Blog
Explainers and worked examples on financial due diligence, audit and controls, and valuation — and how finance teams turn raw data into defensible, fully sourced work.
M&A & diligenceWhat is financial modeling?
Financial modeling turns assumptions about revenue, costs, and capital structure into projected statements that support a decision — a valuation, a financing, an acquisition, or a budget. The common model types, the anatomy of a good model, best-practice principles, a worked revenue build, and the honest limits.
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M&A & diligenceBest AI contract review tools for finance and legal ops (2026)
The best AI contract review tools for finance and legal ops in 2026, by the job you need done — CLM platforms (Ironclad), M&A due-diligence engines (Kira, Luminance), playbook review (LawGeex), Word drafting (Spellbook), and an agentic finance workspace that reads the terms against the numbers (MacrosLM). What each does, where it fits, and what AI can't do.
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M&A & diligenceBest AI tools for equity research (2026)
The AI worth knowing for equity research in 2026, by the job it does — a deliverable-focused deep dive (MacrosLM), document search across filings and transcripts (AlphaSense), fundamentals extraction (Daloopa), and accessible chat-based research (Fiscal.ai) — plus what to look for and what AI still can't do.
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M&A & diligenceAI stock analysis: how it works and where it breaks
AI stock analysis screens tickers, summarizes filings and earnings calls, drafts comps, and tracks sentiment — fast and checkable. What it doesn't do is predict prices or replace analyst judgment. What AI is genuinely good at, where the hype breaks down, and a six-step workflow with copy-paste prompts.
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M&A & diligenceWhat is DuPont analysis?
DuPont analysis breaks return on equity into the components that drive it — net profit margin, asset turnover, and leverage — so you can tell whether an ROE comes from fat margins or heavy debt. The 3-step and 5-step formulas, a worked Costco example, and where the method breaks down.
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M&A & diligenceWhat is precedent transaction analysis?
Precedent transaction analysis values a company by what buyers actually paid for similar businesses in past M&A deals — why the multiples run higher than trading comps (control premiums and synergies), how the analysis is built, where it breaks down, and a live cybersecurity M&A comps example.
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M&A & diligenceBest AI tools for financial modeling (2026)
Financial modeling isn't the arithmetic — it's the historicals, the assumptions, the sensitivities, and a number you can defend. A 2026 roundup by which piece each tool attacks: a finished, source-traced valuation (MacrosLM), Excel-model generators (Shortcut, o11), data extraction (Daloopa), and in-spreadsheet assistants.
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M&A & diligenceDLOM explained: what is a discount for lack of marketability?
A discount for lack of marketability (DLOM) reduces the value of a private or illiquid interest that can't be readily sold — how appraisers estimate it (restricted-stock, pre-IPO, and option-pricing models), why it's so heavily litigated, and a live calculator to explore it.
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M&A & diligenceWhat is loan covenant compliance?
Meeting the conditions in a credit agreement — the affirmative, negative, and financial covenants a borrower must keep, the ratios lenders test, how compliance is certified quarterly, and what happens (from waiver to acceleration) when one is breached.
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M&A & diligenceBest AI for financial due diligence (2026)
The AI worth knowing for financial due diligence in 2026, by layer — financial engines that produce the sourced analysis (MacrosLM), virtual data rooms (Datasite), contract review (Kira), and data extraction (Dili) — plus what AI can't do and how to choose.
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M&A & diligenceBest AI tools for credit analysis (2026)
The AI worth knowing for commercial credit analysis in 2026, by layer — agentic workspaces that produce the analysis and memo (MacrosLM), end-to-end underwriting (Crediflow), institutional platforms (Moody's CreditLens), and credit intelligence (Hebbia) — plus how to choose.
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M&A & diligenceWhat is a DCF model?
A DCF values a company by projecting its future free cash flows and discounting them to present value — the formula, FCFF vs. FCFE, terminal value, the step-by-step build, and why the assumptions matter more than the arithmetic.
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M&A & diligenceWhat is an EBITDA bridge?
A waterfall that explains how EBITDA moved from one number to another, driver by driver — and the second, easily-confused version that does the heavy lifting in M&A.
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M&A & diligenceWhat is a Quality of Earnings (QoE) analysis?
The independent test of whether reported earnings are real and repeatable — what's inside a QoE report, how it differs from an audit, what it costs in 2026, and where the manual work hides.
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M&A & diligenceWhat is net working capital normalization?
Working out the “normal” level of working capital a business needs to run — the peg a deal trues up against dollar-for-dollar, and where the definitions and documentation decide who wins.
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M&A & diligenceWhat is the Altman Z-Score?
Five financial ratios rolled into one number that flags bankruptcy risk — the formula, how to read the safe/grey/distress zones, the private and non-manufacturing variants, and what it misses.
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M&A & diligenceWhat is WACC and how is it calculated?
The blended rate a company pays to finance itself, and the discount rate behind every DCF — the formula, the cost of equity via CAPM, the after-tax cost of debt, and a worked example.
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M&A & diligenceFinancial due diligence, explained
Financial due diligence is a toolkit, not one procedure. A map of the core concepts — earnings quality, the EBITDA bridge, working capital, WACC, the Altman Z-Score, and the controls underneath — each with a plain-English explainer.
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