Negotiating Cross Border M&A

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Look out for more M and A Science interviews this is a conversation with Jake Lynn, Head of Corporate Development at Zendet. One of his main roles is to help Zendeck grow into new markets and he spent a lot of time doing M and A in Southeast Asia. In this interview we talked about best practices when negotiating cross border M and A. We talked about cross border M and A language barriers, managing cultural differences during negotiations, and the integration approach to cross border M and A. This episode is sponsored by Deal Room. In the world of M and A, speed, efficiency and collaboration are key. The AZEC company faced similar to many outdated methods led to time consuming manual processes that hinder deal potential and they changed the game with Deal Room, a modern end to end M and A solution. With Deal Room, AZ centralized collaboration, got real time results and eliminated excess admin tasks help. Deals are closed faster, onboarding is five times faster and they save 93,000 annually. Don't let outdated methods slow down your M and A success. Join the AZ Company and hundreds of others Revolutionize your M and A process with Deal Room, the modern M and A solution. Learn more at dealroom. That's dealroom.net I'm Kisan Patel and you're listening to M and A Science where.

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Joining me today is Jake Lynn, Head of Corporate Development at Zendet, a payment infrastructure company serving Southeast Asia. Today we're going to talk about negotiating cross border deals in M and A. Jake, how you doing today?

Good, Kisan, how are you doing?

Pretty good, I know. Fortunately we just missed each other. I'm here in Singapore and you had to travel out of the country, but I'm glad we got opportunity to make this conversation happen and they're still interested in learning a lot of things about doing these cross border deals. Maybe we can kick things off with a background.

I currently lead our corporate development team as Zendit. You can think of us, for those who aren't familiar, we're probably the most similar to like a striper adyen out in other parts of the world. We are a series D startup. We raised $300 million back in 2022. We're backed by several Silicon Valley names as well. One of my key roles since coming over to Zenit is to really help grow into new markets and help them make inorganic decisions that can allow us to either build new product lines, grow into new markets and really just make us that leading infrastructure business that helps serve the underbanked, the large population here that really needs that digital uplift. Prior to that, I was living in the States as a tech investment banker, having started my career at V of A Merrill lynch covering mainly banking technology and fintech. More specifically. My journey over to this part of the world was really just a combination of excitement as well as an opportunity to really grow with a really fast growing region that I think is pretty much China 20 years ago.

That's awesome. That's a pretty big shift. You were in the, what was the Bay Area or.

I was in the Bay Area, yeah. I was actually in Soma, which is a few blocks away from the Uber headquarters. It was an interesting time because it happened during COVID We were all working remotely at that point in time. I was just thinking this was an interesting company. I've always wanted to try the startup experience. I think as an investment banker, one of the things that we do constantly is we assist companies. We create and craft stories for them, ultimately help them realize a successful exit, whether that's a raise or some kind of M and a situation. And to be able to do that for one company specifically and really hone down and understand the needs and business lines of that specific company is quite rewarding because what you do is immediately reflected in the growth of that business.

No ties to Singapore? Like you didn't previously live there or anything?

Yeah, I have no roots here. It was a little bit of a risk per se. Singapore is also the safest country to choose amongst all the countries in this part of the world. It's a very cosmopolitan. English is predominantly spoken over here and it's easy to navigate any like big.

Changes with that in terms of moving or something that you really miss about home.

This is going to probably sound very American, but I do miss American beef. So in Singapore a lot of things are imported. I believe there's a really strong economic partnership with Australia. So a lot of the imported goods come from Australia. Australian beef that doesn't taste the same. It's like grass fed versus grain fed and corn fed. Over in the States cherries are like $20 box over here. It's ridiculous. People here, they love durians and durians is like super cheap relative to what you would get overseas. And then all the tropical fruits are here are like, are pretty, pretty, pretty cheap. So it's an interesting adjustment. Things I miss most about home is probably the food. Any certain things you're used to growing up, all of a sudden they just don't have it.

