A "dot com" start-up had a great concept, a personalized music search engine, and a talented operating team, but they lacked a business plan and financing capability. In less than four months, a CFO Connection consultant was able to help the company raise $5.5 million by developing an attainable revenue model that he presented to venture capitalists. The financing allowed the company to staff and grow the business, begin attracting traffic to their new web site and form strategic alliances.
As CFO of a biotech company without sales and cash burn rate of $1.5 million per month - less than nine months of cash on hand, the CFO Connection consultant heard from the investment bankers that a public financing could not be done. After one-on-one meetings with each of the investment bankers, they underwrote a public deal. The CFO Connection consultant coordinated the completion of the S1, the investor presentation and road show. Within four months after he was hired, the company raised $45 million under difficult market conditions and doubled the number of security analysts who covered the stock.
A high-growth, Internet companyís CFO left unexpectedly 45 days before a major mezzanine venture capital funding was to close, and without having closed the prior yearís audit (a requirement for funding). Within 10 days after joining the company, the CFO Connection consultant was able to complete the audit and business plan and prepare the necessary financial presentation. He helped make the presentation to selected venture capitalists during the next 30 days. The CFO Connection consultant closed the $20 million in international venture fundingñfive days early and over-subscribed.
This e-commerce company needed a resale certificate prior to going live. Due to the lack of foresight of the controller the Company was told that a $20,000 deposit would be necessary. We reduced the amount to $1,200 by meeting with representative of the State of California and revising the revenue assumptions to more closely reflect the fact that we had not actually yet sold a product.
When we first came on board to this client the CEO constantly complained that the projections were extremely difficult to understand and perhaps more troubling was that the cash balance seemed to vary everyday by a few hundred thousand dollars. We came in and created the organizational structure and one-page statements that were easy to read and understand.
A $100 million multinational hard disk drive manufacturer need to improve its inventory controls and raise capital to fund its growth. Their CFO had not been successful in either category. A CFO Connection consultant was given the assignment. Within six months he had implemented a new inventory control system in each of the company's three international plants, reducing inventory by 15% and manufacturing costs by 8%. During this period, our consultant determined that the company could not do a U.S. IPO at that time. He devised and implemented a plan to take the company public in Taiwan first, then a U.S. IPO would be possible. First, he produced an investor relations program in Taiwan by selling a minority interest in the company's Taiwan subsidiary to Taiwanese investors, raising $50 million and creating strong interest in the company and its technology. Second, he led the Taiwan IPO for the company raising an additional $50 million. Third, with a significant war chest he was able to lead a U.S. investor relations program that resulted in the company's IPO in the U.S.
Our first project at this enterprise software company was to review the capitalization table and stock option ledger. We found that the CEO had been sending incorrect information to an inaccurate schedule of investors. We corrected the schedules and setup a reconciliation procedure to avoid future errors.
This biomedical client was paying to insure something that could never possibly be recovered. The business interruption for this research and development company was based on income. We modified the insurance to include expenses so that in the event of a fire or other interruption the Company would have a few months to cover operating expenses.
