How to Build a Deal Model That Beats PE on Price

How to Build a Deal Model That Beats PE on Price

July 9, 2026 · 53 min · Episode 423

About this episode

Jeremy Segal discusses how to build a deal model that effectively competes with private equity on price.

Jeremy Segal, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS) Buyers who mistake a high LOI bid for a winning strategy are easy prey for sellers who know the growth equity playbook. Jeremy Segal's position: precision at the LOI stage is a stronger differentiator than price. Jeremy Segal is EVP of Corporate Development at Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS), a publicly traded software company that has nearly doubled revenue through M&A, from under $400 million to nearly $1 billion. He has closed roughly 50 acquisitions across his career at Progress, LogMeIn, and Akamai. How do you build a cost-optimization model before LOI for lines you know you can execute? How do you win a competitive process against PE without the highest headline number? When a seller restricts access during the announce-to-close window, how do you decide whether to escalate or walk? And how do you handle a workforce that expected an IPO and got an acquisition instead? Jeremy answers each one. What You'll Learn Building a pre-LOI cost optimization model on what you can actually execute How to use existing infrastructure to outbid PE on price Escalating diligence friction before it kills a…

People in this episode

Host: Kison Patel

Guest: Jeremy Segal

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Progress, LogMeIn, Akamai, NASDAQ: PRGS

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