Good burger and fries.

Yeah.

In terms of doing these cross border deals, what is the biggest challenge?

Unlike the west where much of the deal making is very institutionalized and counterparties are generally pretty savvy, Southeast Asia is still a little bit rough on the edges. So terminologies like for instance an earnout or reps and warranties, things that you would commonly see over here in the States and wouldn't be much debate in terms of understanding what they are generally more unfamiliar over here. Particularly if you're dealing with these smaller sized businesses or companies where you know, the person leading that company that we're, we're trying to acquire has not had much deal exposure. I think to put a little bit more Context, in the US middle market M&A is generally companies between 50 million to 200 like the lower end middle market. Whereas in Asia anything above a hundred million is considered quite big. The scale of the businesses, the complexity and just maybe the volume of the types of deals that people have been exposed to here are just not the same as in the States. So instead of using financial jargon to argue or make a statement, it's here you really got to break it down to layman terms and help them understand why this is something that needs to be put into writing essentially.

That's actually really interesting. So would it be lack of standardization that hey, well, don't know and you have to help define that it is.

A little bit of that. Plus different countries will vary. If you're talking to a mega multinational company like you know, the grabs and Tokos of the world, that's a very different story. They've done a ton of M and A, they've been exposed to international bankers, but a lot of the situations that are worked with are companies that never hired investment banker before or they've never really gone through a process. And to them, if you think about even in the states, if you meet someone who just hasn't been exposed to the finance industry and you talk about earnouts or reps and warranties, they're going to be quite clueless. I think that's what we're dealing with. But with companies of obviously a bigger quantum.

Okay, interesting. It's not like in the US you have a whole private equity ecosystem and you're running into folks that are pretty seasoned at doing these deals where here you don't even see that volume of deals. A lot of them are going to be more first time doing these type of transactions.

It depends. A lot of the deals that I've worked with are with those that weren't sponsor backed up or maybe perhaps they hired a local investment banker or advisor. So local being domestically incorporated in that country where they may not have been exposed to like the institutional training that someone will get at like a bulge bracket from those like there are certain nuances that is a part education, part negotiating and just making sure that they get what you're trying to ask for.

They got two situations. You got one where they don't have a banker, like one. How do you navigate that? Then we could talk about like playing with the local bankers, which probably isn't.

Experience of its own if they don't have a banker. You think about it like trying to buy a business from someone who really just say hey, I think my business is worth this much because this really up and coming company that just made a news article sold it for this much. And there's no rationale behind hey, what is the fundamentals of your business here? Your financials might be way off. There's a lot of things you have to consider assumptions. It becomes I just want the same exit sort of mentality. That's probably more on when you're talking about valuation, if you're talking about hiring lawyers to actually get like a purchase agreement done, I think putting money in an escrow or certain clauses that you want to instill that for protection on both sides. They just might not see the need for such complexity. It's just a matter of trying to explain that to them that makes sense.

And then when they do have representation it's local banker. What are the differences or how do you manage that?

One example is in the US a lot of M and A transactions there companies always buy reps and warranties, insurance like to protect just in case something they represent warrant made actually be misstated. That's actually very rare. Very uncommon over in this part of the world. I remember there was one situation where we were exploring that even the third party consultants that we've spoken to are like, wow, this is not very common. So they actually had to bring someone from the States to help look into that situation. That's just one example of just certain things that we do over here. Over here. Being stateside is probably not as common in how we do things, but I do think that over time, like, you're probably going to see more and more consolidation of mindset and views. As for the world, where it gets smaller.

Yeah. Things become the norm.

Yeah, yeah.

What about like language barrier? Is that ever an issue?

