A six-gate process where finance owns the economic spine. Walk the whole arc, then open any red stage for its sub-tabs and diagram. Framework only: structures and real weights are shown; every dollar figure is a labeled placeholder until a live target is loaded.
Six gates, one economic spine. The gold lane is FP&A — the one function in every phase; the rest own their slice of each.
How to read it: the top strip is the ordered process — six phases, each ending in a gate. The matrix is who owns what, when: each lane a workstream (colour + icon), each column a phase, each cell the deliverable that function owns. The gold lane is FP&A — active in every phase, the spine the others feed. Read down a column for everyone in a phase, across a row for one function’s arc.
Establish the thesis, the ten workstreams and owners, and the source protocol before review begins.
Each workstream carries one decision question and an owner; the dotted strip shows which of the six phases it’s active in. FP&A (gold) is active in all six — it’s the spine.
Every number carries an input label so a reader never mistakes the template for a live bid model.
Findings move from source-provided evidence toward user-needed inputs the deal team must populate. The label travels with the number through the model and the memo.
Convert early fit into diligence priorities with a weighted score — before valuation can anchor the team.
Bars are sized by each criterion’s weight (real, summing to 100%). Scores are 0–5 and user-needed — weights rank what matters; scores come from the live target.
The weighted score maps to one of four diligence decisions — the Phase 1 gate.
The score doesn’t decide the deal — it decides how much diligence, where. Green prioritizes; red defers before the team sinks cost into a poor-fit target.
Seven ordered tracks turn the data room into model-ready, source-labeled inputs.
Regulatory and credit gate the deal (red, “deal-gating”) — they can stop it on their own. Everything ties into the FP&A model (track 6) before durability is tested.
Workstream findings converge into one integration model, which emits the decision artifacts.
The model is the single convergence point — findings in, a source-labeled assumption log and risk register out. Nothing reaches the memo that isn’t in the model.
The package converts findings into a recommendation the IC or board can act on.
Reprice and defer are first-class outcomes, not failure — each ties to a specific evidence gap in the register. The colour reads the verdict: green go, amber adjust, grey wait, red walk.
Nineteen sections in four movements — frame, findings, economics, decision.
The memo mirrors the model: frame the deal, lay out findings by workstream, translate to economics, and close with the decision and the unresolved items.
Every open item placed on likelihood × impact, with the register’s real ratings.
The top-right cell — high × high — is where the deal breaks (the credit mark). Opportunities sit alongside risks so upside is governed, not assumed.
Three buckets, each lever with a realization ramp that the tracker holds owners to.
Bars are the real realization ramps (% of run-rate). Dollar run-rate is a placeholder (evidence + owner sign-off required). Dis-synergy is modeled at 100% from Year 1 — attrition is immediate, savings phase in.
A period × workstream plan — who does what, when, after signing.
FP&A sets the Day-1 budget and run-rate baseline at signing, so the moment actuals start there is a plan to measure them against.
A monthly loop comparing actuals to the deal model, with the value-capture KPIs.
The deal model becomes the operating baseline. Variance isn’t reporting — it triggers action: continue, accelerate, or intervene to protect the thesis.