Pre-Letter of Intent

Seller-Attested Feedback

Buy-Side Exposure

1. PRE-Assessment (Establish the Seller's starting point)

The Seller completes the S.C.O.R.E. Assessment across:

Strategy · Cashflow · Operations · Retention · Ecosystem

PRE captures how the Seller assesses the business as it operates today, before those answers are examined in the Hot Seat.

Explore the S.C.O.R.E. Methodology →

2. Hot Seat Interview (Get behind the answers)

The Hot Seat is the diagnostic interview at the center of Protective Ascent.

It follows the continuity and transferability exposure factors in this business - using the Seller's PRE responses as a starting point, not a script.

The conversation moves into the people, relationships, decisions, knowledge, practices, constraints, and operating conditions behind those answers. Assumptions are tested. Generalities become specific. Examples are examined. Available evidence is introduced where useful. One answer may open an entirely different line of inquiry when it reveals where the business actually depends on the Seller or someone else.

That requires more than asking good questions.

The Hot Seat draws on more than 20 years of extracting decision-relevant information from stakeholders who may be reluctant to expose obstacles, confident in assumptions that have never been tested, or simply too close to the operation to recognize a dependency as unusual.

The objective isn't to catch the Seller in a contradiction.

It's to create the kind of conversation in which the operating reality becomes specific enough to test.

What emerges in the Hot Seat gives the Seller the context to reconsider the same S.C.O.R.E. questions through the transfer lens in POST - and gives Protective Ascent the substance required for the analysis that follows.

3. POST-Assessment (Apply the transfer test)

The Seller considers the same S.C.O.R.E. questions again, this time from a different perspective:

If the business transferred to a Buyer today, would this still be true?

PRE-to-POST movement is evidence...An answer may remain consistent, become more specific, change, narrow, or remain unsupported.

POST remains the Seller's evidence-tested assessment. It is not automatically independent verification.

4. Facilitator Analysis (Turn the Seller interaction into Buyer findings)

After PRE, Hot Seat, and POST, Protective Ascent analyzes what surfaced and develops four Buyer-facing outputs:

Operational Continuity Report

• What appears positioned to continue after ownership changes - and where continuity is exposed.

Counterparty (Seller) Profile

• How the Seller appears to think about and lead the business, its people, customers, challenges, and operating environment
• What that may mean as leadership changes.

Continuity Risk Register

• The continuity and transferability exposures identified through the assessment, prioritized for Buyer attention.

Knowledge Transfer Priorities

• Where important knowledge or operating capability remains concentrated and requires a credible transfer path.

Where supported, Protective Ascent also characterizes the magnitude of identified operating exposure and identifies when one exposure may trigger or amplify another.

5. Debrief (Put the findings in context)

Protective Ascent concludes with a 1:1 Buyer debrief.

We review what appears supported, what remains uncertain, where exposures interact, and what deserves the Buyer's attention.

If the Buyer proceeds, the debrief can also identify areas that may warrant further examination during post-LOI diligence by the appropriate advisors.

Protective Ascent ends with the debrief.

The acquisition decision remains with the Buyer.

What Protective Ascent Tests →