Ernst & Young’s Strategic Growth Markets - Ernst & Young - United States

Our approach and services

As your business grows, you will encounter many new, unfamiliar challenges—recruiting and retaining the best people, complying with changing regulation, integrating new businesses and exploiting overseas opportunities. These are exciting times, but with limited resources and limited time, how you approach these challenges can make the difference between building a good business and a truly exceptional enterprise.

That is where Ernst & Young can make a difference. Our Strategic Growth Markets practice is the undisputed leader in guiding Russell 3000, high-growth privates, IPO-bound companies, and companies with significant venture capital or private equity investments.

Our Strategic Growth Markets professionals understand the challenges of growing a world-class business. By accessing our global resources, we can help with mergers, acquisitions and other strategic transactions; align your tax strategy with your business goals; manage risk and improve processes; and reduce the complexity of regulation and reporting. We will share best practices of those companies that have gone before you. We will help you approach the future with a business that is controlled and risks that are well managed. With the assistance of our Strategic Growth Markets team, you will have more time to do what you do best: grow a market-leading business.

Pre-IPO

An IPO marks a turning point in the life of your company. The rewards can be monumental. The keys are proper preparation, experienced guidance and effective execution. At Ernst & Young, we know what it takes to be ready for an IPO ­– and what guidance you need to address the priorities and mitigate the risks. We have a global network of professionals, seasoned in the going-public process, who know how to help you:

• Evaluate your transaction alternatives to reach your goals
• Develop the infrastructure, processes and controls to protect against risk exposure and facilitate regulatory compliance
• Attract, retain and motivate your management team
• Build your boards of directors and advisors
• Manage the investor and analyst communities
• Ensure your top people have the skills, commitment and operational experience to undertake this transforming transaction and run your business during and after the IPO

Venture Capital Advisory Group (VCAG)

Through our Venture Capital Advisory Group (VCAG), Ernst & Young advises both the world’s top venture funds and a dominant share of their portfolio companies - businesses that will comprise tomorrow’s market-leading companies. Our global team of multidisciplinary professionals, situated in all the major venture capital investment centers, are ready to assist both venture capitalists and entrepreneurs through our:

• Dedicated local single points of contact
• Services and business insights linked to each growth/investment stage
• Coaching sessions, liquidity readiness seminars and hot-topic workshops
• Global, detailed data analyses of venture capital trends and insights

For venture-backed entrepreneurs, we know that creating value to drive your growth involves how well you can:

• Understand and manage your risks
• Develop a solid, yet flexible infrastructure and efficient processes
• Maintain accurate financial records to address regulatory compliance and buoy investor confidence
• Identify market opportunities, establish and service a strong customer base to differentiate from the competition
• Build a strong, appropriately compensated leadership team that fosters your corporate culture and drives your growth strategy

Private Equity

Private equity firms play an increasingly important role in providing capital to strategic growth companies. Ernst & Young has a global network of experienced professionals who focus exclusively on private equity with services and strategic programs to meet the needs of both the investment firms and their high-growth portfolio companies.

Our experience as the market leader makes us well suited to provide value to portfolio companies during the entire investment lifestyle through guidance on:

• Working capital management
• Operational improvement
• Local and global tax-efficient strategies and compliance
• Risk management
• Global market expansion
• IT infrastructure alignment and scalability

And when PE funds are ready to divest, Ernst & Young also provides an array of services to support the exit and the ongoing growth of the portfolio company. We know how to advise on the issues that can arise and threaten the investee’s value, including:

• Exit strategy readiness-preparation for an IPO or strategic sale
• Management team resourcefulness and compensation
• Business plan development, communicating the growth story and value drivers
• Risk identification and containment

Cleantech

Ernst & Young leads in cleantech. From Silicon Valley to Beijing to Tel Aviv, we are deploying our global resources to help you navigate the complexities of this rapidly evolving space and realize its promise and economic opportunity. This includes leveraging our networks and access to convene cleantech opinion leaders, facilitate critical dialogue and share the insights you need to make the right choices.

Our firm has a long and distinguished history of guiding innovative companies through start-up, growth and transition to market leadership. For cleantech businesses, we can help in:

• Building a strong financial foundation and tax-efficient structure
• Meeting the needs of investors and regulators
• Providing insights on financing options to build out and commercialize capital-intensive projects
• Developing local and global networks of industry peers and large market-leading corporations
• Offering guidance on IPOs, M&As and other strategic transaction alternatives

Long-standing advisors to market-leading companies, we know how to combine our industry insight with technical acumen to help established enterprises evaluate new business opportunities, manage risks and create a meaningful cleantech agenda, through:

• Identification of supply- and demand-side federal, state and local government incentives
• Low carbon supply chain advisory services
• Renewable energy transaction advisory services
• Green building advisory and certification, including LEED
• Navigation of dynamic policy and regulatory-related risks and opportunities

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