James Kennedy sits down with Niall White, corporate finance expert and founder at Capstack, to unpack what really determines success after the deal closes. Drawing on a career spanning BDO (Dublin & London), Barclays Capital (funding marquee PE buyouts), and in-house M&A at an Irish PLC, Niall explains why most value is won – or lost – during integration, not at the signing ceremony. They cover how to prepare a founder-led company for sale, structure earn-outs that actually work, and the people/controls you must have in place before, during, and after a transaction.
About Niall White
A chartered accountant with 25+ years in mid-market and large-cap transactions, Niall has advised and financed billions in deals across Europe, served on in-house corporate development teams, and now provides fractional CFO & M&A readiness support through Capstack. His sweet spot: helping owner-operators professionalize, navigate diligence, and integrate smoothly so both buyer and seller realize the value they negotiated.
What You’ll Learn
- Post-Acquisition Integration that Works: How to bolt on founder-led businesses to PLC/PE platforms and hit the synergy case.
- “Value & Control” Test: Shifting dependency from the founder to the company (contracts, systems, management depth).
- Earn-outs without Regret: When to use them, how to avoid misaligned incentives, and why many founders rush for early exit.
- Sale-Readiness Playbook: From handshake revenues to signed service contracts, MI/BI upgrades, and CFO function uplift.
- Buyer Lenses: Trade vs. private equity – what each overpays for, and why scale (e.g., €5m EBITDA) is inherently more defensible.
- Hidden Asset: Your Data: Monetization lessons (e.g., EV-charging datasets) beyond classic EBITDA × multiple valuation.
Episode Highlights
- “Businesses are about people. If you don’t have the right people and controls, the spreadsheet won’t save you.”
- “Buyers pay for autonomy – a company that runs without the founder, not because of the founder.”
- “If cash comes in wrong at the start – no contracts, weak MI – the trickle-down pain is massive in diligence and integration.”
- “Bigger isn’t just vanity: scale absorbs shocks and expands your buyer universe.”
- “Earn-outs work only when the vision and incentives are genuinely aligned.”
More about Niall’s role
Through Capstack’s CFO Solutions, Niall embeds as a fractional CFO to:
- Prepare businesses for sale or investment (commercial contracts, KPIs, dashboards, close cadence).
- Run finance workstreams during diligence (QoE support, data rooms, buyer Q&A triage).
- Lead the first 100-day integration (reporting, controls, synergy tracking, team design).
