About
Written from inside a live deal.
BankingBeast covers mid-market deal execution — what the next document buys, what the next stage costs, and which clause a diligence finding turns into.
A transaction is a sequence of documents, and each one closes off a set of options. Most published coverage of that sequence is either a glossary with no consequences attached or a war story with no mechanics. BankingBeast covers the deal as the deal is run: stage, document, decision, and the clause the decision ends up in.
It is organised on the transaction itself rather than on a course catalogue or a data-room folder tree, because that is the order the work actually arrives in.
What this covers
Five workstreams, each covered to the level a deal team needs on the day it comes up.
- Sell-side process: Preparation through signing: the marketing sequence, the bid structure, and what each round of the process is really testing.
- Buy-side and corporate development: Sourcing, the approach, the LOI and its exclusivity cost, and where a buyer's leverage moves during diligence.
- Debt and credit markets: The capital structure as financed — the instruments, the covenants, and what each layer prices against.
- Valuation methods: The approaches, the adjustments, and the difference between a defensible number and a negotiated one.
- Diligence workstreams: Quality of earnings, working capital pegs, and how a finding becomes a purchase agreement clause rather than a footnote.
Who this is written for
Bankers, corp dev, and credit teams executing a transaction. That is the chair this property is written from, and it is the test every page has to pass before it ships.
Not written for someone preparing for an interview, and not written for someone raising or running a fund. If your question is what the money split should be, or how the company gets run after close, a sibling property owns that seat.
How it gets made
The production system behind every page here — where the sources come from, where automation is used, where editorial judgment is not delegated, and what the software refuses to publish — is written out in full at /methodology.
When we get something wrong, the fix is dated and public at /corrections, not a silent edit. That log is the cheapest way to check whether any of this is real.
Who publishes this
Michael Kaufman — Editor-in-Chief
Michael Kaufman edits BankingBeast. He builds Archstone, software for private-market managers, and has spent twenty years running and buying into operating businesses — the transaction side of that work is what this property is built on.
One editor is the accurate description of this masthead, and saying so is the point: there is a named person accountable for every page, and a single address to argue with when one of them is wrong.
Part of the Beast Network
BankingBeast is part of the Beast Network — a set of properties that split private capital by who is holding the pen at that stage, so execution is covered by people writing about execution.
The properties share a method and a correction policy. They do not share an audience, and nothing published here is written to serve another one.
Get in touch
Corrections, sourcing questions, licensing requests, and placement enquiries all go through one form, so a message becomes a record rather than something someone remembers receiving. Corrections can also be sent straight to corrections@bankingbeast.com.
Contact BankingBeast