04/06/2026
A deal looks like one event from the outside. Inside. it is roughly nine stages, and the analyst lives in all of them,
Here is a sell-side process, mandate to close, and what the analyst actually does at each step
1. Pitch and mandate
You build the pitchbook. Comps, precedent transactions, football field, a story for why now. If the bank wins, you numbers become the starting point for everything that follows
2. Preparation and positioning
You sit with management, clean the historicals, and help shape the equity story. This is where you learn the business well enough to defend its margins to a sceptica buyer.
3. Marketing materials
You draft the teaser and the information memorandum Every operational metric, every chart, every footnote on the addbacks gets checked by you first
4. Buyer outreach
You maintain the buyer log. Who was contacted, wha signed the NDA, who is in, who passed and why. A messy tracker here costs the MD credibilitv later
5. First-round bids
ndicative offers come in. You compare them, normalise the assumptions behind each, and flag which bidders are serious versus which are fishing for information
5. Management presentations and data room
You prepare the management team, build the data room and answer the flow of buyer questions. Slow responses nere stall momentum, and momentum is what protects price.
7. Final bids and negotiatior
You run the bid analysis, model each structure, and show what the headline number really means after working capital, debt, and earn-outs.
8.Signing
You support the legal and financial schedules behind the SPA. The purchase price adjustment, the net debt definition. the closing accounts mechanics. Small wording large money
g. Closing
Funds flow, the deal completes, and you build the closing statement. The event everyone sees is the last five per cent of the work
Most students picture stage one and stage nine. The rea iob lives in the middle,
We walk through a full deal process in every batch a Wizenius, so you arrive on the desk already knowing where you Fit