It can be. Generally we all communicate in English or they have to with me if they don't speak Chinese. But I think the challenge can come two ways. One is sometimes they may speak, but it'll be very broken grammatically or the accent will be quite heavy. I almost need someone local to help. Just be there and just be that middle person to help navigate and translate and just make sure nothing gets lost. Probably the best example is if you visit a foreign country and you're trying to communicate to a cab driver. It's like trying to go from point A to point B sometimes. Like that challenge and difficulty and try to convey what you're trying to do. It's. It gets carried forth on deal negotiations too. And even local lawyers that represent them, so called regional lawyers. There's also issues where we were reading a purchase agreement, we're like, this is written exactly the opposite of what we just verbally talked about. It takes a little bit extra work and scrutiny just to make sure that what you convey is actually translated appropriately in writing and that there was ambiguity, double clicking, even triple clicking on what you agreed on and just reputing that in writing just to make sure that both parties understand what was agreed conceptually.

When you say you get a local person sit in, who is it?

I'll usually choose someone who is an employee within Zendit, for instance. Let's just say if it's Indonesia, I'll have either someone from my team who's Indonesian can speak Bahasa to just sit there and help translate or at least help moderate conversations.

Do you have a similar approach when you work with lawyers? Do you find somebody local speaks language.

With lawyers, it's a little bit different. Once you bring lawyers into any conversation, it just becomes very rigid and formal. And even if they're. If you ask, your role is to help you moderate. The other side won't be comfortable with a lawyer in the room. Whereas if you bring internal, either someone from your deal team or someone who's representing, like the post merger side, it's a lot more comfortable to the other party.

Oh, that makes sense. Early on. Keep it pretty simple. Keep it really.

Otherwise I think they'll be cautious of what everything they say.

Is there a point though, when you do bring the lawyers in and.

Oh yeah, no, definitely. A lot of times lawyers are going to be lawyers anywhere you go. You got the commercial side done and then there'll be a legal side that just ends up being supposedly a big deal breaker. And instead of trying to convey that to the other side yourself, it just makes more sense to bring a lawyer on board and then they may bring theirs and hash it out.

That's fair enough. And it's like working with any deal and dealing with attorneys. How about cultural differences? How does it really affect negotiations?

Cultural differences? There's a combination of a few things. But the starkest contrast I've noticed since coming over to Asia was the honorifics are pretty big over here, meaning in the States you can call your father in law by his first name and it'd be totally cool. And I think people who are older and more senior, I don't think people have a certain way of addressing them. But a good number of countries here will actually attach like a kind of equivalent to Mr. Or Ms. Before the name. Especially they're older. So like in Indonesia it's like POC for men and then BOO for older women. And then in Thailand it'd be like kum. And then in Philippines, if they're like a lawyer or has some kind of professional certification, probably call them like attorney so and so or it's very interesting, a little bit foreign, especially if you grew up on stateside. Certain countries probably place a lot more on giving face to the other party. One thing I've noticed just in interactions is that to more junior folks, when they speak, it's super humble. I wonder if humble is the right word. But they give a lot of difference to the older person across the table or just even within organizations. And in some extent it feels a little exaggerated just coming from statesman, the way you just treat everyone pretty colloquially when it comes to even negotiating. If you're coming from the States, you're not shy to just be direct and just force your view because that's how you think it should be. Whereas over there it might not necessarily work because sometimes people don't want to see you to be too confrontational. They might not like that even if what you say is right, they just stop listening to what you're saying and more to the emotional aspect of it, irrational aspect of it. And so you really got to have to navigate conversations by just ensuring that there is this, I don't want to say probably superficial politeness that that occurs between parties. And you just have to make sure that that's continued to be established. But that, that said, there are times when the other side may blow up and start that one up, but that's a different situation.

So we got key themes like salutation, part, just following the formality, making sure you're being respectful in other little aspects of that kind of people's seniority and things like that. And then this sort of level of directness. How do you manage that though? You're going to look for little clues or sort of read the room to know how direct you can be or when you need to be direct. And I'm curious because I'm a person with little patience. That's what I'm wondering. That's the biggest thing I've theme. I've heard of doing these cross floor deals like you need more patience. I'm like, I don't have that patience. How am I supposed to manage this? I want to get, I don't want to like wait longer than I need to.

