Pinnacle Foods Group, LLC
Time was of the essence when Pinnacle Foods decided it would offer itself for sale.
“Intralinks allowed us to capitalize on market conditions and achieve the best possible price for our company."
– Kelley Maggs, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Pinnacle Foods Group, LLC
The company turned to Intralinks® to build a massive online dealroom in only one week. Buyers liked what they saw, and in a short time a major private equity group acquired Pinnacle for $2.16 billion.
The Situation
In December 2006, Pinnacle Foods, a company known for acquiring and re-energizing such brands as Duncan Hines® and Aunt Jemima®, was considering selling itself. In order to capitalize on favorable financing market conditions, senior leadership had given the deal team just one week to prepare for buyers’ due diligence.
The Problem
Pinnacle had a tight timeline and an enormous amount of information to make available for potential buyers. The deal team knew that a virtual dealroom, rather than a traditional paper dataroom, was the only way to go.
The Implications
To minimize the time frame of each round of bidding, the virtual dealroom had to be user-friendly. Security was also of paramount importance. Pinnacle needed to share highly confidential financial and operational information without the security concerns inherent in paper datarooms and email.
The Solution
After thoroughly vetting Intralinks’ product and service organization, the Pinnacle team was convinced that Intralinks had the ability to build out the dealroom quickly and help successfully manage the due diligence process. Within the week, Intralinks had scanned, organized and uploaded more than 24,000 documents to Intralinks ExchangesTM. By the time the deal was successfully completed, Pinnacle had made 30,000 documents available to potential suitors.
The Result
Despite the massive amount of documents and the number of advisors involved, Pinnacle’s suitors were able to complete most of their due diligence in just one month. In February 2007, the company announced its sale to a major private equity firm. The quick turnaround from, the start of due diligence to the deal closing, beat the company’s aggressive timeline.
The Benefit
During the process, prospective buyers generated numerous repeat questions and requests for additional information. Pinnacle used Intralinks to notify all authorized parties when responding, thus dramatically reducing the amount of time required to disseminate information and limiting the number of repetitious questions. The ability to quickly and securely make data available to multiple parties enabled the team to keep the due diligence process moving.
