Principal, Acquisition Valuation and Synergy Evidence Assurance

The mandate

An investment committee is evaluating control of an operating business containing three legal entities. The headline case combines adjusted earnings with purchasing, overhead and commercial synergies, but its different analyses do not yet form a reconciled price recommendation. This project will establish what the buyer would actually acquire, what obligations affect equity value and which proposed benefits survive scrutiny. The principal produces an investment evidence file rather than negotiating as the buyer's agent or becoming the target's finance chief.

The six-month term begins on 26 October 2026 with a three-day weekly reservation. The sponsor and group controller accept the earnings-and-obligations reconciliation on 17 December 2026. The investment finance lead accepts the valuation and synergy challenge model on 11 February 2027. The investment committee sponsor accepts the final decision file on 26 April 2027 after nominated analysts reproduce the equity bridge, sensitivities and supported benefit scenarios from preserved source evidence.

The sponsor supplies target financial records, diligence findings, ownership information, the proposed commercial terms and access to relevant operating owners. Legal, tax and technical advisers provide their specialist conclusions. The principal tests financial consistency and valuation consequences, preserving uncertainty where evidence is incomplete. Acceptance is independent of deal signing, financing approval or realised savings. A model must remain usable if the committee rejects the acquisition or changes its proposed price, rather than becoming valid only after the preferred transaction completes.

Scope covers this controlling acquisition, the three-entity target and an agreed set of benefit hypotheses. Additional targets, detailed post-acquisition finance implementation, legal drafting and independent valuation of specialist assets are excluded. A new ownership structure or materially changed target perimeter requires sponsor-approved change control covering fee, records and dates. The final package must preserve rejected adjustments, overlap between benefits and implementation costs, so directors can see how the recommendation was reached instead of receiving a clean valuation that silently excludes inconvenient evidence.

What you will own

• Reconcile normalised earnings to the target's financial records, testing adjustment consistency across entities and periods so the valuation does not rely on removing recurring costs or combining incompatible definitions of performance.
• Build the enterprise-to-equity bridge using confirmed debt, cash, ownership and agreed adjustment categories, identifying disputed classification or perimeter questions that require specialist conclusion before they can responsibly affect a price recommendation.
• Test working-capital assumptions against operating seasonality and payment behaviour, showing the cash consequence of acquiring the business at different measurement points rather than treating one favourable balance sheet as a permanent requirement.
• Challenge each synergy hypothesis for baseline, ownership, dependency and implementation cost, separating incremental benefit from activity already included in the standalone forecast or another workstream's proposed improvement.
• Model downside and delayed-benefit scenarios with explicit acquisition funding consequences, allowing the committee to judge price resilience without assuming every proposed saving begins immediately after control transfers.
• Assemble the investment decision file with supported conclusions, unresolved evidence and price sensitivities, making clear which specialist findings alter value and which remain conditions the authorised transaction team must resolve.
• Lead independent analyst replay of the complete model and evidence trail, correcting ambiguous definitions and preserving the test results as acceptance proof before the final package is handed to the sponsor.

Candidate qualifications

• Bring 22–28 years of finance experience with CFO, group finance or senior transaction responsibility and substantial personal involvement in acquisition evaluation. Demonstrate several completed or seriously evaluated deals, including a case where you changed price, terms or the decision to proceed. The requirement is financial judgement over a controlling investment, not merely compilation of adviser findings into an investment committee presentation.
• Hold a recognised accounting or management-accounting qualification and demonstrate rigorous valuation, earnings normalisation and enterprise-to-equity reconciliation. Explain an adjustment that seemed reasonable individually but became misleading when combined with another assumption. You must distinguish financial analysis from legal or tax opinion and use authoritative specialist conclusions to support the treatment of obligations whose interpretation lies beyond your competence.
• Have tested synergy claims against operating evidence, including duplication, dis-synergy, implementation cost and timing. Show a benefit you reduced or excluded and how that affected the investment recommendation. Understanding a business case is not enough: your method must identify who can deliver a benefit, what must happen first and whether the standalone valuation has already captured the same improvement.
• Deliver reproducible financial models and decision records within a bounded project, preserving failed hypotheses and unresolved inputs rather than hiding them in a favourable base case. Protect the stated weekly capacity and disclose target, investor or adviser relationships. The handover must allow internal analysts to reconstruct results and limitations without your continuing presence; payment cannot be justified by transaction success in place of accepted evidence.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 14 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-CON-2026-IND-231.