So the good news is that we have our stereotypes with them. They have the same bus and you just gotta play to your stereotype and it helps a lot.

Call it out and say, hey, listen guys, I'm call it out. I call it out patience. This is how I do things here. I'm gonna get a letter of intent to you by the end of the day.

Yeah, there are times where, look, I may look Asian to you, but culturally I don't think like, like the way we work things. I prefer to be direct and efficient. I just be straight to the point and I'll just say it up front. I was like, look, that's my style. But if you have a different way of going about it, let me know. Which is forcing them to say, hey, I like. If they say I don't want to be direct and be indirect, and that's almost kicking themselves in the foot a little bit. Because when you ask a question like that, it's hard to say, hey, I'd rather you not be direct. Right. I'm negotiating the situation. That kind of helps. And obviously I try to make sure that. I think when I joined it was, it was during COVID where a lot of our Work had to be remote, but whenever I get the opportunity, I always try to meet that person in person. It helps soften the edges a little bit. And if they drink, that's that works even better. You try to do whatever you can outside of the formality of it just to build that trust and relationship.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I like the being up front and just prefacing things. So this is how we act or move on deals. Do you ever get maybe alignment on timeframes? Is that something you'd actually click into level of detail around? I'm just wondering because if you say it, but then there's still a vague interpretation of what that means to say. Hey, I like to move fast. I'm pretty direct versus like hey, here's like a timeframe, you know, once we get this information, we'd probably turn loi in this many days and then from there loi to close we're looking at this. I don't know, is there other little more details that you clicked into or do you just keep it pretty general?

Most of my experience is beyond the buy side, so we're mostly acquiring or investing from our side. We generally move pretty quick. Like our teams are pretty lean and we can make a decision pretty quickly, but there are times when we're doing due diligence and whatnot and they may need more time to put their materials together, which is actually quite common in the US too, especially if you're dealing with like middle market companies. Like they just don't have all their stuff stuff together. And I want to say time is not necessarily a big topic because either at least I've been fortunate probably because all the deals I've worked with, they've been pretty prompt in giving materials and if anything it's their side who's actually chasing us on some certain topics. Because some of the companies that we deal with are probably small enough where we're dealing directly with the founder or their key decision maker. Whereas at a company like Zendit we have to go for internal ropes to get certain approvals. I would say the challenge there has been more about making sure they understand the expectations that decision making at our firm is not going to be the same as decision making from their shop and that we have to go for certain compliances. There are certain internal protocols that we just got to make sure everything's all tied up, fiddied up before we can actually proceed.

So that makes sense. You're getting at best clarity in terms of I need to get the deal done. Do you have an example of a deal where cultural differences either derailed the deal or almost derailed it.

I don't have a specific example where a deal was derailed because of cultural differences. There's been colorful conversations between parties, namely the other side, where they had a certain expectation of. Of us apparently promising them we would agree to a certain, I guess a commercial term, when in fact what was actually stated was, we'll look into it. But somehow that. That was interpreted as we'll do it, which is not the same thing. We may have said, okay, we hear you. It seems to make sense, but we just need to make sure we understand it and discuss internally from that side their point of view. They may have thought, oh, they thought what we said makes sense and just forgot the part that we caveated. And then that became time wasted to try to go back to the other side and tell them, hey, just we hear you, but that didn't mean we agreed to it. So I think.

I think so. That's the big challenge. The closest I get to wreaking havoc on a deal.

I think so. And then don't use sarcasm ever. They don't understand sarcasm over here.

That's probably my tip of the day. I use a lot of sarcasm.

And I would say that jokes are probably most easily lost in translations. I never joke. There were a few times, and I will give you an example if I recall, where I would be sarcastic internally on my team and they would actually respond very seriously to it. And I was like, oh, man, this just got lost.

Okay, so keep sarcasm at the bar. Don't. Keeping the work environment fair enough, is there? I'm curious, so all these countries you worked with, what countries you've worked with. Did you mention Philippines? Thailand.

