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Acquiring & merging

The seller has one job.
You have two.

Buying a company is a full-time role, and you already have one. We run the transaction — diligence, negotiation, structuring, filings, closing and integration — so you can keep running the business that is paying for it.

Cross-border M&A Buy-and-build Market entry Integration
The problem

Acquisitions rarely fail on price. They fail on everything after it.

A cross-border deal is six regimes agreeing at once — exchange control, corporate law, two tax systems, merger control and employment transfer. Each has its own timetable, and the commercial terms you shook hands on assume all of them resolve in your favour.

Then there is capacity. Most founders have no deal team. The work does not reduce because you are busy; it simply gets done late, or by you, at midnight.

What we do

On an acquisition.

  • 01

    Structuring the deal

    Share purchase or asset purchase, which entity acquires, how it is funded, and what that means for tax on the way in and on the way out. Decided before the term sheet, not after.

  • 02

    Commercial negotiation

    Price mechanism, earn-outs and their measurement, escrow, warranties and indemnity caps, non-competes, and what the seller stays on to do. We negotiate these rather than paper someone else's conclusions.

  • 03

    Diligence, run as one exercise

    Legal, financial, tax and regulatory diligence coordinated so findings actually reach the documents. A liability found in week three should change an indemnity in week five — too often it does not.

  • 04

    Cross-border compliance

    ODI approvals and limits for Indian acquirers, FDI route and pricing for inbound, step-down subsidiary chains, round-tripping analysis, and the annual reporting each new entity creates.

  • 05

    Buy-and-build

    A platform strategy is a different discipline from a single acquisition: a repeatable structure, a standard document set, and reporting obligations that multiply with every deal. We have run this across Europe.

  • 06

    Market entry

    For groups entering India, or Indian groups landing abroad. Entity selection, permanent establishment risk, transfer pricing designed at entry rather than reconstructed at assessment, and a working compliance calendar.

  • 07

    Integration

    Legal entity rationalisation, employee and payroll transition, contract novation, systems and reporting alignment, and closing out the seller's residual obligations. The part everyone under-resources.

Case note

Fifteen acquisitions. One structure that held.

A Singapore company held by an Indian parent, expanding across Europe through fifteen acquisitions — advised throughout. Each deal carried its own merger control, employment transfer and tax residency questions, with Indian step-down reporting obligations multiplying on every entity added.

Three jurisdictions, one ownership chain.

A Singapore company acquiring a US target, where the Singapore entity was ultimately held by Indian residents. Indian outbound rules, Singapore substance and treaty access, and US tax at the target all had to agree before anything could close.

Start here

Looking at a target?

Tell us the shape — who is buying, who is selling, which jurisdictions. We will tell you how we would structure it and what will take the longest.