Run every sell-side and buy-side mandate from first call to closing on one record.

An advisory mandate runs for months and touches dozens of parties. Owners, buyers, lawyers, accountants and lenders all ask for something, and each request has to be answered, logged and kept confidential. Speed matters. So does secrecy.

Most firms hold this in spreadsheets, a shared drive and personal inboxes, so the state of any one deal sits with the person running it. Our scoping session follows one live mandate across those places.

A partner wins a mandate and signs an engagement letter with fees, exclusivity and a term. The team prepares a teaser and an information memorandum, builds a long list of possible buyers and agrees who will approach whom, since a clumsy first contact can damage a sale. Each approach starts with a short note. A confidentiality agreement follows before any detail is shared.

Interested parties receive the memorandum. Later they get access to a data room. Due diligence requests arrive from the buyer’s advisers, and the team routes each to the client, chases the answer and logs what was shared with whom. Offers are tracked by round.

Behind this sit time records, conflict checks, retainers, success fees and expenses, all of which the finance team has to match to an engagement letter written long before the deal began. Reporting to the client is regular and detailed, and partners expect the status of every counterparty to be correct before they walk into a call. Closing documents are tracked until the last signature by the lawyers, the client and every buyer party, and only then is the mandate file closed and archived. Nothing else matters at that point.