What Buyers Actually See When They Look at Your Company

Ryan Kirby, Partner at Alderman & Company, on What It Actually Takes to Sell an Aerospace & Defense Business

Ryan Kirby is a Partner at Alderman & Company, an investment bank focused exclusively on aerospace and defense M&A. He's spent his career on the sell side, helping owner operators position their companies, find the right buyer, and walk away with the best outcome, not just the highest number.

In this episode, Ryan and Brian get into the real mechanics of selling a business in A&D, and most of it applies well beyond that industry.

What we cover:

• Why customer concentration scares buyers, and how to reframe it (program-level diversification within one large customer can change the story)
• The succession planning problem: why "retiring before you sell" is the cleanest path, and why rolling equity changes the calculus entirely
• The buyer landscape, broken down plainly: independent sponsors, private equity, strategic buyers, and public strategics, and who tends to pay the most (and why)
• Why private equity gets a bad rap from some owners, and the real pros and cons of selling to a buyer who plans to sell again
• The uncomfortable truth about creating "fear" in a buyer to drive up price
• Why some bankers will tell you what you want to hear, and what that actually costs you over a 1-2 year engagement
• Why aerospace and defense M&A is having its busiest stretch on record, and what's driving it across space, defense, commercial, and business aviation
• The folder of inbound buyer emails most owners have sitting in a drawer, and why you should never delete them

Notable stat: One recently public A&D-focused platform reported a pipeline of 1,500 potential deals on their earnings call.

Connect with Ryan: Email: RK@aldermanco.com Phone: 386-866-4864 Website: aldermanco.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-kirby-880875174/