Merrill Corporation
Accelerating the M&A Processes

In today’s business environment, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are common among organizations. During the process material business information is disclosed, such as key contracts, intellectual property information, employee details, and financial statements. The transaction often hinges on controlling access to key documents for prospective buyers, investors or partners. This information disclosure requires secure data sharing and fine-grained provisioning to avoid unauthorized individuals from gainingaccess to sensitive corporate documentation. Companies cannot overlook the critical need for tightly controlled due diligence. Being in the business for over five decades – as a leading financial and corporate printer and pioneer of virtual data room and software solutions – Merrill Corporation is not new to supporting the intensive demands for companies and advisors around the world.

“About three years ago we decided to make investments to build a technology platform that can better facilitate complex M&A processes,” says Rusty Wiley, President and CEO of the St. Paul (Minnesota) based firm. The final result is an impressive platform that significantly reduces friction for complex financial transactions. Over the years, Merrill has assisted more than 70,000 deals by creating a highly secure, connected ecosystem that supports hundreds of thousands of participants annually from organizations involved in capital markets.

Merrill’s DatasiteOne application is the only software built specifically for due diligence that helps enterprises perform faster and more efficient M&A. This highly sophisticated application can help customers securely share sensitive content during transactional due diligence with advisors, buyers and other parties. Merrill couples world-class technology with experts that understand complex financial matters to help meet global regulatory disclosure requirements. “The application can move thousands of pages into a data room in a few minutes, offering a combination of access control, security and speed. It also has a set of rich analytics capabilities to help executives understand what is going on with the deal,” comments Wiley.

We have developed DatasiteOne as not only the best platform in the industry to facilitate M&A transactions, but one that is also extremely user-friendly and secure

The DatasiteOne application is compatible with any modern browser and leverages best-in-class global security standards. Ultimately, the aim of DatasiteOne is to accelerate the speed of concluding deals. “We have developed DatasiteOne as not only the most secure application in the industry to facilitate M&A transactions, but one that is also extremely fast and user-friendly,” Wiley says.

The company’s capabilities are not just limited to its advanced technology solutions; it has a dedicated team of subject matter experts who can provide round the clock, prompt customer support. The team brings extensive expertise to the table across multiple industries and deal types, assisting clients in structuring data rooms and allocating resources.

For the coming days, Merrill Corporation is continually improving its capabilities and feature sets. “All of our expectations for product adoption by our customers have been exceeded. When introducing DatasiteOne, we had expected a gradual transition. In fact, within the first two months of our market launch, 90 percent of our customers are now using DatasiteOne,” says Wiley.

The company is preparing to disrupt the M&A process with new innovative applications to help sellers more efficiently bring deals to market and dramatically improve the buyer diligence process with advanced workflow capabilities. Based on early feedback from customer discovery and research, Wiley suggests these new solutions will be “game-changing.”