Place students inside a live M&A deal

It is suitable for undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA students studying M&A, corporate finance or negotiation.

No prior knowledge is required, although a basic understanding of M&A is helpful.

Yes. It can be run as an ungraded applied activity or used to support a wider assessment.

Cash gives the Seller immediate and certain consideration but requires the Buyer to fund the payment. Shares allow the Seller to retain exposure to the combined business and can reduce the Buyer’s immediate cash requirement, but they also change risk, ownership and the value realised if the combined company performs differently from expectations. In the simulation, the consideration mix is negotiated alongside earnings, synergies and the multiple, helping students see why headline valuation and economic value are not always the same.

Yes. The financial analysis gives each side a defensible opening position, while the paired Seller and Buyer mandates create structured disagreement over value, synergies, the multiple and consideration. Students must decide which assumptions to defend, where to trade and how to communicate a complete package. A professor can therefore debrief both the quality of the transaction model and the negotiation process, including preparation, questioning, concessions and deal completion.

Approximately 1–2 hours, depending on the stage timings selected by the professor.

Yes. Professors can pause the simulation and resume it during a later session.

Yes. The web-based simulation supports classroom, online, hybrid and homework delivery.

Students participate as either the Seller or the Buyer and negotiate directly with the opposing team.

Three to five students per team is recommended. One Seller team and one Buyer team form each negotiation group.

Minimum is 8 students across two teams. Howvever, for effective competition, we recommend a minimum of 16 students across four teams. There is no maximum capacity.

Seller and Buyer teams do not receive a single prescribed value. They form positions on EBITDA, adjustments, synergies, the valuation multiple and the cash-versus-shares mix, then negotiate the linked effect of those inputs. A concession on one term can be exchanged for movement on another, and the final valuation changes as the package changes. This allows professors to show that M&A value is constructed through assumptions and deal structure, not merely read from a model.

No. The platform provides final transaction terms, valuation outputs and comparative performance information rather than a formal score.

Professors can review each team’s assumptions, final terms, valuation, consideration mix and comparative outcome. No individual performance score is generated.

Professors can use the Setup and Facilitation guide, Teaching Notes and Gameflow Diagram, or book a walkthrough with Finsimco.

Yes. The purpose is not to reward agreement at any price. If the available terms fall outside a team’s evidence-based position or transfer too much value to the counterparty, refusing to finalise can be a rational outcome. Professors should review the modelling, arguments, concessions attempted and the team’s reservation point. A completed deal with weak terms should not automatically be assessed more favourably than a disciplined no-deal outcome.