Legal & Ownership
Entity standing, beneficial ownership, authority, title, contracts, disputes and transfer restrictions.
DUE DILIGENCE
Diligence is the process of converting claims into evidence.
Due diligence is not a document-collection exercise. Its purpose is to test whether the economic, legal and operating assumptions behind a transaction remain credible when independent evidence is reviewed.
Institutional diligence should be proportionate to the transaction, but the core principle is constant: material risks must be identified before they become closing conditions, financing problems or post-acquisition surprises.
CORE WORKSTREAMS
Different risks require different evidence.
Financial
Revenue quality, margins, working capital, debt, taxes, cash conversion, related parties and off-balance-sheet obligations.
Commercial
Customers, pricing, concentration, competition, market durability, pipeline quality and contract economics.
Operational
Capacity, assets, maintenance, management depth, suppliers, systems, production and key-person dependencies.
Technical & Regulatory
Licences, permits, IP, cybersecurity, environmental obligations and sector-specific technical evidence.
Transaction
Change-of-control, financing conditions, security, warranties, indemnities and post-closing obligations.
DECISION QUALITY
Not every diligence issue is a deal-breaker.
The purpose of diligence is not to prove that a company is perfect. It is to understand risk well enough to price it, allocate it, protect against it or decide not to accept it. Findings may change valuation, financing, governance rights, closing conditions or transaction structure.
Where evidence remains incomplete on a material issue, the correct institutional response is to keep the transaction in verification rather than allow momentum to substitute for certainty.
