Docket

ESOP or sponsor sale? NCEO counts of ESOPs from Form 5500 data, the IRS definition, Section 1042 conditions as written, and what it means for outreach.

How earnouts in private acquisitions are structured, what the Cain, Denis and Denis study found, how buyers account for them, and where disputes start.

What data provenance means, how the W3C PROV model links entities, activities and agents, and a minimal provenance record for one company fact.

A guide to the Fed's Small Business Credit Survey: sample design, 2025 financing, debt and cost findings, and what they can and cannot say about targets.

What a confidential information memorandum contains, where it sits in an M&A sale process, and how buyers test each section against independent records.

Which EBITDA add-backs survive diligence: four adjustment families, SEC non-GAAP tests as a yardstick, the evidence each needs and a test sheet.

Measure inter-rater reliability in acquisition screening with Cohen's kappa: a worked pass/fail example, interpretation bands and the prevalence trap.

How to screen a private target for customer concentration before diligence: the 10% disclosure rule, what research shows, public clues and a worksheet.

What the Census Annual Business Survey says about owners, including owner age by sector and state, how to pull ABS tables and API data, and its limits.

What BLS establishment survival data show: about half of new establishments reach five years, a third reach ten, and what that means for screening by age.

How buyers spot carve-out candidates in SEC filings (segments, 8-K items, held-for-sale, Exhibit 21) and price stand-alone costs, TSAs and stranded costs.

How multiple arbitrage works in a buy-and-build: an illustrative value bridge, a flat-exit sensitivity table, and the limits the evidence leaves open.

Business valuation methods for private companies: income, market and asset approaches, the eight Rev. Rul. 59-60 factors, and an evidence worksheet.

Where acquisition price data lives in 10-Ks and 8-Ks: ASC 805 footnotes, Reg S-X 3-05 significance tests, EDGAR full-text search and a sourced comp row.

Who sells sub-$50M businesses: broker tiers, the Exchange Act M&A broker exemption, and what BizBuySell and IBBA Market Pulse data do and do not show.

A fact-check of the silver tsunami claim using Census owner-age tables for 2018 to 2023: who is counted, what is modelled, and why age is not intent.

As of Oct 28, 2026, US companies are exempt from FinCEN BOI reporting and the database is non-public. Where buyers can find owner evidence instead.

A reviewer's checklist for AI-generated company research, mapped to NIST AI 600-1: classify claims, verify citations and quotes, sample by risk, sign off.

A method for sourcing bolt-on acquisitions: derive criteria from the platform, map the market from licence registries, resolve entities, apply knockouts.

IOI vs LOI for private company acquisitions: what each states, which LOI terms bind, Delaware's SIGA good-faith rule, HSR timing and a pre-send checklist.

How to run a PACER party name search on a company, tell a federal case hit from a name collision, and plan 2026 fees ($0.10 per page, $0.12 from 2027) with a fictional adjudication worksheet.