Kane & Company
The strategic financial feasibility study.
After we meet a client, we run a feasibility study before we run a process. It answers one disciplined question.
Not the transaction they named — the underlying objective: liquidity, succession, growth capital, de-risking, a clean exit, control, legacy. The stated deal is a hypothesis about how to get there.
Relative to those objectives and current capital-market conditions, can the transaction they think they want actually be done, and is it the best way to achieve what they are really after?
Often the right answer is a different deal, or several in sequence: clean up first, then sell; recapitalize before raising; divest a unit to make the core cleaner. We design the pathway, not just the next step.
The most expensive mistake in a transaction is running the wrong one well. The feasibility study exists so that never happens on our watch.
This is the same analytic discipline applied to a sale, only pointed earlier: establish what is real, isolate the objective, and measure each available pathway against it. It is also why bringing us in early costs no more and saves enormously — issues spotted at the feasibility stage are resolved with minor course corrections, before they harden into legal, political, or valuation problems.
Whatever the study points to, we execute it.
A feasibility study can confirm the intended deal — or redirect to a better one. Across the full transaction spectrum, public and private, Kane & Company advises on and executes:
Stand-alone sale or divestiture of an operating unit, run as an active, buyer-by-buyer process — priced against strategic contribution, not a comp.
See the Method →Buy-side and sell-side — including acquisitions and mergers as a value-building pathway to the shareholders’ objective, not only as an exit.
Reshaping the balance sheet or capital structure — sometimes the necessary precondition to a cleaner, higher-value transaction later.
Divesting non-core or complicating assets ahead of a primary deal, so the core is presented clean and commands its full value.
Public-market pathways — the IPO process as issuer-side advisor, and De-SPAC transactions — where they are the optimal route to the objective.
Private and institutional debt placements — growth or recapitalization capital structured to advance the strategy rather than encumber it.
Independent counsel to directors — from someone who has sat in the chair.
Having served as a director of NYSE- and NASDAQ-listed companies, Michael advises boards on strategic alternatives, feasibility, and value-building pathways — including acquisitions and mergers — to achieve the shareholders’ objectives. For three decades he has advised independent directors across the transaction spectrum, frequently opposite major investment banks, activist investors, and well-resourced private-equity buyers on the other side of the table — counterparties who arrive with deep benches, and to whom an unprepared board concedes value before the talks begin.
Senior hands, from the start. The analysis and any fairness opinion are done by an experienced principal — not consigned to junior bankers. Useful opinions demand judgment, value-detection, and creativity.
Collaborative, not ego-driven. Sophisticated commentary on the transaction, its structure, and its alternatives, delivered in a way that keeps the focus on maximizing value.
Defensible under challenge. If a transaction faces a legal challenge, an opinion built from the start on the real issues — explained clearly, whether in Delaware Chancery or another venue — is the board’s best line of defense.
Advice free from even the appearance of conflict.
Kane & Company has no trading, research, brokerage, or asset-management divisions, and no conflicting relationships with clients, counterparties, or competitors. The compensation structure for advisory and fairness-opinion engagements is therefore free from even the appearance of conflict — which is what makes the advice candid and a fairness opinion exactly what it is meant to be: fair.
It is the same principle that runs through everything the firm does: the only interest being served is the client’s objective. See how we run a sale →
Start with the right question.
A confidential conversation for owners, boards, and acquirers evaluating a strategic transaction.
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