Investment banking deal flow
- What the live book is worth
- $2,940,000
- Mandates that should close
- 4.9
- Fee on one that closes
- $600,000
- Expected value of one live mandate
- $210,000
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 ($2,940,000). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the Investment banking deal flow worked example (CSV)
Investment banking deal flow is counted far more often than it is valued, and the count is the less useful number. Fourteen live mandates says nothing on its own: it could be a quarter of fees or a year of unpaid work depending on what closes and at what size. This worksheet turns the count into money, using three figures a desk already knows or can defend, and it deliberately makes you type your own close rate rather than offering a flattering default.
Count the live mandates, including the quiet ones
14 live mandates is the worked example. A process that has not moved in two months is still in the book; leaving it out flatters the close rate rather than the count.
Use a close rate you counted, not one you remember
35% is the default here and it is a figure most desks come back under when they count two years honestly, including the mandates that went quiet rather than formally died.
Read the per-mandate figure and keep it
$2,940,000 of expected fees across the book, and $210,000 as the expected value of any one live mandate. The second number is the one that settles resourcing arguments, because it prices the next mandate before you take it.
Investment banking deal flow: common questions
What close rate should we use? Yours, counted over the last two years and including the mandates that went quiet rather than formally died. Most desks asked to count honestly come back lower than they guessed.
Should retainers be in this number? No. This values the success fees in the book. Retainers are billed whether or not a process closes, which makes them a different and more certain line.
Is expected value per mandate a useful figure? It is the most useful one here, because it is what a new mandate is worth on the day you sign it, which is exactly the number a resourcing argument needs.
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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