That is a reasonable thing to be careful about. An independent sponsor who cannot close costs you a month, a retrade costs you credibility with your client, and a buyer who goes quiet in week five costs you both. Here is our response record, our close record, and the things that will make us decline on the first call so you can stop reading early if we are wrong for the deal.
Zero does not mean we have never found something in diligence. It means that twice we found something material, decided the price no longer worked, and terminated rather than reopening a signed number three weeks before closing.
We would rather lose a deal than be the buyer you have to explain to your client in week seven. If that is the wrong instinct for a particular process, tell us at the start and we will pass.
Every stage below has a named owner on our side and a stated turnaround. If we miss one, call the partner directly and say so.
Read by a partner, not screened by an associate against a checklist. You get a yes, a no with reasons, or two specific questions.
If we are interested you get an indication of interest with a range and the assumptions behind it. If we are not, you get the reasons in writing, which are often useful for the next buyer on your list.
We come to the company. We ask to meet the second layer of management, and we will not sign a letter of intent without it. That request is not negotiable and it is the most common reason a process and we part ways.
Priced off what we have seen, not off an optimistic reading we intend to revisit later. Exclusivity of sixty days, occasionally seventy-five for carve-outs.
Eight weeks from signing, run on a single coordinated request list rather than five parallel ones. The full sequence is on the funding page.
We decline more than nine of every ten opportunities we see. Knowing why saves you the slot.
Above that level we are underwriting one relationship rather than a business. There are buyers who will take it; we are not one of them.
If revenue depends on one person's relationships and that person is leaving, there is nothing to buy. A defined transition helps, but it does not solve it.
Two consecutive years of declining EBITDA with a hockey stick in the projections. We underwrite history, not plans.
Below that, the professional costs of a transaction consume too much of the value for it to work for either side. Above $15M we are not the strongest bidder and will say so.
If the second layer does not know the company is for sale, we cannot meet them, and we do not sign without meeting them. This is worth resolving before you bring us in.
Quality of earnings and financing cannot be done properly in a month. A buyer who agrees to that timeline is either not doing the work or intends to renegotiate.
Marcus Okafor owns intermediary relationships across the Midwest and Southeast and reads every teaser himself. Nothing routes through a general inbox or a form.
Partner contact details