Investment banking fees
- Success fee at close
- $600,000
- Retainers billed over the process
- $112,500
- What the mandate earns in total
- $712,500
- Payable at close if retainers are credited
- $487,500
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 ($600,000). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the Investment banking fees worked example (CSV)
Investment banking fees are argued from a scale and settled on a percentage. The double Lehman tiers are where the conversation starts, but almost nobody bills them unmodified any more, so what a desk actually needs is simpler and harder: on the deal value we expect, at the fee we agreed, with the retainer we are billing, what does this mandate earn, and how much of it arrives at close rather than along the way. This worksheet answers that in four numbers and publishes the example it was built from.
Start from the value you expect, not the one in the pitch
$12,000,000 of enterprise value is the worked example here. Pitch decks carry the optimistic number; the fee model should carry the one you would defend to a partner today.
Put your own percentage in, and your own retainer
5% and $12,500 a month over nine months is the default. A double Lehman scale lands near 5% at this size, but the agreed number is the one in your engagement letter, not the one on a scale.
Read the two totals side by side
$712,500 earned in total, or $487,500 payable at close if every retainer is credited against the fee. That gap, $112,500 here, is what the crediting clause is worth, and it is worth knowing before it is signed.
Investment banking fees: common questions
Why not compute the raw Lehman tiers? Because almost nobody bills them unmodified. A single agreed percentage on the expected value, which is what engagement letters mostly say now, is both more honest and easier to check. Put your own percentage in.
Should retainers be credited against the success fee? That is the negotiation, and the worksheet shows both answers side by side: $712,500 in total on the example, or $487,500 payable at close if every retainer is credited.
Does it handle a minimum fee? No, deliberately. A minimum fee is a floor you already know; this prices the expected outcome so you can see whether the floor binds.
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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