Publication: Due Diligence checklist for M&A 2026 — 300+ points across commercial, financial, legal, technical, ESG and integration workstreams

Workstreams (300+ points):

Commercial DD (60): TAM/SAM/SOM, unit economics, customer concentration, churn and NRR, competitive positioning, pricing power, channel strategy, brand health
Financial DD (70): quality of earnings, working capital, revenue recognition, debt and covenants, tax exposures, related party transactions, carve-out adjustments
Legal and regulatory DD (55): litigation, IP, contracts (change of control, assignment), regulatory licences, sanctions and compliance, data privacy, employment, antitrust
Technical DD (50): architecture, security, scalability, team, IP, tech debt, AI and ML governance, data practices, open source
ESG and sustainability DD (35): carbon footprint, supply chain labour, diversity, governance, regulatory horizon (CSDDD, CSRD, SEC Climate), transition risk
Integration DD (30): synergy validation, cultural assessment, systems integration, people retention, TSA scope, day-one readiness

Emerging risks in 2026 (new sections):

AI governance: model inventory, training data provenance, bias testing, explainability, regulatory compliance (EU AI Act), IP ownership of generated content
Crypto and digital asset exposure: treasury holdings, revenue from crypto, DeFi protocols, custody, regulatory licensing (MiCA, the US stablecoin bill)
Supply chain resilience: single-source dependencies, geographic concentration, Tier-2/3 visibility, force majeure history
Regulatory horizon scanning: impact of pending legislation (AI Act, CSDDD, MiCA, SEC rules, amendments to the Russian data law)

Download (Excel plus PDF plus Notion template): xlsx | pdf | notion

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