I've worked with Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Greater China. It's a combination of countries as well as people from those countries. That ultimately is what matters. What country to person representing. Whichever business we're looking at is hailing from Philippines is probably easiest to work with in terms of language. A lot of Filipinos, they actually have speak quite well, and you can actually. You actually wouldn't even have an issue. Like any American going to the Philippines actually wouldn't have an issue speaking with them. Indonesia would be okay too, but they generally prefer to speak in bahasa. They're more comfortable speaking their native tongue, but you can get by. When you get to countries like Thailand, that's when the accent gets a little bit heavier. Having an intermediary or someone in between to just facilitate conversations helps a lot. Obviously, the Ones that have studied abroad and came back, that's a different story.

If you were to look at the other extreme instead of on the easy side and you gotta name specific countries you could though, that'd be nice of like where does it get tough? Like we just did. I did a podcast interview in Tokyo and oh my God, all the formalities and everything, like the whole business rituals and just the nature of consensus on things. I personally think that's the hardest I've ever heard of. But I'm curious, what's your take on it?

There could be exceptions, but based on the sample size I personally encountered, I would say Thailand might be one of the more challenging ones because they're so loyal to the original relationship person. So that it's a lot of what normally probably works is that someone introduces you to a potential target per se and then we take over, we start having dialogues, we start negotiating and they understand the changes control. Right. But I think at least in that specific instance, I was literally ghosted by email. They didn't want to talk to me directly. We had to actually use the original person who brokered that relationship just to keep that dialogue going. That was a challenging aspect of it because you couldn't transition that relationship over. Whereas with a lot of the other situations I was actually very okay.

Yeah, that's when you got to really dig into paying attention. That's interesting.

If the window's closed, it's hard for you to do much. Actually had to continue to use a mediator which just was one step additional than what we needed to be efficient.

What are best practices? Just you here, you got these different varying situations. But in terms of getting good negotiations, making the process smooth, what have you learned?

Build trust early on. That's important when you are just another face on the other side of the wall. And especially if you sound a lot more eloquent and polished because you came from an English speaking background and you're using English as a tool to communicate, people naturally have a. They become a little bit more defensive. Especially when you're dealing with more local businesses. Meeting them in person and showing them especially what I try is I try to show them that I'm more Asian, that I am Western, just to create that affinity. That helps a lot. Like I said earlier, don't be shy about communicating your communication style. So telling a friend that hey, like if I'm direct, that's I apologies but I can try to be less direct. I say that in a joking way and people generally open up and are a little bit More open or accepting of how you act. But then again, I'll tell you, Kiason, I've been told on deal fronts by actually this person from hailing from Middle east representing another company we've dealt with that he actually prefers to work with us just because of how direct we are. Whereas it's been painful for him dealing with other parties in other regions when the conversation has to be a lot more nuanced and very passive, for lack of better words.

It was funny because I was thinking, you mentioned, I was thinking about even within the US like one of the early deals in my 20s, first time dealing with a New York based company. I didn't like it at first how direct they were, but then after a while I turned around and appreciate it and I absolutely love that about New Yorkers. But it just reminded me of that in terms of tactics of building trust. If you change your English or tone, do you slow down your pace of talking if there's any things like that that you do?

I do slow down and I enunciate my words more clearly. I definitely don't try to do a Russell Peters thing and fake an accent. Except if I'm at a bar with friends, I'll probably do it for kicks. But what I do is if they don't speak Chinese, I'll speak a little bit more slowly and enunciate my words. But if they do speak Mandarin, then even though English is my strong suit, I will speak Mandarin back just to make them feel more comfortable. And then they realize, oh, wow, you speak like a fifth grader. At least we hear each other so that works like it.

Leave the fake accents of the bar. I do the same thing. I got the Indian accent, but it's usually after a couple of cocktails and then it'll come out.

Yeah, yeah, you do. For kicks.

