Precedent Transactions

Build a precedent transactions analysis for the company specified by the user: $ARGUMENTS

This is the third pillar of valuation (alongside trading comps and DCF) — it answers: what have acquirers actually paid for businesses like this one? The output is two tables: comparable M&A transactions with deal multiples, and the subject company's own acquisition history.

Before starting, read ../data-access.md for data access methods and ../design-system.md for formatting conventions. Follow the data access detection logic and design system throughout this skill.

Follow these steps:

1. Company Lookup

Look up the company by ticker using discover_companies. Capture:

• company_id
• latest_calendar_quarter — anchor for all period calculations below (see ../data-access.md Section 1.5)
• latest_fiscal_quarter
• Firm name for report attribution (default: "Daloopa") — see ../data-access.md Section 4.5

Identify:

• Full legal company name
• Primary stock exchange and reporting currency
• Country of domicile and primary operations
• Industry and sub-sector
• Approximate revenue and EBITDA scale (to calibrate comparable deal sizing)

2. Subject Company Financials

Calculate 4 quarters backward from latest_calendar_quarter. Pull from Daloopa:

• Revenue (compute trailing 4Q / LTM total)
• EBITDA (compute trailing 4Q; if not available, use Operating Income + D&A, label "(calc.)")
• Operating Income
• Net Income
• Free Cash Flow (OCF - CapEx, label "(calc.)")

These serve as the reference point for comparing deal multiples — what would an acquirer be paying relative to this company's current financials?

3. Identify Comparable Precedent Transactions

Find 8-15 completed M&A transactions from the last 7-10 years involving target companies comparable to the subject. "Comparable" means:

• Same industry and sub-sector
• Similar business model (e.g., SaaS, semiconductor IP, consumer internet, industrials)
• Roughly comparable scale — within ~0.5x-4x of the subject's revenue
• Completed transactions only (not rumored, not pending)

Research sources in priority order:

1. SEC EDGAR (for US targets) — SC TO, DEFM14A, 8-K filings disclose EV and deal terms
2. Equivalent regulators for non-US targets: FCA (UK), EDINET (Japan), HKEx (Hong Kong), SEDAR+ (Canada), ASX (Australia)
3. Official investor relations press releases from acquirer or target
4. Reputable financial news: Reuters, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times

Use web search to identify deals: "{industry} acquisitions {sub-sector} last 10 years", "{TICKER} comparable M&A transactions", "{sector} deal comps precedent transactions".

Do NOT use: finance blogs, Yahoo Finance editorial, Benzinga, Seeking Alpha, Motley Fool, Zacks, TipRanks, StockTwits, Reddit, anonymous wiki contributions, or aggregators without a traceable primary source (see ../data-access.md Section 2.5).

For each transaction, capture:

• Announcement date
• Acquirer name
• Target name
• Transaction Enterprise Value
• Deal consideration (All Cash / All Stock / Cash + Stock)
• Source (press release URL, SEC filing, or regulatory filing)

4. Source Target Financials via Daloopa

For each target company in the precedent transactions table, source LTM Revenue and EBITDA from Daloopa:

1. Look up the target using discover_companies with the target's ticker or name
2. Find relevant series using discover_company_series with keywords ["revenue", "EBITDA"] and the appropriate period (the last complete fiscal year before the deal announcement)
3. Pull the data using get_company_fundamentals with the discovered series IDs
4. For EBITDA, look for series containing "Adjusted EBITDA", "EBITDA", or fall back to "Operating Income" + D&A
5. If a target is not in Daloopa (e.g., pre-IPO targets, private companies), fall back to SEC filings, press releases, or regulatory filings

Daloopa is the primary source. Only fall back to other sources when a target is genuinely unavailable in the database.

5. Compute Deal Multiples

For each transaction where both EV and financials are available:

• EV/Revenue = Transaction EV ÷ LTM Revenue
• EV/EBITDA = Transaction EV ÷ LTM EBITDA
• Round to one decimal, append "x"
• If a figure cannot be sourced, mark as N/A — do not estimate

Compute summary statistics (excluding N/A values):

• 75th Percentile
• Average (bold)
• Median (bold)
• 25th Percentile

If fewer than 3 valid data points exist for a multiple, note that the statistic is not meaningful.