WHAT WE BELIEVE

1. We are neither an intermediate, nor a broker. Our loyalty is to the client's interests, not to our own. Many clients retain us for a specific mission only, But we always act as if we were aiming at a long term relationship.

2. Our client can dismiss us with a 30 day notice, the month in progress being the last due, except in cases where the nature of the mission itself compels us to commit means and resources for a specific duration, for which a straight fee has been agreed upon.

3. We will tell our client why an unexpected element (trend reversal, new competitor, change in tax law, or simply false assumption) means that the project we are working on cannot succeed and must be reoriented or abandoned. This may sound obvious, but may be difficult to assess.

4. We are in business of industrial intelligence: we may attempt, for our client, to find confidential information on competition directly or through third parties. When we do that, we always a) make true statements b) specify if our statement, while true, is incomplete c) volunteer an information exchange in which we try to compensate the other party with generally valuable data (on market, on technology, on trends), insofar as it does not hurt our client's interest. If dealing with a competitor, we try to establish or maintain a climate of courtesy and mutual respect. We believe indeed that, in the machinery business, one may lose clients, suppliers, employees, stockholders, but one never loses competitors: they only become tougher with age. Our clients treat their competitors as friends with whom you play Poker: you can remain friends without showing your cards, and you never know when this friendship will help both of you…

5. We believe that our client should follow a clear strategy and have it reassessed at least once a year. A strategy is a long term objective, plus a pattern of scenarios and policies, aiming at building and maintaining competitive advantages. A strategy is a permanent guideline to check assumptions and premises, and to verify if we were right, and why. A strategy is therefore the foundation of a competitive business. We are strategists.

6. "On a sinking ship, there is a booming market for lifeboats": We believe that, in any industry, corporate fitness is more important than market attractiveness. If your firm is ideally fitted to compete in your market, then you have truly become the leader and have succeeded to make the market very unattractive to others. This situation, as illustrated by Boeing, Kodak, Michelin, Caterpillar, Sony, can last for a very long time. If, on the contrary, you are the hundredth entry in the latest "gold rush" (genetic engineering, cellular telephones, diet fast foods, ...) remember that in the real gold rush in Alaska, the only entrant who was making safe money was the trader selling rotten eggs to the gold diggers: he had a unique market...

7. We believe that two parties trying to make a deal together should negotiate, as Jean Monnet used to say, "on the same side of the table". We always leave issues such as: price of acquisition; supermajority clauses; options to buy back and right of first refusals; and other antagonistic questions, for the end. We lead a negotiation by analyzing and assessing what the combined resources can build if each side contributes with whatever is needed of its available resources. From that business assessment we deduce all other specific agreements.