Built around your decision
The same company can be a supplier to one client and an investment to another, and the report should read differently for each. Tell us the purpose and we put first the questions that matter to it:
- General due diligence before a contract, partnership or distribution agreement.
- Onboarding decisions: KYB reviews of business customers, their owners and directors, written to your risk policy.
- Venture and private investment: founders and management, cap table, prior ventures, litigation and undisclosed exposure, before the term sheet.
- Supplier and vendor checks for small businesses: is the company real, solvent, and who you think it is, before you pay a deposit.
- Mergers and acquisitions: the target, its owners and its key counterparties, across every jurisdiction in which it operates.
What we check
We research companies and groups of companies. People come into our work only through their connection with them: as owners, directors, officers, founders or counterparties.
- Ownership: the legal owners and, through every layer we can document, the people who ultimately control the company.
- Principals: directors, officers and significant shareholders, their other companies and their past roles.
- Track record: insolvencies, struck-off companies, regulatory actions and disqualifications linked to the company or its principals.
- Litigation: court records in the jurisdictions in scope, with the outcome of each case where it is known.
- Exposure: sanctions, politically exposed persons and their close associates, state ownership.
- Reputation: adverse reporting in the relevant languages, found by our system, read by an analyst and weighed against the records.
Choosing a level
A quick check, often delivered within 24 hours, confirms one company, with its owners and directors, and screens for red flags: it suits a new supplier, customer or small partner. The standard report, in two to three days, covers ownership, principals, track record, litigation and exposure in the main jurisdiction. Enhanced due diligence, in five to ten days, adds every jurisdiction where the company or its principals operate, local-language reporting and, where the public record is not enough, discreet enquiries with people who know the sector. We tell you when a lower level will answer your question.
What you receive
A report that starts with the answer: our recommendation (proceed, proceed with conditions, escalate or decline), then the red flags, if any, ranked by how well each one is established. Every finding links to its source. The uncertainties are stated rather than smoothed over: what we could not verify, and how confident we are in each finding. The ownership chart shows which links are documented and which are only reported. You can share the report with your board, investment committee, insurer or regulator.
Before signing, and after
Due diligence describes a company on a date. For counterparties you keep, we can add them to screening so that a new sanction, a change of owner or an insolvency reaches you when it happens, not at the next annual review.
Confidentiality
We never contact the subject of a quick check, standard or enhanced desktop review. Source enquiries are made without naming you or the transaction, and we agree how to make them with you first.