For Deal Advisers and Bankers
The Weeks a Buyer Spends Proving the Numbers Are Real
Those weeks come out of your process, and they cost your client leverage rather than fees. We take most of them off the table: the diligence package built before the first request list arrives, and somebody answering the second one while the founder runs the company.
What Actually Slows a Process Down
Rarely the price, and rarely the lawyers. It is the two weeks after the first request list, when it turns out the monthly numbers were never closed the way a buyer expects, the add-backs cannot be evidenced, and the only person who can answer is the founder — who now spends their week in a data room instead of running the business a buyer is valuing.
Every one of those days is leverage moving across the table. A buyer who is waiting is a buyer finding reasons, and a founder who is distracted is a company whose current-month numbers get worse during diligence, which is the one thing a process cannot afford.
The first request list, answered
What Your Client Would Have Ready
- An exit-readiness review: what a buyer's diligence team will ask for, what is missing, and what it would take — in writing, early enough to fix it.
- The diligence package: statements, trial balance, ledger detail, agings, reconciliations, fixed assets, the journal listing and the evidence behind them, built once and kept current.
- Your own quality-of-earnings analysis, prepared before the buyer's: trailing-twelve-month earnings normalized for one-time items, a net-debt bridge, working capital, customer concentration and related parties.
- Data-room preparation, with each document filed under the question it answers.
- Deal Support while the process runs: the request list answered, the second list after the first, and the March numbers again in June.
The client-facing version of that list is our Selling Your Company page, and what it costs is published — including a Gap Review that is free for a limited time, through December 31, 2026. It is the cheapest way to find out whether a company you are about to take to market is ready.
What goes into Selling Your Company, and who does it at each posture
| The work | Review | With You | For You |
|---|---|---|---|
| Write down what a buyer's diligence team will ask for, what is missing, and what it would take | Us | Us | Us |
| Build the diligence package and keep it current: statements, trial balance, ledger detail, agings, reconciliations, fixed assets, the journal listing | You | Us | Us |
| Prepare your own quality-of-earnings analysis: trailing-twelve-month earnings, the net-debt bridge, working capital, customer concentration, related parties | You | Us | Us |
| Fetch the evidence and the documents | You | You | Us |
| File each document in the data room under the question it answers | You | Us | Us |
| Answer the request list while the process runs, and the second list after the first | You | Us | Us |
| Speak to the buyer's analysts | You | You | Us, as their point of contact |
| Approve what goes out; what reaches the buyer is what your management has signed off | You | You | You |
The final sign-off is your management’s on every posture; we never sign off on the books or on any engagement.
What We Do Not Do
We are not the adviser, the valuer, or the buyer's accountant
We do not value the company, and the buyer’s quality-of-earnings work is its own provider’s — the analysis we prepare is your client’s, before it starts, so it finds what it needs rather than reconstructing it. We do not perform an audit, a review or a compilation either; we get a company ready for those and support it through them.
We are not a broker and we take no share of a transaction. Our fee is the same whether the deal closes at the top of the range or does not happen, which is the only position from which we can tell a client their numbers are not ready.
We also have no view on whether your client should sell, to whom, or at what price. That is your work, and a preparer with an opinion about the deal is a preparer whose numbers you have to second-guess.
For a Lender Rather Than a Buyer
The recurring version: a covenant package that arrives late
The recurring version of the same problem is a covenant package that arrives late and needs three follow-up questions. That is Stakeholder Reporting: the statements and agings your credit team asks for, with the compliance and borrowing-base certificates computed and checked before an officer signs them, on your calendar rather than the borrower’s. A borrower whose reporting is boring is a borrower whose annual review takes an afternoon.
If You Have a Client Who Is Not Ready
Tell us when the process starts and what the first request list will look like, and we will tell you honestly whether the company can be ready for it. If they cannot, you will hear that now rather than in week three — which is the answer that protects your fee as well as their price.
We do not pay for referrals, and on a transaction that is more than a preference: a payment tied to a deal is regulated territory we have no business being in. What we will do is keep you informed on a client you sent, to whatever extent they permit, and say plainly when the honest answer is that they need somebody else.
The first conversation is a look at your books and an honest answer about whether we are the right firm.