What a company shows is not always what it is worth. Diligeo reads the entire file and measures the gap.
Diligeo receives the documents the seller hands over and returns, within 24–72 business hours, a complete analysis dossier: true profitability, a defensible price, the risks the balance sheet does not show.
70%of owners had taken no concrete step one year before their planned transfer.Files reach the market unprepared and incomplete.
30%report having run into financing difficulties.A well-prepared file makes the difference in front of the bank.
€15–30kin advisory fees on a supported acquisition, at commonly observed rates; the acquisition audit alone runs into thousands of euros, once the letter of intent is signed.“Pay to see,” as Bpifrance puts it: at the buyer's expense, and after the commitment.
A buyer on their own, a company acquiring, an owner wondering what their business is worth: the same read, on the same terms. And advisors can pick up the work delivered as it stands.
The tools of major deals
EBITDA bridge, valuation, total cost of the acquisition: the level of analysis of advised transactions, within reach of buyers who do not have an investment bank down the hall.
Terms known in advance
A firm flat fee, from a few hundred euros per file, a 24–72 business-hour turnaround, a public fee schedule: sized for reviewing several targets.
Full independence
No mandate, no interest in the sale, no audit engagement to sell next: the same opinion, whichever side of the table you are on.
These commitments only hold because the method has changed.
The cross-reading.
The complete read
Diligeo reads the file in full: tax filings, general ledger, contracts, lease, payroll. Not a sample, not the seller's summary: the documents themselves, down to the last entry.
The cross-check
Each document is then checked against all the others. The cross-checking is what surfaces what no single document shows: the excerpt below is one example, a cost absent from the accounts, found in the minutes of a shareholders' meeting.
The new capability
Cross-reading demands something no reader has ever had: holding hundreds of documents in mind at once. Large language models have it. Diligeo turned them into an analysis engine dedicated to acquisition files: it keeps the lease in mind while working through the general ledger, the payroll while reading the employment contracts, and flags each gap the moment it appears. That capability is what makes the flat fee and the turnaround possible. Restatements, judgment calls and the final review remain human: the machine reads, the human judges.
The audit trail
Every figure in the report is then traced back to its source document, page and line: your advisors can verify everything.
This is the read missing at the two moments that decide an acquisition: screening before you commit, and walking into the audit knowing where to look.
An analysis dossier that takes a position.
You send the documents you have; within 24–72 business hours, the position is delivered: continue, renegotiate, or stop here.
Three measures of operating profit coexist, and confusing them distorts the price. Reported 2024 EBITDA stands at €246k. After removing non-recurring income and normalizing owner compensation to market, adjusted EBITDA settles at €210k. One question the accounts never ask remains: both managing partners are leaving, and one of them runs the technical side with no payroll line paying for it at market rate. Factor in a replacement, and normalized EBITDA, the figure that anchors the price, falls to €155k. Health is measured before that cost; price, after.
Sources: 2022 to 2024 tax filings, minutes of the March 12, 2024 shareholders' meeting, the industry's collective-bargaining pay scale.
Who takes over the technical role after the departure, and at what cost in the first-year budget?
p. 7 / 18 · excerpt
Diligeo delivers an outside opinion, fast and quantified, built to decide whether a file deserves the next step. It adds to your advisors' work: accountant, lawyer and auditor keep their full role, and start with a file already worked through.
Already at work on real files.
Construction company · full analysis of the seller's file
Complete data room: financial statements, statutory accounting files, contracts. Report delivered with a restated EBITDA bridge, the total cost of the acquisition rebuilt, and the points to renegotiate before signing.
Plumbing and heating business · preliminary review before the LOI
Limited document pack. Pre-audit report and a draft letter of intent with figures, ready to discuss with the seller and the bank.
What goes in
The documents you have, from 3 files to the full data room, under a confidentiality agreement.
What comes out
An analysis dossier: the written report of 15 to 40 pages that takes a position, and the tables that back every figure. Deleted from our systems within 12 months.