Impacts assessment and strategic risk and financial recommendations help higher education institutions successfully merge into productive combined organization

Our client’s need

An organization facing financial challenges sought to be merged into a larger four-year institution. The CFO and board of the four-year institution requested an independent third-party assessment to evaluate the impacts and challenges of agreeing to the merger.

Baker Tilly solution

We reviewed a full set of financial ratios and other key performance indicators and outlined likely impacts to the four-year institution’s fiscal position if merged, rerunning all fiscal metrics from combined financial reports. Additionally, we provided an assessment of required changes in operations and organizational staffing, and evaluated the potential of those changes on the organization’s financial picture for use in preparing the combined estimated fiscal performance. Our review also included considerations such as options for liquidating certain capital assets and required facility utilization modifications to warrant the carrying costs.

Results achieved

Our recommendations provided the baseline for the four-year institution to determine that the merger would be beneficial, provided crucial information to outline key parameters of the deal and timelines for critical actions affecting fiscal position. The institutions have been a combined entity for over two years now, have implemented many organization structure modifications, embraced shared financials and are moving forward on capital asset liquidation. Additionally, our work has provided the governing body with the dashboard metrics required to assess progress and ask questions critical to ensuring a positive fiscal course.

For more information on this topic, or to learn how Baker Tilly specialists can help, contact our team.