Deal flow

Holding something that does not fit your box?

For intermediaries, brokers, bankers, and buyers circling a target they would rather not take alone. Send it. You get an answer, not a holding pattern.

Two people shaking hands across a boardroom table with documents on it.

How it runs

Four steps, and you know where you stand at each one.

  1. Send the outline

    Sector, revenue, cash flow, why the owner is selling, and where it sits in a process. No names and nothing confidential at this stage. One screen is enough.

  2. Get a fit answer

    Either it clears the box or it does not, and you are told which. A no arrives with the reason attached so you can place it somewhere else.

  3. Paper it before anything sensitive moves

    A mutual confidentiality and non-circumvention agreement, signed both ways, and any introduction fee stated in it rather than agreed later. Nobody gets cut out of a deal they brought.

  4. The real read

    Cash flow quality, customer concentration, owner dependence, and the three things most likely to break it. Delivered as a one-page view you can put in front of your own principal.

What to send

Six lines is enough to start.

The first pass does not need a book. It needs enough to know whether this is worth either of our time.

Initial outline. No company name required until a mutual is in place.
FieldDetail
SectorWhat the business actually does, in one line.
RevenueTrailing twelve months, and the direction of travel.
Cash flowEBITDA or SDE, and whether it has been adjusted.
Seller motivationRetirement, succession, partner buyout, carve-out, or something else.
Process statusOff-market, quietly shopped, or in a banked process.
Your roleIntermediary, principal, or a buyer looking for a partner on it.
A railway switching yard at night, parallel tracks converging through points under amber signal lamps.

Everything that arrives gets routed somewhere. Nothing sits.

Confidentiality

Nobody gets circumvented.

A mutual agreement goes both ways before any identifying information changes hands. It covers confidentiality, non-solicitation and non-circumvention, and it names any introduction fee and the period it is protected for.

The reason it is signed first rather than last is simple. The people who bring the best off-market deals have been burned once already, and they do not bring the second one.

On fees. FM Enterprises is an operator and an allocator, not a registered broker-dealer. Fees are stated as advisory or consulting fees, disclosed before work begins, and written into the agreement rather than discussed afterwards.

Submit a target

Send it and get a straight answer.

Four numbers and a sentence. Enough to check it against the box before anyone spends a call on it. Deal submissions are handled separately from owner enquiries and do not go into a nurture sequence.