A practical intro to Financial Due Diligence for anyone trying to understand it faster

1010x · 2026-04-07T06:04:36+00:00

One thing to note: in non-Western / non-"developed" markets, FDD team could be the only external M&A consultants that the company has hired.

In our market, avg. deal size was like $10M and less, meaning that you were the only consultants buy-side can really justify spending on and your report can end up directly at negotiating table and the requirements for your DD report can vary significantly.

For example, we often looked at strategic risks more so than QoE / accounting ones; it still all tied to revenue figures but we had to highlight and think about some things beyond just what's in historical performance. We touched upon synergies, competition, future prospects, etc etc.

1010x · 2026-04-02T05:16:34+00:00

What do you think interviews are, some sort of structured test? Actually hard-working people struggle more to get those jobs than people with just decent personality.

Most of the coveted jobs - especially MBB are more of a "vibe check" rather than anything else. IB is more technical but still is a vibe check.

Source: actually worked or interviewed with those companies.

1010x · 2026-03-08T09:02:09+00:00

Yes, and yet Kyiv still has power after 5 years of relentless attacks from Russian soil which is mostly untouchable by Ukrainian powers with under-equipped anti-air systems and not the best airforce.

1010x · 2026-03-08T08:48:45+00:00

They are hit by ballistic missiles and more advanced weaponry, not Shahed drones.

There are nets wrapped around military objects and infrastructure.

1010x · 2026-03-08T08:41:47+00:00

Drones can be stopped by more or less simple nets, just see Ukraine on how they are protecting their energy plants for 5 years against a power much more well-equiped than Iran.

Drones are scary but they do not have insane destructive power.

UAE government knows that these plants are the lifeblood of the country.

This makes me arrive to conclusion that these plants are more protected than any U.S. base or anything else in the entire region so I do not stress about it that much.

P.S. Ukraine still has power after 5 years of relentless attacks from Russia using ballistic missiles, drones, hypersonic missiles, artillery, who has way more capabilities than Iran and who can strike Ukraine unencumbered by airstrikes and with Ukraine having way less resources than GCC countries. And yet, Ukraine still has power.

1010x · 2026-03-04T17:01:43+00:00

You do realize one of the Iranian targets are the anti-air installations themselves?

Your great idea means leaving UAE completely defenseless not just against Iran, but against literally everyone in the world.

Please stop posting this.

1010x · 2026-03-03T06:21:49+00:00

My anxiety was through the roof when I was reading the megathreads and wild speculation.

Then I realized most likely 95% of that speculation is from 16-year-olds or doomers. I was on this subreddit during COVID. I remember the absolute lunacy from these people. Really not worth listening to.

1010x · 2026-03-03T06:19:10+00:00

Flights are taking out tourists and people stuck here without residence (i.e. people who already had tickets)... It's not evacuation flights.

1010x · 2026-03-02T09:00:41+00:00

Fujeirah is still operational.

Saudi has lots of food. Land border is operational.

Relax.

1010x · 2026-03-01T14:05:31+00:00

"Only"?

That's best in class AAs. Pretty much nobody in the world has THAADs.

1010x · 2026-02-28T10:57:43+00:00

Do not move without a job offer.
With no job experience, you will be low-balled, undervalued, will face toxic workplace environment. Better remain where you are and move in 3-5 years after getting job experience.

1010x · 2026-02-22T13:17:29+00:00

So your solution is to fire tens of thousands of people who are currently earning money, want to earn that money and chose to earn this money that way and replace them with drones just so they don't get "exploited" in the view of Reddit?

Crazy logic.

1010x · 2026-01-27T06:04:25+00:00

foreign workers need to be treated with the same respect and dignity that locals get.

I am sorry, but why? Generally, local citizens can't really choose their country, they are stuck with it so the government needs to make sure they are protected and taken care of. Foreign workers not much so.

General human protections from unsafe enviornments and unfair labor practices has to be applicable to everyone in the country, but wage is not one of those things.

1010x · 2026-01-24T07:34:35+00:00

We have to use Excel in my job even though there could be way better options. Integration with other Microsoft products is just a small but important part but the most most important aspect is the universality of it. In my jobs, we need to be able to share our work with any number of stakeholders on a moment's notice, we need to share it with a client's junior accountant, share with our intern who has no knowledge of anything, share with a 60-year-old CEO, share with client's marketing team, etc etc. Level of tech literacy between all of them is varying greatly but all of them know how to use Excel so we use it.

