Strategic Acquisition Evaluation

Corporate
M&A.

Full-spectrum acquisition evaluation. Synergy bridge, competitive impact, integration risk — board-ready in one pass.

Request demo

A Verdict workproduct

An IC-grade artifact, on every acquisition.

Sample output from a Corporate M&A run. Synthetic deal, real workproduct shape.

Project Anvil
$1.8B strategic acquisition · industrial software · Board review Q1 2026
Verdict — Acquire at floor
Key issues — 4 surfaced
  • Critical Competitive counterfactual — primary rival has ~60% probability of bidding within 90 days; loss creates est. $400M defensive cost.
  • Material Synergy bridge — management's $180M cost-synergy claim is 22% above top-quartile industry precedent.
  • Material Integration complexity — 47% systems overlap requires platform consolidation; top-quartile precedent is 14 months.
  • Watch Antitrust — second-request likely in EU and UK; 6-12 month delay possible.
Synergy bridge
SynergyMgmtCortix baseDelta
Cost — operations$80M$52M-$28M
Cost — corporate$40M$36M-$4M
Revenue — cross-sell$60M$24M-$36M

Mgmt $180M = 5.0% of combined revenue. Top-quartile precedent: 3.8%. Cortix base case: $112M.

Recommended action

Acquire at $1.65B or below. Build the synergy case to $112M evidence-supported. Factor competitor counterfactual cost into willingness-to-pay. Plan for second-request in EU/UK with a 9-month buffer.

Provenance
DocumentsCIM · model · board materials · vendor DD · 5 industry reports
Confidence0.85 weighted
Sourced218 of 220 findings
Synthetic example · not a real deal Cortix Verdict · Corporate M&A

What's in the advisory pack.

01
Executive summary & decision framework
Verdict, accretion analysis, key risks, decision matrix — board-ready in one pass.
02
Synergy bridge
Management's case versus the evidence-supported case, with timeline to realization and probability bands.
03
Competitive impact analysis
What happens if you acquire — and what happens if a competitor does instead.
04
SPA risk matrix & regulatory pathway
Walk-away items, indemnity items, antitrust exposure, approval timeline by jurisdiction.
05
Integration playbook
100-day plan, synergy realization tracker, organization design, systems integration roadmap.

Who it's for.

Corporate development teams evaluating acquisitions. Boards reviewing M&A authorizations. CFOs and CEOs preparing for shareholder communications. Strategic advisors providing independent analysis alongside investment banks.

See Corporate M&A on a deal of yours.

Request demo

Powered by Cortix Depth.

The architecture
Cortix Stack.
Engines stacked and orchestrated at whatever scale the problem demands — running in parallel, without ceiling.
The reasoning
Cortix Lens.
A proprietary methodology that challenges, cross-examines, and resolves every finding before it surfaces.
Patent pending