The questions most often placed before the firm, and the forms in which we respond.

A memorandum commissioned in advance of a step that will be difficult to reverse: a board vote, a capital commitment, a transaction signing, a restructuring announcement. The firm receives the internal case and is instructed to write against it. The output is a memorandum composed for the dissenting reader: what the internal argument passes over, which assumptions carry the weight of the conclusion, and what would cause us to counsel otherwise. Used most often by a principal who is already close to a decision and wants one more honest read before the door closes.

The distance between what a company tells its owners and what a careful outside reader would write after a week in the files. Commissioned by chairs, lead independent directors, audit and risk committees, and at times by chief executives preparing for a difficult external session. The firm does not rewrite the narrative presented to the market. It catalogues where that narrative stretches beyond the evidence in the papers, and what a diligent reader with full access would notice.

A written assessment of whether a leadership transition, already decided or under consideration, is likely to hold up. The work is held in confidence. The memorandum is read by one, two, or three named individuals and is not circulated further. Internal candidates are examined on their record, external comparators on theirs, and the conditions of transition are read against those that have determined success and failure in comparable houses. The memorandum is a considered judgment, not a ranking, and it names specific persons only where the question requires it.

Used when the machinery of decision-making has quietly loosened. Papers are long and late. The board discusses what it has always discussed, rather than what has since come open. Escalation routes have gone informal, and the gap between stated responsibility and actual responsibility has widened. The firm reads a sample of recent papers and minutes, speaks with a small number of directors and executives, and writes a short document setting out what should be tightened and why. Implementation rests with the principal. The memorandum gives that reset a defensible basis.

Commissioned before or during a live transaction, when management is close to the rationale and the outside advisers are close to the fees. The firm sits between them and writes a short memorandum on the perimeter of the deal: strategic fit read against the combined balance sheet, valuation discipline and its sensitivities, integration burden truly costed in management attention, walk-away criteria, and the asymmetry between the upside case and the downside case. The firm does not replace bankers or lawyers. It provides the reader-of-last-resort view a board should have before signature.

A six- to twelve-month relationship with a chief executive or chair expecting to face several related questions in sequence: a transition, a restructuring, a capital programme, a regulatory shift. In place of one long engagement, we write short memoranda as each question surfaces, typically three to six pages each, on the subjects the principal nominates. Capped hours, quarterly review, and a single named author on every document.