Step one — intake and fit screen
A submission gives us the asset or business type, location, purchase or enterprise value range, total capitalisation, the capital need, what debt and equity is already identified, control status, deadlines, the strategy and the sponsor's track record summary.
We screen for fit before anything else. If the transaction is outside what we can usefully help with, or if the constraint is something a review cannot fix — a deadline too near, a control position too weak, a capital gap too large for the structure — we say that at the screen rather than after an invoice.
Step two — structure and control
We look at who controls what before we look at what it earns. Entity structure, decision rights, partner arrangements, lender consent requirements, and the position the incoming capital would actually hold.
Structural problems are the ones that cannot be repriced. A return profile can be renegotiated; a governance arrangement that leaves the sponsor unable to act generally cannot be.
Step three — underwriting integrity
We test the model as built rather than substituting our own forecast. Does it calculate what it claims to calculate; are the material assumptions sourced or explicitly labelled as judgment; does the debt reflect confirmed or merely indicative terms; is there a genuine downside case; do the investor-level returns include fees, promote and reserves.
The output of this step is a list of assumptions that need evidence and any mechanical errors found, not a verdict on whether the deal is good.
Step four — the capital story
Then we ask whether the transaction can be explained to the capital it needs. Who is the realistic investor for this position, what will they test first, what in the current materials will they find unconvincing, and what is missing from the package entirely.
This is where most reviews produce the largest change, because sponsors are usually closer to their own deal than to the reader of it.
Step five — execution risk
Timeline against required steps, diligence items not yet started, third-party dependencies, lender process, and the sponsor's own capacity to run the transaction alongside everything else in progress.
Deals fail on calendars as often as on economics.
The written output
A review returns a written assessment: the structural read, the underwriting findings with the assumptions requiring evidence, the capital story assessment, the execution risks, a prioritised list of what to fix, and a recommendation.
The recommendation can be that we are not the right help, or that the transaction should not proceed in its current form. Where a further engagement is appropriate — and only where it is — we say what it would cover. Selective co-general-partner participation is considered rarely and separately, and is never a condition of a review.