Mergers and Acquisitions

What Is It?

Mergers and acquisitions refers to the process of consolidating multiple organisations resources into one. This is normally achieved through one organisation purchasing another but it can also be the result of organisations agreeing to collaborate, with shared investment into a venture, in a co-dependent fashion.

Why Assess It?

There are many reasons to conduct a security assessment during a merger and acquisition activity, five of which are below.

Value Confirmation

If you are buying another organisation you want to ensure that what you are getting is what you thought. Part of that is assuring the security attestations of the products or services that the target of the acquisition has. If there is a difference, then the additional insight can assist you with negotiations.

Understanding Risk Impact

When bringing another organisation within yours you take on board their risks. The more you know up front, the more you are able to mitigate threats to both your new acquisition as well as your existing organisation.

Technical Due Diligence

Organisations work in different ways so when purchasing another organisation you need to understand and factor in their existing way of developing the products and services offered, ensuring these can map securely into your own processes and procedures, even if it means creating a secure silo whilst further integration work is ongoing.

Legal Compliance

Purchasing another organisation is similar to buying a product in the way that you need to be comfortable the product fits your needs and part of this is ensuring that you are legally compliant from a security perspective. Once the ownership is transferred the legal entity will fall under your existing organisations remit of responsibility.

Protect Intellectual Property

Your organisation is acquiring another one for a purpose. Typically this is to access a new market, customer base or to own a technology or offering that has been developed. A security assessment allows you to ensure that when you purchase the organisation that the intellectual property is being protected effectively, giving you assurance around you purchasing something that is still unique.

The Agility Cyber Approach

Like all our engagements, we want you to get the most out of your mergers and acquisition engagement and we do this by:

Multi-Focus

Our merger and acquisition security assessments are not focused on a specific type of assessment. They are tailored to the organisations involved and the assurance points that need to be evaluated, meaning you get the benefit of our vast experience across different types of security assessment in a package delivering the most value for you.

Confidentiality

We are used to working under non-disclosure agreements and being directed by legal teams to comply with the various laws around mergers and acquisitions.

Technology and People

When purchasing another organisation it is not solely the technology or assets you are acquiring, it is the people too. This is why we believe in assessing the security of the people in the target organisation via assessments such as phishing, vishing and physical engagements. We also undertake comprehensive open source intelligence activities to provide further risk insight for you.

Depth and Breadth

Acquiring an organisation as a whole means owning the risk of everything that organisation does, both internally and externally facing. During a mergers and acquisitions assessment we ensure we cover both the full breadth of the organisation as well as conducting in depth assessments giving you the peace of mind that you have the full risk picture.

Industry Expertise

The organisation you are acquiring will reside in an industry sector. Part of the additional value we bring to this assessment is knowing the normal security posture for that sector, including its key drivers, risks and typical mitigations. This allows you to benefit from our wide ranging expertise and extensive experience.

Benefits of Partnering with Agility Cyber

Mutually Invested

Our experts work with you, not against you. There are no egotistical celebrations when a serious issue is discovered, just rapid full disclosure with pragmatic suggestions for effective remediation followed by ongoing support.

Clarity and Simplicity

We always provide clarity, believe in simplicity and value your time. An example is rather than waiting until the engagement starts, we will conduct open source intelligence gathering activities before the scoping meeting to help us understand your organisations position and risk posture thus enabling us to ask better questions, securing you higher value and saving you time.

Full Consultancy

Our team, based in the UK, is technically exceptional but we pair that with business sense to discover, triage and help you remediate the full range of security issues.

Impartiality

We are impartial, we do not sell you products or the latest buzzword laden trending solution.

Outstanding Service

We have an industry leading turnaround, agility is in our name after all. Proposals are shared with you within 24 hours of the scoping meeting. Accurate and complete daily debriefs are given during every engagement. The report is shared within 5 working days at the latest.

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