We find the buyers and open the door. You walk through it.
A narrower mandate for a specific set of owners: we prepare a concise profile, build a curated list of buyers, approach them quietly, and introduce the ones who want to talk. What happens after the introduction is yours to run – or ours, if you ask.
Thirty minutes with a founding partner. If the answer is the introduction mandate, we will say so.
A small number of owners. Possibly you. Probably not.
An introduction mandate fits an owner who has sold a company before and intends to negotiate this one personally; an owner for whom a full process would add more machinery than value, given their experience, the transaction and the likely buyers; or an owner who wants to establish whether the buyers we believe exist actually exist, before committing to more. In those situations it is the right instrument, and we will say so.
For most owners in our range it is not. The value in a sale is decided in the work an introduction mandate leaves out – the valuation, the preparation, the buyer’s case, the negotiation of structure – and a founder who has not done that work is negotiating against a buyer whose deal team does this for a living. If that describes you, the full mandate is the one we would recommend, and the first call is where we tell you which.
Five things, done properly.
- A concise profile, not a memorandum
A teaser and an executive summary written to establish relevance for a serious buyer without identifying the company. Enough to earn a conversation; not the case a committee approves.
- A curated buyer list
Named, researched and ranked against your company – strategic acquirers and financial buyers who have a reason to want it. Not a database export. We do not broadcast.
- A preliminary data room
Opened for initial review by the buyers who engage, with disclosure staged so that nothing sensitive moves before it should.
- Outreach and introduction
We approach the list quietly and anonymously – a buyer learns your name only after signing a confidentiality undertaking, unless you decide otherwise – qualify the responses, and introduce the buyers who want to progress.
- Light-touch follow-up
We coordinate the first contacts and answer factual and process questions in the weeks after an introduction, so a conversation does not die of logistics.
Everything a buyer would rather you did without.
The engagement letter says this in as many words, and so do we. An introduction mandate excludes valuation advice; the negotiation of price or any other term; offer strategy; the information memorandum and the management presentation; the coordination of due diligence; the transaction documents; and everything else between an introduction and the wire. From the first serious conversation onward, you are running the transaction – unless you decide otherwise.
We list this plainly because a buyer knows exactly where a seller without advisers is weakest, and it is here. Read the list once as a description of the mandate, and once as a description of what you would be doing alone.
Two movements, then a decision.
The same structure as every mandate we take.
A monthly retainer sized to the scope of the work, and a success fee on total enterprise value at closing. The retainer funds the preparation; the success fee is earned when the transaction is. You see every economic term before you sign. An introduction mandate is a narrower scope, and its retainer is sized to that scope. It is not a cheaper way to buy the same work.Fees & how we’re paid →
The buyer has done this before. You probably have not. An introduction mandate opens the door; everything that decides the price happens after you walk through it.
Not sure which mandate fits?
Thirty minutes with a founding partner. Bring the company and the situation; we will tell you which mandate we would recommend and why – and if the answer is the introduction mandate, we will say that too. A first call commits you to nothing.