Module 2 · Chapter 5

The Request List and the Review

A review starts by asking for documents, not by reading them. Then the team sorts the data room, reads it in order and logs every finding, so the report can be written from the log.

≈ 13 min read 8-question test

In this chapter

  • How the request list shows what the data room is missing
  • How a team reads a whole data room in the right order
  • How the issue log turns the reading into a report

5.1The request list in one paragraph

A review starts with asking, not reading. Before the data room opens, the buyer's lawyers turn the agreed scope into a request list. It lists the documents and information they want the seller to produce, workstream by workstream. On Sunrise it asked for the largest customer contracts, three years of letters from regulators and the contracts of senior staff, among much else.

The list tells the seller's team what to collect, and it puts the buyer's expectations in writing. Most important for you, it becomes the measuring stick for the review. You can notice that a document is missing only if you first wrote down that it should exist.

Key point

Sellers build the data room largely to the buyer's list, so the room you get tends to mirror the list you send. A careful list gets a fuller room.

Also in this chapter

  1. Gap analysis: what is missing is a finding
  2. Sort first, then read every document once
  3. Sampling: the biggest contracts plus a random draw
  4. The second pass: fresh eyes and late uploads
  5. The issue log: one table for the whole team
  6. Ten minutes with a contract
  7. Q-041: the documents check the answers
  8. Three habits that make the report reliable
  9. Your job

Preview

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