A checklist for reviewing CIMs, teasers, broker summaries, and acquisition listings before spending time on a business acquisition.
Most listings do not give buyers enough information to make a serious decision. The first job is finding what is missing.
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A teaser is usually built to create interest, not to prove the deal. It should give enough information to decide whether the buyer should ask better questions.
Look for business model, revenue scale, earnings, customer mix, owner role, location constraints, reason for sale, and enough context to spot obvious deal-breakers.
A CIM should tell a fuller story, but it is still seller-side material. A buyer should separate facts, broker framing, projections, and unsupported claims.
A practical CIM review checklist should cover financial quality, revenue durability, customer concentration, owner dependence, CapEx, working capital, employee depth, and financing assumptions.
Missing information is not neutral. If the buyer does not know the customer concentration, owner role, add-back support, recurring revenue quality, or working capital need, confidence should go down.
The first job is often not deciding whether the deal is good. The first job is finding what is missing.
Revenue quality matters more than top-line size. Recurring, repeatable, diversified revenue deserves different treatment than project-heavy or relationship-dependent revenue.
Customer concentration can turn a clean-looking listing into a fragile acquisition, especially when the buyer does not yet understand account retention after close.
A company can show healthy earnings and still be hard to transfer. If customers, employees, vendor knowledge, or estimating live in the seller's head, buyer fit matters.
CapEx and working capital also matter because they compete with debt service. A deal that ignores maintenance spend and cash needs may overstate what the buyer can safely support.
Before a serious lender conversation, the buyer should know whether the financials, add-backs, DSCR, equity injection, seller note, and tax-return support are ready for review.
ADE turns this review into a structured screen so the buyer can see business acquisition risk flags before the LOI process pulls them deeper.
Screen SMB acquisition deals before LOI by checking buyer, lender, and diligence risk.
Understand supportable debt, DSCR, equity injection, seller notes, and lender gaps.
Review seller discretionary earnings, add-backs, and adjusted earnings before relying on them.
Why SMB acquisition buyers need structured deal discipline, not only generic prompt answers.