But yeah, I'm not going to just throw it in the media.

You can say, I would love to see that if that ever were the case. That would be hilarious.

I did it one time. I remember the guy was like delivering some food and I was playing like messing around with them and then I switched English. He got very offended about it. I'm like, all right, I'm not gonna, not gonna do that.

I have faked a few Chinatown accents just to see how it worked. It was. But I won't share too much about that right now.

We'll think about the bar when we get together for drinks at some point. The trust is an important part. But when you actually execute on these deals, the most Important part is integrating them. Are there different approaches that you take given cultural differences and things like that when it comes to integrating companies?

No. What we generally do when we look at an asset is that if we are trying to buy the entire operations of the company, meaning we want to retain the staff, we want to retain more than just the license, then we have a underground local team from my firm that actually goes and connects with them. And these are probably we're talking about Indonesia. We have a local team for instance, that will go and connect with the counterparts just to ensure that whether this is something that we can work out with culturally and generally the cultural aspect isn't an issue. But I think beyond just looking at it from a country to country situation, you're going to be looking at it more on just like does it align with the company values?

Yeah, because I was wondering about the whole thing. We like to do things direct, be fast about it, but then when it comes to integration, it's almost the same thing. We want to execute pretty quick on it, but it sounds like it's more about each company's values, culture and looking at how those would actually work together, which I guess is very typical of just integration in general. I don't want to put words in your mouth. You disagree, you're more than welcome to.

I think what you said makes sense. For me personally, I've realized that the harder part is not necessarily cultural from a regional perspective. It's more around whether they have a startup mindset, whether they can move nimble or are they like a mom and pop brick and mortar shot with employees with the same kind of mentality. And that's important. And that transcends border because even the states, like if you're a tech company acquiring like a 20 year old industrials sewage plant, they're going to have very different mindsets.

There's a lot of factors that go into that. What type of industry it is, are they startup oriented culture or not? Can you like teach me negotiations? There's obviously good fundamentals, but I don't know if there's things that are even different when it comes to the real meaty part of negotiations, like the pricing part. I'm always cheap, I'm always trying to get good deals, so I always start off bidding really low.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's very specific to the situation. For us, obviously cash is king and you prefer to give as little cash as you can, but at the same time you want to make sure that you are offering something that is in line with Sort of companies of that similar scope. At the end it might be a combination of just hey, what exactly is your floor? What do you want to make us go forward? And then we work around that and we be creative around it. If perhaps they're asking for a hundred bucks and we think they're worth 70, then maybe we give them 70 and the other 30 is like some kind of earn out where they have to really grow that business to where they say they are. And if they don't, then we don't give them anything. But then you'd give 70 cash using an example. But it could be a combination of cash or share swap. We don't really use debt, just given a nature of who we are as a business. But it will also be cash or stock.

Can you give me an example?

I'm just curious about. I know every industry has different practice around it and every practitioner has different practices around it, but I'm always curious because I'm the same thing. I think early stage company growth, you want to preserve the cash. And then you have these other levers, you have earnouts, you have have them hold paper and then you have the stock use the term stock swap, which is how it converts over when the deal's done. How do you think through that combination and is there a certain ratios that you think of when you present it?

We've tried to figure out internally what our appetite is for the business on a cash basis. If that gap is unbridged and we try to figure out whether we can complete that using stock or we use some other kind of deferred scheme. It's less about reading a whole bunch of relative comparison valuation analysis that your analyst has put in. And you know, I know like investment banks, like do the whole dcf, lbo, public comps, president, transactions, all of that. The actual reality of it is those are just used as reference and just help you get, get a sense of are we, are we somewhat there but like most of the actual decision is less around I want to say these Excel exercises and more around like what was the real value we see in.

The business on the stock part? If we take that apart, like how do you value that? Is it sort of, hey, we look at our last four 9A and and that's what we're putting on the table is value the stock. Because I' curious if I hey, I'm gonna boast this over valuation and then let's do all stock deals and go on a hiring spree. How do you think that through?

