I started making some progress with my original work this past week. I created a research assessment over an article that explored the impacts of private equity backing on acquisitions. The article explored ideas such as the types of acquisitions made, benefiting company valuations, and increasing the number of acquisitions made. This information will be very useful in my research paper's introduction and deal sourcing sections.
I will now need to direct my research by looking into other ideas within private equity-backed M&A, such as the due diligence process and valuation methods, financing, post-merger integration, and exit strategies.
Last week, I continued to search for professionals to do my third research interview with but had no success, so I need to put a lot of focus into networking now. However, my one-month free trial of LinkedIn Premium has ended, which will make networking a little more difficult. In addition, many of the professionals I see on LinkedIn do not have their phone numbers or email addresses in their contact information, so I may need to start calling companies directly and ask them if they have anyone in their departments who would be interested in doing an interview. I can start by calling investment banks, such as Houlihan Lokey and Goldman Sachs, and consulting firms, such as KPMG, Deloitte, and BCG.