Aon's New Quality of Intellectual Property Solution Helps Companies Realize Full Value of their IP Portfolio

Solution supports M&A and financing transactions

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Nov 10, 2020, 09:00 ET

CHICAGO, Nov. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Aon plc (NYSE: AON), a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions, today announced the launch of its Quality of Intellectual Property (QoIP) Solution that helps companies realize higher transaction value by specifically articulating the quality of the seller's IP portfolio in the M&A and capital markets.

The solution is already available, and was most recently used to support Victory Innovations in its sale of a majority stake to The Carlyle Group.

"Our Quality of Intellectual Property solution and resulting report helps companies articulate and realize the full value of their IP portfolio for M&A or financing transactions," said Lewis Lee, CEO of IP Solutions at Aon. "With QoIP, a deal team can catalogue IP with greater precision, describe its connection to the enterprise's revenue streams and strategy, and benchmark it against competing IP portfolios. We believe this will help sellers better position their company to the marketplace."

Intangible assets today are nearly 85% of the total asset value in the S&P 500. Yet in most transactions, IP-intensive companies fail to effectively articulate the role of their IP as a source of enterprise value, relegating it instead to a confirmatory due diligence item considered in the late stages of the deal, after value and terms have been negotiated. This process gap leads to value leakage for companies of all stages and sizes.

"QoIP solves a real problem for companies that have invested in IP and need to position it as a source of value in the M&A market," said Matt Zimmer, Head of Industrials Investment Banking at William Blair. "Working with Aon, the deal team can quickly develop an IP value narrative tied to the enterprise – all in plain English terms that the market can understand.

"Similar to how Quality of Earnings improves visibility into financial performance and cashflow, QoIP paints a game-changing picture of technology innovation and protection relative to traditional IP disclosure," continued Zimmer. "We believe QoIP is best practice for IP-intensive M&A."

The QoIP solution produces a report that focuses on high-impact themes enabling a company and its advisors to make the IP discussion more tangible in an M&A or capital markets transaction.

The report:

Catalogues the IP portfolio, including patents, trade secrets and trademark / brand assets
Highlights core technologies that are protected by patents and trade secrets
Identifies competitive advantages that are enabled by the IP
Defines IP coverage of existing and future revenue streams
Benchmarks IP coverage and quality against competitor portfolios

"Victory Innovations thanks Aon for their impactful role in our sale process," said Chris Gurreri, CEO of Victory Innovations. "In four weeks, they helped us package years of innovation and IP development into a concise report that augmented our sale process and drove value for shareholders."

QoIP is the latest in a series of ground-breaking offerings Aon has introduced to the market through its IP Solutions, to help clients rethink how they can create, leverage and realize IP value. The solution is designed to more clearly value IP in sale transactions and financing situations alike, including venture capital and private equity investments. QoIP can also help buyers assess IP during due diligence efforts.

Aon's IP Solutions, part of Aon's New Ventures Group (NVG), is a global leader in assessing and valuing IP assets, leveraging a proprietary, industry-defining IP analytics platform. The recent launch of its IP Capital Market Solution, as an example, focused on leveraging IP assets to serve as collateral in an insurance-enabled debt structure for growth capital that avoids dilution.

NVG, which comprises a team of senior leaders, was formed in the fourth quarter of 2018 to help realize the full potential of the Aon United growth strategy. The NVG focuses on the rapid incubation and delivery of new high-impact sources of value for clients.

Learn more about how Aon is continuing to innovate at scale to meet client needs by reading the recently published, "Helping Clients Navigate an Increasingly Complex World."

About Aon
Aon plc (NYSE: AON) is a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Our 50,000 colleagues in 120 countries empower results for clients by using proprietary data and analytics to deliver insights that reduce volatility and improve performance.

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SOURCE Aon plc