I probably can't disclose that, unfortunately, because that might be a little bit more on the confidential side.

Fair enough. Man. You're. This is like fair game. I'm getting free advice. So I, I totally understand. Yeah. And I just didn't know if there's like a general thing, does that open up that, hey, it's for interpretation of what we define the value and that's presented part of it. Or is there like a formula that.

No, I, I think there'll be a valuation or price that we have in mind, and then there may be instances where the other side may have a different view and that just results in the two parties discussing and ironing that out. Right.

So that could be up for negotiation. Is that here's the value that we're looking at in terms of what the stock swap would be.

Yeah. I don't think I can comment too much on how we do it.

Fair enough. But what about just general combinate ratios? When I come back to that, where it's like, hey, and again, I'm trying to play out a scenario. If I'm doing a deal and I want to preserve as much cash as possible, I just want to know where my boundaries are before I look ridiculous. Where it's like, hey, I'm going to give you like 10% cash.

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Look, if you're a public company, it's a lot easier formula. Everything is already, you know, listed. You just do an accretion dilution analysis and then you figure out, like, what you're comfortable with. If a private company, then your stock is. Or your stock is private. And so it'll be based on a certain type of valuation that both parties have to agree on. And I think the benefit of. For a company that will be willing to take an investment from a private business, let's just use Stripe as an example. They were worth what, 95 billion at 1 point. A company that saw Stripes potential a few years ago, before they ever hit that 95, they probably would have thought, okay, if I take private stock from Stripe today, then there's a chance that there'll be strong accretion and then it exits and I benefit even more. So that value to them might be worth a lot more than just cash. Cash is fixed. If you take shares essentially of a company that has high potential and they have high potential just based on street cred, some companies will see the merit of doing that.

Yeah, that's like the interpretation of the future value. That helps. If you had advice to give or somebody doing their first deal, that's A cross border deal. What would you give them?

Observe and just respect the local nuances and just try to really interpret and understand how the other party acts and functions. I think the first meeting usually never comes to much fruition. You need a second or third meeting, kind of really build that initial ground. And then once they open up, once you're able to meet them on a more casual setting, it. It just helps.

Listen and observe. Jake, what's the craziest thing you've seen at M and A?

Yeah, so I can share with you.

It is. Don't name any names or dates, okay? That'll keep both of us out of trouble.

What I will share with you is not from an experience I've had with my current company. I'll share something from the past, so I feel a little bit more safer. But the craziest thing was I was sitting in the board meeting. I was still investment banker and the board members, they happen to be Chinese speaking. The management didn't speak Chinese. So during the board meeting, we were discussing a deal. And then the, the board was like, okay, guys, can you give us a few minutes? This was over a virtual conference because different. They were working off different time zones. They were like, can you give us a few minutes? And then suddenly they started chattering Chinese about the topic. And I happened to be the only Chinese speaker outside of that board team. And they weren't on mute because they, I guess they assumed that nobody understood them. And so I was listening and I, I started by just letting my, my MD know at the time. I was like, hey. I was like, this is what they're saying. And then I pretty much became like an unofficial translator for everybody on the other side. So it essentially became a live translation. And then I was like, oh, this is an interesting setup that I got myself into.

That's funny. That's actually really interesting.

Yeah, that was crazy because there were some colorful remarks made by the board and then obviously there's a reason you speak another language when you're in a certain place. I'm sure I do it with my wife sometimes. I'll like these Chinese I want to trash talk about the person next to me on the bus.

Idiots think they are. Oh my God, that's so funny. Yeah, it's been a great conversation. Jake. I appreciate taking the time, helping me become a better M and a scientist here.

Oh, of course. I thank you for taking time to speak with me as well. It's. It's always interesting to think about the experiences in a more structured manner.

Hey, Those of you still with us, thanks for sticking through this far. This was a fun conversation. Until next time. Here's to the deal.

Foreign.

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