Careers at Riveron: Spotlight on Transaction Services

Provided financial due diligence services while practicing across diverse industries

Emily Foley, Senior Associate, Washington DC

“Working in transaction services at Riveron, we provide a comprehensive financial analysis for clients on sell-side projects and their potential targets for buy-side projects. Key challenges include identifying and quantifying quality of earnings adjustments with detailed and accurate data in an efficient manner, navigating the various accounting and financial systems of our wide-ranging clients and providing concise and yet detailed written reports alongside Excel databooks.

During one sell-side project, our team and the company executives were able to meet in person to identify and discuss various add-backs, recalculations and adjustments that resulted in a favorable position to enter the market. Talking through calculations and accounting methodologies allows the clients to be directly involved in the formation of the adjustment, which minimizes back-and-forth efforts, and it allows both parties to meet tight deadlines while strengthening relationships.

Already my career at Riveron has allowed me to work alongside a wide range of talented people with varying experience levels, both internally and externally. Internally, I’ve worked on teams with former auditors, industry specialists and seasoned leaders in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) space. Externally, I’ve worked directly with client executives across a wide range of industries, including oil & gas, software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology, media/telecommunications, consumer goods, and others. Providing financial due diligence services to vastly different clients with diverse teammates has been a particularly rewarding aspect of transaction services work—it exposes me to unique and often industry-specific accounting and financial practices and methodologies. Going forward, I am able to bring both general and industry-specific knowledge to each deal, while catering the specific engagement needs.”

Applied expertise to uncover deal value and tapped into Riveron’s network to enable post-deal success

Anuar Baimukhametov, Senior Associate, Houston

“When partnering with clients on transaction services, it calls for accounting expertise and an ability to build-up combined and consolidated financial statements, with an understanding of applicable regulations, practical knowledge of calculations —used for management, internal needs, and preparing financial statements— and working with different accounting systems and technologies.

I recently worked on the team for a sell-side deal, where we conducted a deep dive into accounting, and our efforts uncovered a significant amount of unrecorded revenue, which had a direct impact on the deal value. The deal successfully closed five times higher than anyone on the team had expected at the beginning. Additionally, our team was able to connect the client with our experts across finance, accounting, and business performance improvement specialties to help in clearing financials. Moreover, one of our managing directors helped the client to recruit one of Riveron’s alumni to be hired as the company’s CFO, and filling that position greatly supported the client’s post-deal communications and financial operations moving forward.

The team environment at Riveron delivers results and offers a learning process from peers and colleagues at leadership levels. On another sell-side deal, our team elevated the client’s possibilities by helping to calculate net working capital (NWC) based on regulatory requirements. NWC calculations are complex and can be challenging to align across buy- and sell-side parties, and we supported the client subsequently in communications with buy-side advisors up until the deal close.”

Guided deals by building out financial statements for carve-outs of businesses and company sites

Benny Mo, Director, Chicago

“At Riveron, I’ve assisted clients on understanding their business data to build out financials for M&A deals in order to enhance the clarity and supportability of the statements to end users. I’ve also introduced tools such as Alteryx into deals to enhance the efficiency of data processing needed to model the financials and perform quarterly roll-forwards. I’ve also applied my experience to help make financial reconciliations and bridging processes more efficient so that changes can be easily communicated to management. We provide value by working with our teams to dive deeply into the client’s data and processes to better support the deal process. This includes efforts from extracting data to answering questions from bidders in order to close the deal.

The most rewarding aspects of my time at Riveron is to help coach others who are earlier in their career journeys to become more experienced on the deals and coach them to become better leaders and managers. And when serving clients, the most rewarding moments are hitting milestones on the deals, closing a deal, and celebrating with the internal and external teams. Finding ways to obtain more responsibility on a client engagement is rewarding because we can show the client our value and build our relationship.”

Enabled effective lender-borrower interactions amid complex risks

Jake Siegel, Manager, Atlanta

“My main area of expertise is performing due diligence for banks and private lenders regarding their prospective and existing borrowers receiving lines of credit. We perform in-depth testing, valuation, and analyses on each borrower’s collateral records and financial reports to evaluate the collateral securing the loans, highlight areas of collateral risk, and provide recommendations for sound credit investments and risk mitigation.

In one scenario involving specialized risks and regulations, I worked closely with a lender client conducting business with a borrower providing goods and services to the legal cannabis industry. Given the risks inherent to this type of collateral, the borrower was required to submit its reporting package on a weekly basis. The borrower’s organization experienced staff turnover causing reports to be calculated inaccurately, resulting in an understated collateral risk for the lender. Over a six-month period, our team worked closely with the parties to refine the reporting requirements and improve the borrower’s weekly reporting, allowing the lender to more accurately monitor the loan and achieve safe, lucrative returns.

While working at Riveron, my career and professional development opportunities include working on complex transactions in a variety of industries, which allows me to learn something new each day and develop the critical thinking skills needed to succeed. Additionally, colleagues who like to have fun and appreciate client service make the work even more rewarding.

Maximized Value and Support for a Founder-Owned Business 

Travis Kozeluh, Associate Director, Chicago

“In my role within the transaction services practice at Riveron, my primary focus has been on delivering financial due diligence support to founder-owned businesses and private equity investors across diverse industries. I have also had the opportunity to collaborate cross-functionally with other practices within our firm. Notably, our work in performing sell-side financial diligence on a founder-owned business has resulted in continued support from Riveron for the new private equity investors post-close.

While our initial sell-side engagement helped the founder bring the transaction to a successful close, we have been able to provide ongoing assistance to the company post-close in several areas:

1. Financial and tax due diligence for add-on acquisitions.
2. Monthly financial statement analysis to facilitate credit reporting.
3. Accounting support such as opening balance sheet (OBS) and purchase price allocation (PPA).
4. Adoption of accounting standards such as ASC 606 and ASC 842.
5. Integration planning and execution support for subsequent add-on acquisitions.

Working in transaction services at Riveron has been very rewarding, as it has allowed me to engage in meaningful and fulfilling work. Assisting founders with what is likely the most significant transaction in their lives has been particularly gratifying. Additionally, I appreciate that Riveron offers a range of service offerings beyond the traditional quality of earnings analysis. This has enabled our team to provide additional value to clients throughout the entire M&A lifecycle.”