A brand valuation adds significant benefit to brands in mergers and acquisitions. An Intangible Business opportunity evaluation based on brand value identifies suitable targets to buy, sell or merge with. It can also highlight possible joint venture partners. Valuing the brands of your own business or those of a target's prior to M&A activity can be beneficial. Intangible Business identifies and quantifies such benefits including economies of scale, synergies, portfolio effect and the competitive advantage a union would create.
Brand valuation methodologies from Intangible Business are used to identify underperforming businesses and intangible assets. Intangible Business maps the competitive market and carries out an assessment of the relative strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Intangible Business also advises on suitable new management to put in place to run the business and assets and advises on brand and finance strategy to help turn the business around and extract value.
A risk assessment is also carried out, identifying potential investors' exposure to risk which then enables risk minimisation strategies. Many industries rely on the intangible assets to generate value. Banks, for example, derive a large portion of their value from their customers. Customers can be valued in a similar way to brands and frequently command high valuations. And in FMCG industries, consumers have their relationships with the brand, not their owners and therefore such brands can have high values. Consumers remain impartial to changes of ownership even when new owners are seemingly at odds with the brand values of the incumbent, as in the case of Green & Black's and Body Shop which were bought by Cadbury's and L'Oréal respectively. As so much value is tied up in the value of intangible assets, monitoring this value is essential to guaranteeing a healthy return.