In short
The Buyer Review is the operating workstream of due diligence for acquisitions below about $10 million in enterprise value. It is delivered inside your exclusivity window, and every finding carries a dollar figure, a date and a confidence level.
What question does the Buyer Review answer?
What will this business cost you once the seller leaves, and when? Financial, tax and legal diligence are well served at smaller deal sizes. The operating side often isn’t: it needs someone who can read a maintenance record, judge a crew, and trace where decisions are really made.
What does it cover?
- What leaves when the seller leaves, and what replacing it will cost;
- equipment and capital needs for the first three years, against real quotes;
- capacity: whether the business can actually deliver what the plan assumes;
- systems and records: what exists, and what only exists in someone’s memory;
- key people: who matters, and the risk of them leaving;
- licences and credentials: whether they survive closing;
- customer relationships: which ones are likely to walk with the seller;
- safety and compliance items, screened.
How does each finding read?
Every finding comes with what it will cost you, when that cost is likely to land, and how confident the assessment is. That is what lets you take it into a price, a structure, a holdback or a transition plan.
Who is it for?
Search funds and self-funded acquirers, family offices buying outside their own industry, lower-mid-market private equity, strategic buyers who want a second opinion, and acquisition lenders who need key-person risk quantified.
How long does it take?
Two to three weeks, inside your exclusivity period. A faster turnaround is possible at extra cost. The delivery date is agreed before you engage and treated as fixed. If the window is too short to do the work properly, you will be told before you engage, not after.
What does it cost?
A fixed fee set by the size of the deal and agreed in writing. There is never a success fee tied to the transaction closing.
How are conflicts handled?
Corefield never acts for both buyer and seller in the same deal. Neither Corefield nor any business connected to its owner will ever bid for a business Corefield has assessed for a buyer. See Our commitments.
What about after closing?
If the business depends heavily on the seller, the First Year moves what the seller knows into your people before he goes.