Recent Projects

Financial Analysis

Financial analysis across a wide range of industry sectors, businesses, and specific situations:

M&A transactions
Valuation for shareholder disputes
Building share purchase programs for long-term executive incentive programs
Analyzing suspicious or fraudulent financial transactions
Building pro forma financial models for negations with lenders
Real estate purchases or sales
Analyzing new business opportunities: is the capex worth the risk?
Working with alt-A lenders who need to be confident their collateral is fully covering their risk.

Fraud Case & Insolvency

Last year a company called us, the victim of a fraud. The client needed help to guide it through the process of analyzing the fraud and the preparation of documentation to prove it in court. Edgewater did an analysis of the fraud - which had occurred over several years and we built a financial model to show the impact of the fraud on bank lending covenants which showed the fraud had pushed the company into bankruptcy. Edgewater also worked for several months with the company's owners to right-size the cost base, paving the way for the company to be sold to a third party under a court-approved trustee led insolvency & rest.

M&A Project in Chile and Colombia

Edgewater was hired by a large Asset Manager in Santiago Chile to negotiate the sale of the firm to a Swiss bank. The deal took place in Chile and London UK over a period of about one year. The same Asset Manager hired Edgewater to do a due diligence of a large Colombian brokerage company that wanted to do a equity swap with the Chilean firm.

New Shareholders' Agreement

Private companies often have multiple shareholders who have held equity positions in the firm for decades. Then, one person wants to retire or the new CFO asks for equity as part of their compensation package. Edgewater writes the new shareholders agreement or makes adjustments to it, based on a financial model that accurately calculates the financial impact to the company and existing shareholders.

Edgewater writes the economic and financial structures of shareholders' agreement to ensure long term stability at the corporate level.

Edgewater has also worked with a family firm to facilitate group sessions with family members on succession planning.

Investment Advisory Services

Edgewater acts as an external investment analyst for ultra-high-net-worth family offices that want to buy or invest in specific businesses, or even publicly traded securities. This includes real estate opportunities, new business ventures, optimal portfolio allocations and maximizing risk-adjusted return on investments. An important part of this service includes setting up a statement of investment policies and guidelines for long term adherence to a sustainable strategy.

Sale of Trucking Company

Edgewater was hired by a trucking company in Toronto to negotiate the sale of the company to another firm in the sector. Edgewater prepared all the due diligence material, built financial models to show the value of the firm, negotiated the deal structure with the buyer and negotiated the financial and economic terms of the Share Purchase Agreement.

Financial Analysis for Real Estate

A company wanted to purchase the building they had been leasing from the landlord for more than 10 years. Edgewater did all the financial modelling to confirm cashflows and ability to fund a mortgage, met with the banks, negotiated the deal with the seller and prepared all the financial documentation for the buyer.

Edgewater also routinely analyzes real estate opportunities building out a full financial analysis to show the Return on Capital, Return on Equity, Internal Rates of Return, Free Cash Flow to different holders of capital and scenario analysis of covenants for banks and alt-A lenders.

M&A Valuation of Brokerage

A Canadian bank had brokerage operations in Latin America. The executives decided to close the operations in Argentina and they asked the head of Argentina to either buy the business from the Canadian bank or shut it down. So the head of Argentina bought the business.

Edgewater worked for several months to get the business migrated to a new platform and more than a decade later the business is thriving (see Advise Wealth Management, Uruguay).

Project with Scotiabank, Mexico

Scotiabank hired Edgewater for approximately five years to work in Mexico City with the Asset Management and Brokerage team, reporting to the Senior Vice President in Toronto. The projects were mainly operational in nature: resigning the compensation program to reward brokers, implementation of new accounting and financial reporting systems, launching new products and services and supporting the head of the group in any major business decision.

Important Small Detail Projects

Over time, the competitive environment changes. Supply chains become more expensive. Costs being to rise faster than expected. Certain sales channels begin to slow down. Edgewater gets called to look at these issues, which are sometimes considered small details but which when summed up, are critical to profits. As one client recently said "I earn a profit on the money I saved this week, not the revenue I generated."