What you receive, and the rules we work by.
A document headed for a committee is only worth something if whoever prepares it has nothing at stake in the deal.
One document, ready for your committee.
A document that lets you sit down at the table knowing what the information memorandum leaves out and the data room doesn’t contain: how every unit is really performing, how it stacks up against nearby competitors, and which risks the price does not yet reflect. With it, you can defend a discount or a price, narrow the scope, or decide to walk away. It’s written for a committee, not a data team.
- Defend a price
With a number that comes from neither buyer nor seller but from what the chain’s customers experience — and whose underlying data can be checked against the source.
- Carve out rather than discount
Know whether what we find affects the whole chain or comes down to a short list of units that can be carved out or made conditional — or decide to walk away before paying for full diligence.
- Get ahead of the buyer
If you’re selling, you’ll see what the buyer’s diligence will find months before it starts — in time to fix what can be fixed and prepare a defense of what can’t. Issues you put on the table first are much harder to use to retrade the deal in the final week. If you plan to go to market in the coming months, now is the time to get a read on your chain — before the buyer does.
- An executive summary you can read in one sitting and, separately, the unit-by-unit detail for whoever needs it. Nine hundred units in your chain doesn’t mean a thousand-page report.
- A finished PDF, ready for your committee, with source and cutoff date stated.
- In Spanish or English; German by arrangement. Nothing to install or run.
What it’s for, and what it isn’t. The document is an input to your own analysis of the transaction. It’s not a valuation or an investment recommendation. It describes what customers perceive and states what it can’t conclude.
How a public number makes its way into your investment memo.
- 1
Every unit and its local competition
We analyze every unit in the chain and the competitors around it — not a sample, not a brand-level number.
- 2
What matters, separated from the noise
We separate what repeats and holds up from what is noise, and compare each unit with the competitors actually vying with it for customers.
- 3
Every finding, graded for strength
We tell you how strong each finding is: what can go into your model and what should be verified in due diligence. Anything that falls short isn’t delivered as a finding.
- 4
One person interprets it and signs it
The person who signs the document stands behind what it says — to you and to your committee.
The method, its criteria, and its thresholds are proprietary and not published. What you receive is the result, not the technique.
What you already use, and what only this analysis adds.
The useful question isn’t whether what customers say matters. It’s what else tells you, before you sign, how each unit is doing — whichever side of the deal you’re on.
| Source | By unit | Without company access | Vs. competitors | Timing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial due diligence | Sometimes, with the seller’s data | Often, through third-party interviews | Yes, at the brand level | Weeks |
| Mystery shopping | One snapshot per visit | Yes | Rarely | Weeks |
| Customer survey | No — brand-level sample | Yes | Yes | Weeks |
| Alternative data (foot traffic, card spend) | Sometimes, depending on the country | Yes | Sometimes: how many visit, not why | Days, by subscription |
| Seller’s sales data | Yes | No — the seller provides them | No | When the seller grants access |
| This analysis | Yes — every unit with enough evidence; the rest are counted and disclosed | Yes — the company never knows | Yes — including customers who judged both the chain and its competitor | Five business days at most for the first analysis; 20 at most for the full chain, whatever its size |
Timelines in the first five rows reflect typical market practice, not our own measurement. None of these replaces the others — and neither does this analysis. It covers what the others can’t: before there’s any access, across the whole chain, all at once, and with competitors measured the same way.
The rules, in writing.
We work for buyers and for sellers — never for both parties to the same transaction. If you engage us, that chain is closed to any other client for six months. The free first analysis doesn’t lock up the chain — but if we already work for the other party in your transaction, we won’t prepare it. If we can’t take an engagement, we’ll decline — and we won’t be able to tell you why.
What we deliver to you isn’t reused, resold, or shown to anyone; the contract spells out the details.
There’s no shared inbox. What you write to us reaches one person, and that same person reviews every analysis and signs it in their own name; that’s why we take on only a small number of engagements at a time. If we’re at capacity, we’ll give you a date, not a spot on a waiting list. If your compliance team requires it, before you name the chain, we’ll provide in writing that person’s name, plus the name and registration of the company behind Acumaris.
We don’t publish a named analysis of a company that didn’t ask us for one. That’s why the chain in the analysis we show is unnamed and its volumes are shown as ranges, so no one can be singled out — and why you won’t find any chain named on this site. Once you engage us, we analyze the chain you name with every unit identified — and that analysis is for your use only. And if you want to see a finished analysis before requesting your own — two cities, one unit in each — we’ll send you one, anonymized and with volumes shown as ranges, of a chain no client commissioned us to analyze.
Our fee doesn’t depend on whether the deal closes, or at what price. So our only stake in what we tell you is that it’s true.
What we guarantee, and what we never do.
- What cannot be measured is disclosed
Units without enough evidence are counted and disclosed, not scored individually. The count appears in the body of the document, not in a footnote.
- What we tested that didn’t hold up goes in, too
Every analysis discloses the hypotheses we tested that the data knocked down, with the numbers.
- Verifiable by a third party
Source, time window, and cutoff date appear next to every figure. Your team or your adviser can check the underlying data against the public source; calculated figures state their base and time window.
- If the evidence falls short, we say so before we charge
If the evidence on that chain can’t support the full analysis, we tell you before we charge you, even if that ends the engagement.
We never treat a cause as proven. We state what we observe and what would explain it. The difference matters when the document reaches a committee.
We never forecast. Not sales, not EBITDA, not returns. The revenue a unit fails to capture, expressed as a percentage range, describes what’s happening today, not what’s to come. Our analysis feeds your model; it doesn’t replace it.
Name the chain. We’ll show you what its price doesn’t reflect.
There’s no charge for the first one, and no obligation. You’ll hear back from a real person within two business days.
Request your first analysis Or ask first for an anonymized example from your sector → Or email us directly: contact@acumaris.com