Online isn’t Enough: While Excel Online is great for collaboration and quick edits, it doesn’t offer the full functionality needed for demanding projects. Serious data work, complex formulas, and advanced features are beyond its scope.
Tips to Excel in Excel
Master the Basics: Ensure you have a strong grasp of Excel basics, including formulas, functions, and formatting. Understanding the fundamentals will set a solid foundation for more advanced tasks.
Learn the Key Excel Functions: Get comfortable with key functions like SUMIFS for aggregation and INDEX-MATCH for lookups. The sooner you master them, the quicker you can create meaningful data analysis and insights. More information: Key Excel Functions in TAS, FDD and M&A / Deal Advisory.
Utilize Keyboard Shortcuts: Using keyboard shortcuts can greatly speed up your workflow. Here are the essential Excel keyboard shortcuts for Deal Advisory.
Utilize Quick Access Toolbar: Customize the Quick Access Toolbar with your most-used commands for faster access via Alt shortcut sequences, e.g. Alt > 1, Alt > 2, etc.
Know What a FlatFile Structure Is: A single header row with data records below. Understanding how to work with flat files is crucial for efficient data management.
Learn PowerQuery and PowerPivot: PowerQuery and PowerPivot are powerful tools for data transformation, data analysis and visualization. For example: You can use PowerQuery to load data from multiple files or sheets simultaneously. Learn more here.
Adopt Best Practices in Deals Consulting: Familiarize yourself quickly with the best practices specific to your team, whether in financial modeling, FDD or M&A lead advisory. This will help you avoid costly mistakes and work more efficiently from the beginning.
Leverage Templates and Resources: Using templates instead of creating from scratch can streamline your work and maintain consistency. Resources like Power-User offer Excel templates, a library of 100+ advanced charts, and an Excel-PowerPoint link for automating presentation updates, allowing you to focus on analysis rather than formatting.
How Does Accelerate Excel Help You to Excel in Excel?
Even if you're an Excel pro, there are some tasks that just can't be sped up with Excel’s built-in tools. That’s where Accelerate Excel comes in. With the Accelerate ribbon, you get extra features and tools designed to make your work more efficient. Created by former FDD professionals, each feature is tailored to address common pain points and includes practical details that other practitioners will value. While the toolbar offers a wide range of tools, here are our top 10 features:
Streamlined Formatting: No more cycling through individual format options or wasting time with single formatting tasks. Accelerate’s Formats menu offers 19 shortcuts that apply customizable formatting sets. Learn more.
For example, apply the ‘Total’ format quickly by pressing Alt > G > 3 T or Alt > 1 > T (if using the Quick Access Toolbar).
Copy-Paste Cells with SUM or SUBTOTAL Formulas: Without this tool, you have to copy-paste each row containing SUM/SUBTOTAL separately as Excel does not support multiple-range copy-pasting. Learn more.
Convert Pivot: Automatically convert PivotTables into presentation-ready, fully formatted normal cells. For PowerPivots, this tool converts Pivots into CUBE formulas—think of them as a supercharged version of SUMIFS. Learn more.
Explore Formulas: A pane that lets you easily navigate through a selected cell’s formula and jump between references. You can also explore an Excel chart/graph’s cell references cell references. Learn more.
Copy Exact Formulas: A simple yet powerful feature that lets you copy a formula exactly as it is, without Excel adjusting the references. Learn more.
Smart Grouping & Indenting: In FDD, nested breakdowns often need to be grouped and indented for better presentation. Our tools make this process more efficient. Learn more.
Enhanced Copy & Pasting: Excel’s standard copy-paste options have limitations that often require workarounds. Accelerate’s Copy & Paste tool provides everything you need to make this process smoother and more efficient. Learn more.
Bookmark Selections: When working across multiple sheets and workbooks, quick navigation is essential. With ‘Selection Memory,’ you can bookmark locations in Excel for fast access. Learn more.
Improved Sheet Management: Excel displays worksheets horizontally, which can be cumbersome for large Excel workbooks. Accelerate adds a vertical pane for managing sheets, including options to multi-rename and more. Learn more.
Quick ‘Subtotal’ Addition: This utility allows you to quickly insert SUBTOTAL functions without manually typing them out, similar to Excel’s ‘Autosum’ feature. Learn more.
Conclusion
As technology evolves, the apps and tools at our disposal in M&A and deal advisory are becoming more sophisticated, but Excel spreadsheets remain the cornerstone of effective financial analysis. Its adaptability, universal appeal, and continuous evolution make it irreplaceable, particularly in high-pressure environments where precision and speed are paramount. By honing your Excel skills and leveraging advanced add-ins, you can excel in delivering tailored solutions that meet the complex demands of M&A transactions. Whether you’re a seasoned consultant or just starting out, mastering Excel is not just an option—it’s a necessity in the ever-competitive world of deal advisory.