CIM investment banking
- What producing the CIM costs
- $11,514
- Pages in the document
- 54
- Hours to draft it
- 97.2
- Hours including review
- 121.2
Every figure printed on this site is arithmetic on the worked example we publish: a $12,000,000 enterprise value at a 5% success fee, a $12,500 monthly retainer over nine months, 14 live mandates closing at 35%, and a CIM of 9 sections at 6 pages drafted at 1.8 hours a page for $95 an hour. Change any of those on a worksheet and the numbers change with them. Nothing here is a market statistic and nothing is quoted from a third party.
The figures above start from a worked example ($11,514). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the CIM investment banking worked example (CSV)
A CIM in investment banking is the confidential information memorandum, the document a sell-side process sends to buyers who have signed the NDA, and it is the single most expensive artefact a desk produces. It is expensive in a way nobody measures, because the cost is analyst hours rather than an invoice. This worksheet measures it: sections, pages a section, hours a page, the review time on top, and a loaded hourly cost, so you can see what the document costs before you commit to its length.
Count the sections before you count the pages
9 sections at 6 pages each is the worked example: summary, market, products, customers, operations, people, financials, projections and process. The section count is the decision; the page count follows it.
Price the drafting honestly
1.8 analyst hours a page at $95 an hour is conservative for a page that includes finding the underlying figure, drafting it and taking one round of correction. Exhibits go faster, market sections go slower.
Read the per-page cost, then cut
54 pages, 121.2 hours including 24 of review, $11,514 in total and $171 for every page drafted. A section nobody asked for stops being free once it has that price on it.
CIM investment banking: common questions
How long should a CIM be? Long enough that a buyer can form a view without another call, and no longer. The worksheet is there to show you what each extra section costs, which is usually the argument that shortens it.
Is 1.8 hours a page realistic? For a page that includes gathering the underlying figure, drafting, and one round of correction, it is conservative. Pages of pure financial exhibits go faster; market sections go slower.
Does this include the teaser and the management presentation? No. Run it again with their own section and page counts. The teaser is usually two pages and the management presentation is its own project.
Mandatzo Pro
Keeping what you make
You have the answer. Pro keeps it: the mandate, the buyer list, the stage each buyer is at, and what it looked like last month.
- Keep a copy on your own machine, not just in ours.
- No Mandatzo mark on anything you send a client.
- Close the tab mid-mandate and come back to it exactly as it was.
- Your firm's mark on every printed list and working.
- Every mandate, buyer and working out in one file, in one click.
- Outreach to a buyer list sent from the record, not from one banker's mailbox.
- Take a retainer by card without leaving the mandate.
- Retainers and fees land in your accounting system without being rekeyed.
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