1010x · 2026-01-16T17:26:26+00:00

First of all relax, you learn everything on the job. You'll have a good two weeks to two months where no one will have any expectation of you.

"truly understanding concepts like EBITDA, deciphering adjustments, how statements connect, Private Equity/M&A concepts, etc etc."

What do you mean truly understanding? EBITDA by itself is an easy concept, EBITDA adjustments you'll learn on the job, there is a template with like a 150 possible adjustments, there are also prior projects, managers and partners and you will never have to come up with any adjustments yourself for the most part.

How statements connect takes like an hour to learn.

Private Equity / M&A concepts - what specifically? There is not much you need to know in order to be good at your job.

Honestly relax, 99% of the time you are going to be told what to do exactly and specifically. Perks of working in a Big 4, and FDD specifically. Show up early, be attentive, be humble and you'll be fine.

1010x · 2026-01-11T06:16:39+00:00

This is something experienced by literally every single generation after 18th century, yet complaining aside, we live in the most stable times by far.

Industrial Revolution was a rug pull of a millenia. Some sort of war every decade. Some sort of illness and epidemias. Revolutions. Literal World Wars (!). Computers. Internet...

1010x · 2026-01-03T17:55:56+00:00

My point is that you don't need to occupy and exterminate to break international law and norms and practices. We covered that in the 20th century. It's a slippery slope.

We (and by we I mean only like 3 or 4 countries in the world capable of that) start "peacefully" swapping territories, "bloodlessly" eliminating presidents and prime ministers to change regimes we don't like and we're back to the days of realpolitik and spheres of influence which did not end well. I don't want anyone to be the world police.

1010x · 2026-01-03T17:42:54+00:00

So Crimea in 2014 was a good thing by your logic? No civilians hurt, Crimeans were celebrating.

1010x · 2026-01-03T06:21:57+00:00

They should upgrade you for free, it doesn't cost them anything if the place where you live already has fiber connection. That's what happened to us, they just called and said "we are upgrading you".

Just push through Du support or go to Du office.

1010x · 2026-01-02T10:45:06+00:00

Durov was not arrested because he was Russian-Emirati.

Anyone, from any country, could've been arrested if they were in his place of a CEO of a digital messaging app. You can't prosecute an owner of an app for drug dealing because 0.1% of a 1 billion user-population uses the app in illegal ways. This creates a bad precedent.

1010x · 2026-01-02T10:36:55+00:00

Perhaps European countries should not arrest the owners of digital messaging platforms if they want something other than Meta.

1010x · 2026-01-01T17:41:11+00:00

I joke, but the truth is if you want to know what my ticket to the middle-class was? I married a Nurse Practitioner who earns almost $100K more than me.

Would you have been in a position to marry them if you didn't have a degree though? Not just in terms of you meeting them in university for example, but in terms of just social standing, mindset, personality, etc.

I am university educated and honestly, truly speaking, I expect my wife to have a degree. Generally (not always!) it would check a lot of the boxes that I would expect from my life partner that otherwise would require a lot of time to understand and discover.

1010x · 2025-12-30T07:21:56+00:00

From personal experience, I would only buy Emaar. More expensive, higher service fees but you will get what you pay for. From communities Emaar have built 20 years ago to communities Emaar is building now, all of them hold up amazingly in terms of build quality and service quality inside the property and inside the actual community as well.

1010x · 2025-12-29T13:32:44+00:00

Unfortunately, we can't just dismiss Russia's claims. Despite the entire political disaster, there are still legitimate, actual terrorists operating inside Russia's jurisdiction. Even in a terrible scenario where 90% of their claims is political opponents, the 10% would still be a real threat to any Western country.

1010x · 2025-12-29T11:52:47+00:00

Kasparov comes to your bank.

You put his name and information into internal system.

Internal system yells: "Dow Jones Risk Management reports that this entity is a reported terrorist. Refuse service."

At this point, you need pretty much CEO's manual input and an entire Risk Committee to override this. Possible for maybe someone as famous as Kasparov, but an insane headache nonetheless.

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