M&A processes are won and lost in the details — the quality of the numbers, the speed of diligence responses, and the surprises that do or do not surface. Cipher Financial provides CFO-level support to buyers and sellers through the financial workstreams of a transaction.
Sell-side support
- Due-diligence preparation — getting financial records, reconciliations, and support ready before the buyer’s advisors arrive.
- Quality-of-earnings support — preparing management’s view of normalized earnings and working through adjustments with the buyer’s QoE team.
- Data rooms — building and managing an organized financial data room.
- Working-capital analysis — the working-capital peg is one of the most negotiated numbers in a deal; it deserves preparation, not improvisation.
- Management reporting through the process — keeping the business running and reported while the deal consumes attention.
Buy-side support
- Financial analysis of targets — digging into the target’s numbers: earnings quality, revenue durability, working-capital patterns, and the gap between reported and repeatable.
- Purchase-price modelling — deal models, accretion analysis, and financing structures.
- Due-diligence management — running the financial diligence request list and coordinating specialist advisors.
- Integration planning — the finance-function integration plan: systems, reporting, people, and the first hundred days.
Coordination with the deal team
Transactions involve lawyers, accountants, valuators, and bankers. Cipher Financial works as management’s finance lead among them — translating between the deal team and the business, and making sure the financial facts hold up wherever they are examined.
Cipher Financial does not issue formal legal, valuation, fairness, or audit opinions. The firm provides financial analysis and transaction support to management and works alongside your legal, valuation, and audit advisors.