A target is on the table, or an approach has landed on yours. The price is arguable; the structure is not. Acquirer and target are read as one comparative computation: both businesses diagnosed on the same instrument, every structural gap between them identified, costed, and sequenced.
The create-or-destroy verdict, with the evidence and its falsification conditions.
The dimensional gap between you and the target, computed and costed: what the deficiencies cost to fix and what they cost to ignore.
The integration architecture before signing, derived from the gap itself, not billed as a discovery afterwards.
Post-close tracking of value realisation against the pre-signing reading.
Seventy to ninety per cent of acquisitions fail.
1,078 transactions read across $10.11Tn and 41 years. Verdicts at 99.8%. Deficiencies addressed versus ignored: a $59.9bn outcome differential.
You sign knowing, or you walk away early. Both are victories.