M&A Transaction Advisory | Chicago Area | Lower Middle Market
A smaller deal doesn't deserve smaller standards.
ANZ Consulting helps private equity and corporate investors test earnings quality, working capital, debt-like items, and execution risk before capital is committed—or value is taken to market.
The decision behind the diligence
A Transaction Can Look Compelling Until the Operating Data Is Asked to Support the Story.
Most deals are not lost to a single catastrophic discovery. They are lost to a set of ordinary questions that were never asked precisely enough. ANZ helps investors and management teams understand what the numbers can actually support.
- 01Sustainability of earnings
- Whether the earnings being capitalized are likely to repeat once the current owner, the current contracts, and the current cost base change.
- 02Normalized performance
- What the result looks like after one-time, non-operating, and owner-related items are removed and documented.
- 03Working capital and price
- How the level of working capital left in the business moves purchase price, dollar for dollar, at close.
- 04Obligations that resemble debt
- Which accrued, deferred, or unfunded items behave like debt even though nothing labels them that way.
- 05Forecast versus history
- Where the projection departs from what the business has actually demonstrated it can do.
- 06Post-close interruption risk
- What could stall value creation in the first hundred days, before anyone has time to react.
A bridge shows how a reported figure becomes a defensible one. Every step between the two endpoints is an argument that has to survive the other side's advisors. No client data or transaction figures are shown.
Where you sit in the transaction
The Analysis Is the Same Discipline. The Question Is Not.
Test the thesis before capital is committed.
Buyers engage ANZ to understand whether reported performance is sustainable, what the operating data supports, and which findings should change the price, the structure, or the decision itself.
Explore buy-side advisory- Quality of earnings
- Run-rate and pro forma analysis
- Net working capital
- Net debt and debt-like items
- Cash proofs
- Financial-model support
- Purchase-agreement considerations
- Early identification of deal issues
Inside the process
The moment terms are agreed is the easy part. Everything that makes it defensible happened earlier.
Deal lifecycle
Six Stages. One Continuous View of the Transaction.
ANZ is built to stay in the process from the first framing conversation through the first hundred days after close — so the analysis that shaped the price also shapes the execution.
Stage 01
Frame the Decision
Understand the thesis, the target, the stakeholders around the table, and the timetable the process will actually run on.
The question on the table
What must be true for this transaction to work?
ANZ workstreams at this stage
- 01Thesis and value-driver mapping
- 02Scoping proportionate to deal size
- 03Information-request design
- 04Stakeholder and timetable alignment
Core advisory practices
Three Practices, One Deal Team.
Buy-Side Transaction Advisory
For investors underwriting a thesis. ANZ tests whether reported performance is sustainable, quantifies the risk in the numbers, and supports go/no-go and negotiation decisions with analysis the investment committee can rely on.
View the practiceSell-Side Transaction Advisory
For owners and management teams preparing for market. ANZ applies a buyer's lens before the buyer does — anticipating diligence findings, organizing information, reducing distraction, and helping the financial story hold together under scrutiny.
View the practiceStrategic Finance
For the period after signing. KPI development, financial modeling, value-creation initiatives, interim finance capacity, and the Day 1 through Day 100 execution that determines whether the transaction thesis is realized.
View the practiceWorkstream matrix
Every Workstream Exists to Answer a Specific Question.
Select a workstream to see the question it answers, why it matters, when it enters the process, and who uses the output.
Diligence
Quality of Earnings
Is reported EBITDA a reasonable proxy for sustainable earnings?
Why it matters
Purchase price is usually a multiple of an earnings figure. If that figure includes items that will not recur, the multiple is being paid on something that does not exist.
When it enters the process
Core of financial due diligence, typically post-LOI.
Who uses the analysis
Deal teams, investment committees, lenders, boards.
What ANZ may deliver
Adjusted earnings schedules, adjustment support, trend and margin analysis, and a written summary of findings.
Deliverables are illustrative and scoped to each engagement. ANZ does not disclose proprietary procedures or client information.
Leadership
A Deal Advisor Should Know Which Findings Change the Decision—and Which Merely Add Noise.
ANZ Consulting was established by Jeronn Bowser to bring Big 4-caliber M&A transaction advisory to lower- and middle-market organizations at a price point reflective of deal size and complexity — a standard of analysis that had largely been reserved for transactions several times their size.
The firm's premise is that judgment, not volume, is what a decision-maker needs from a diligence provider. Knowing which finding matters is a different skill from producing a longer report.
Awaiting firm confirmation
Jeronn's published biography — role detail, transaction-advisory background, years and types of deal experience, buy-side and sell-side history, industries served, transaction sizes, education, and professional credentials — will be published once ANZ confirms it. The current firm website attributes extensive Big 4 experience to the firm but does not publish an individual biography, so no employment history, credentials, transaction counts, or deal values are stated here. An approved professional photograph is also required before this section is finalized.
Photograph pending approval
Jeronn Bowser
Founder, ANZ Consulting LLC
How the work is done
No Client Names. No Deal Values. The Method Instead.
ANZ does not publish transactions, client identities, results, or metrics without written approval. Until approved, anonymized examples are omitted entirely and the method stands in their place.
- 01
Scope
Procedures are sized to the transaction. A lower-middle-market deal does not require, and should not be charged for, a national-account diligence program.
- 02
Evidence
Adjustments are supported by underlying records. If a position cannot be documented, it is not presented as a finding.
- 03
Prioritization
Findings are ranked by whether they change price, terms, or the decision. Noise is identified as noise.
- 04
Translation
Analysis is written for the people making the decision — deal teams, committees, and boards — not for other accountants.
- 05
Continuity
The same team that examined the numbers can support negotiation, close, and the first hundred days after it.
Awaiting firm confirmation
Anonymized transaction snapshots — investor type, transaction context, workstreams applied, the critical question, the nature of the finding, and how the analysis informed the process — can be published once ANZ approves them in writing. No client, deal value, or performance metric will appear before then.
Inside the deal team
ANZ Is One Seat at a Crowded Table. It Knows Which One.
Select a role to see the decision it owns and how ANZ's analysis supports it.
In the deal team
Private Equity Professionals
The decision they own
Whether to proceed, at what price, and on what terms.
How ANZ analysis supports it
Earnings quality, working capital, net debt, and a clear read on which findings are material.
ANZ provides transaction advisory and financial analysis. It does not provide legal advice, tax advice, valuation opinions, audit or attestation services, or investment recommendations, and works alongside the advisors who do.
Before the Deal Moves Forward, Make Sure the Financial Story Can Survive Diligence.
Bring ANZ into the process when the decision requires a clearer view of earnings, working capital, transaction risk, and what happens after close.