Mergers and Acquisitions: Financial Due Diligence

Mergers and Acquisitions: Financial Due Diligence is a 5-day senior-level M&A finance course delivered by Mars Training Centre UK in the major deal capitals — London, New York, Paris, Dubai and Munich — designed for corporate development directors, transaction services professionals, private equity investment professionals, and finance leaders responsible for evaluating acquisitions.

Most acquisitions destroy value. Of those that succeed, the difference is rarely the size of the cheque or the strategic logic — it is the quality of the financial due diligence behind the deal. The leaders who get diligence right see the deal that is actually on offer, not the deal in the pitch deck. The leaders who get it wrong inherit the gap between them, often for years.

Across five focused days, you will work through the full diligence cycle: quality of earnings, normalised working capital, debt and debt-like items, forecasting integrity, tax exposures, and the integration of diligence findings into the sale and purchase agreement. The cases are drawn from corporate transactions in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Middle East, and the work is delivered by senior practitioners with transaction services experience.

What You Will Learn

• Scope and plan a financial due diligence engagement.
• Build a defensible quality of earnings analysis.
• Calculate a normalised level of working capital for a target.
• Identify and quantify debt and debt-like items.
• Interrogate management forecasts for credibility and risk.
• Identify and assess off-balance-sheet exposures.
• Reflect diligence findings in the sale and purchase agreement.
• Build a synergy case grounded in defensible assumptions.
• Communicate diligence findings to senior decision makers under time pressure.
• Lead a financial due diligence team through a live transaction.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with a sharper M&A diligence toolkit and a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a senior leader who sees deal risk earlier, negotiates the sale and purchase agreement from a stronger position, identifies value leakage between signing and closing, and reduces the post-deal surprises that erode acquisition value.

Who This Programme Is For

This programme is designed for senior professionals involved in transactions, including:

• Corporate Development and M&A Directors
• Senior Transaction Services and Due Diligence professionals
• Private Equity Investment Directors and Principals
• Finance Directors involved in acquisitions and disposals
• Senior Investment and Equity Research Analysts
• Senior Banking Credit and Acquisition Finance professionals
• Senior consultants supporting deal teams

The seniority floor is senior manager and above. The programme is delivered in person over five consecutive days, with a Mars Certificate of Completion awarded on the final day.