Solutions / Due Diligence & Research / M&A Research
M&A Research
The best acquisitions are usually the ones not currently for sale. Finding them is a research problem before it is a banking problem.
Beyond the banked listSystematic identification that reaches companies not already running a process.
Who else is biddingLikely competing acquirers, what they have paid before, and what would justify them outbidding you.
Benchmarked transactionsComparable deals with multiples, structure and rationale, assembled into a reference set.
In simple terms
You tell us your acquisition criteria. We find the companies that fit, including those not currently for sale, and give you the market and transaction context around them.
What M&A Research is. M&A research covers target screening and identification, acquirer mapping, market consolidation analysis and transaction benchmarking, built to your strategic criteria rather than to a banker's existing list.
What makes this different. A review that always supports the transaction is comfort, not diligence. Ours reports what it finds, including the findings that change the price or stop the deal.
What the service covers
These are the areas we work across, such as the ones below. We combine them in the proportion your question needs, and we tell you which ones your question does not need.
Target screening
Systematic identification against your strategic and financial criteria, reaching beyond companies already in a process.
Acquirer mapping
Who else is active, what they have paid before, and what strategic logic would justify them outbidding you.
Consolidation analysis
Market structure, transaction volume and the direction of travel, which sets whether speed or discipline matters more.
Transaction benchmarking
Comparable deals with multiples, structure and disclosed rationale, assembled into a defensible reference set.
Questions this answers
If something like this is on your agenda, the engagement is already half scoped.
- Which companies fit our acquisition criteria, including the ones not for sale?
- Who else is likely bidding, and what can they pay?
- What have comparable assets actually traded for?
- Is this market consolidating, and are we early or late?
- Which of these targets would actually integrate?
How you can use this
A few of the situations where this service does real work.
Building a target list
You have criteria and no pipeline of candidates.
Understanding the competition
You need to know who else would want this asset.
Setting a price expectation
You need evidence for what comparable assets trade at.
Judging consolidation timing
The market is consolidating and you may be early or late.
What changes for your business
The practical difference between running on this and running on what you have now, such as the following.
You price the risk instead of discovering it
Issues found in your own diligence are negotiable. Issues found in the other side's are deductions.
You spend diligence budget in the right order
A fast screen surfaces deal-stoppers before you commit to full scope on an asset that will not clear.
Committee papers stand up
Findings are evidenced, severity-rated and structured the way an investment committee expects to receive them.
You get the uncomfortable findings too
A review that only supports the deal is comfort, not diligence. Ours reports what it finds.
Valuation rests on tested assumptions
The parts of the model carrying the valuation are identified and tested separately, rather than accepted as a set.
You can act on it after close
Findings come with commercial consequence and owner, so the first hundred days start from something concrete.
Who this is for
Roles that commission this work most often include those below. Each asks a different question and gets a different cut of the same evidence.
Investors and deal teams
Does the investment case hold under independent testing?
Findings with severity, evidence and commercial consequence, in a format an investment committee accepts.
Corporate development
Are we buying what we think we are buying?
Independent assessment of market position, customers and growth assumptions, including the uncomfortable parts.
Finance and CFO teams
Are these numbers defensible?
Reconstructed and normalised financials with the estimation method stated wherever disclosure runs out.
Risk and compliance leadership
What are we inheriting that we have not priced?
Regulatory, environmental and governance exposure with cost and timing attached.
Founders and vendors preparing to sell
What will a buyer find that we have not addressed?
The issues a buyer's adviser will raise, ranked by likely price impact and whether they can still be fixed.
Typical clients
How we work
The third step is the one that makes the output usable, and it is the one most work of this kind skips.
Understand the decision
We start from the decision the work supports: proceed, reprice, or walk. That decides what has to be proven and to what standard.
Gather and test independently
Market, customer and financial evidence gathered directly, then tested against what management has represented.
Read it for your position
What matters depends on your hold period, your thesis and your risk appetite. The same finding is fatal for one buyer and immaterial to another.
Report to committee standard
Findings with severity, evidence and commercial consequence, structured the way an investment committee expects to receive them.
What you receive
Diligence report structured to investment committee standard
Findings register with severityevidence and commercial consequence
Financial or commercial model with scenarios
Management presentation and a live question session
Access to Phi, our AI research platformincluded
Every engagement comes with access to Phi. Ask questions of your own findings in plain language, pull the evidence behind any number, and keep querying long after the work is delivered. Your team gets the working intelligence, not just the document.
Open PhiWays to start
Tell us the decision and the date it has to be made by. We will recommend the smallest engagement that gets you there.
Red-flag review
A fast screen surfacing the issues that would stop a deal, before you spend more.
Full diligence
Complete commercial, financial or operational review to committee standard.
Portfolio monitoring
Continuous watch on holdings, with alerts on material change.
Common questions
Do you approach targets?
No. We identify and profile; approach and negotiation stay with you or your advisers. We can prepare the approach brief.
How broad should a screen be?
Broad first, then narrowed on evidence. Screens that start narrow tend to reproduce the list you already had.
Who owns the work?
You do. It is exclusive to you, it is not resold, and working files are handed over unlocked.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes, before the first conversation if you prefer.
Tell us the decision you are facing
Send us the question, the context and your timeline. You get back a recommended first step, what evidence it needs, and what it costs. Not a capability deck.