Partner Before You Buy: The Pre-Acquisition Strategy Corp Dev Teams Skip

Tomer Stavitsky's best acquisitions didn't start that way. They started as structured, intentional partnerships designed from day one to reach a deal. Tomer Stavitsky, SVP and Chief Corporate Development Officer at Omnicell (NASDAQ: OMCL), has run corporate development across pharma, medical devices, synthetic biology, and healthcare tech. In this episode, he breaks down the partner-first approach: a framework for acquiring companies that aren't ready to be acquired. He covers how to handle PE-owned targets mid-hold, how to structure proof-of-concept partnerships with acquisition milestones built in, how to negotiate and protect a right of first refusal, and how to manage the three-way stakeholder dynamic between the target company, the PE owner, and your own leadership. Plus, he talks a bout the moment his right of first refusal got tested by a competitive bid, and how it was resolved. If you're working through a partner-first deal, the M&A Science membership has frameworks and tools built for exactly this kind of situation. Learn more at https://www.mascience.com/membership. What's covered in this episode: [00:00:00] Introduction: Tomer Stavitsky's Background and the End-to-End Corp Dev View [00:06:39] Building or Rebuilding a Corp Dev Function [00:19:02] What Is the Partner-First Approach and When Does It Apply [00:25:38] Mapping the Market and Deciding Who Stays on the Watch List [00:30:12] Managing Multiple Targets Without Over-Committing [00:34:06] Using Exclusivity as a Strategic and Protective Tool [00:43:41] Managing the Three-Party Dynamic: Target Leadership, PE Owner, and Your Own Org [00:48:05] The Real Story: How a Partnership Became an Acquisition (Including the Competitive ROFR Moment) [00:53:43] The Most Common Mistake in Converting a Partnership to an Acquisition [00:56:11] Applying Partner-First to AI-Era Targets [01:02:19] What's the Craziest Thing You've Seen in M&A? _______________________________ This episode is sponsored by DealRoom DealRoom's Buyer-Led M&A™ Summit is Back! Join me at the summit on May 20, a free virtual event hosted by DealRoom covering AI, pipeline, diligence, and integration across the deal lifecycle. Sessions run 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM ET. Register here: https://hubs.ly/Q0496h-s0 _______________________________ Links: M&A Science Website: https://www.mascience.com DealPilot: https://www.mascience.com/intelligenc... Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tjehY4... __________________________________________________________ M&A Science is the #1 podcast for M&A tips, techniques, and strategies for success. We bring you behind-the-scenes stories and proven techniques of real-life M&A deals.