Due Diligence Quotes

“Companies should exercise financial due diligence before entering into deals to minimize financial risks and ensure informed decision-making. This process helps identify potential issues, verify financial claims, and assess the overall financial health of the target company, safeguarding the investing company's resources and reputation.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.

“When the due diligence process fails to account for a holistic set of data, then the leaders are incapable of having a holistic sense of how successful the deal may be, and what chance of success the new entity may have.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., GAME CHANGR6: An Executives Guide to Dominating Change, by applying the R6 Resilience Change Management Framework

“Mossfon subscribed to a Google-like paid search service called World-Check to help identify PEPs ["politically exposed person"] and criminals. It also, not for the first time, sent a letter to its professional clients requesting that they conduct a customer review. There was little follow-up. It was a question of incentives. When scandals sporadically came to light, they always seemed to resolve themselves without undue harm to the firm. Meanwhile, business was booming. In 2005, the firm tripled the number of shell companies it created on behalf of banks. By the end of the year, Mossfon had more than seventy thousand active companies. To do the necessary due diligence on all of them would have been prohibitively expensive, and sometimes impossible. In a business predicated on secrecy, no one wanted to produce the information.”
― Jake Bernstein, Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite

“And he said...

...leave a stone unturned and you will find a nest of deceit underneath.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“Due diligence involves a lot of paperwork and sometimes more footwork than you could possibly imagine; hopefully you’ll find the process of getting the job done as fascinating as I do. Real-world puzzle-solving is always going to interest me more than any novel, escape room, or video game. I do believe that the truth is out there; there is an answer if you ask the right questions.”
― Jake Adelstein, Tokyo Noir: In and Out of Japan's Underworld

“When seeking startup funding, having a well thought out investor data room with financial forecasts, cap tables, and legal essentials streamlines due diligence and signals operational maturity.

It's like curating a gallery where each exhibit tells a compelling story, drawing investors in to see your startup masterpiece.”
― Jason Hishmeh, The 6 Startup Stages: How Non-technical Founders Create Scalable, Profitable Companies