04 How To Master M&A Models

Twenty-two M&A models and frameworks, each taught end to end — with the worked models to run them.

A deal is only as good as the models behind it. This handbook teaches all twenty-two in the M&A category — one chapter each — across the full arc of a transaction: valuing the target, structuring and financing the deal, testing the synergies, and getting to a clean close and integration. From Accretion/Dilution and the Merger Model to Sources and Uses, the Earn-Out and Quality of Earnings.

What you get

The complete PDF handbook plus twenty-two worked Excel models — one for every model in the book. Blue input cells you change, formula cells that respond, and a Read-me tab on each, so you can run the deal maths on your own numbers.

How every chapter is built

Read one and you can build any. Each model follows the same thirteen-section rhythm: the question it answers, what it is, who uses it, its anatomy, inputs and outputs, how to build it step by step, a worked example, strengths, limits and pitfalls, industry notes, how it connects to the other models, modern relevance, using AI on it, and a practitioner’s checklist.

The twenty-two models

Accretion/Dilution, Merger Model, Contribution Analysis, Exchange Ratio, Control Premium, Precedent Transactions, Comparable Companies, Revenue Synergy, Cost Synergy, Sources and Uses, Funds Flow, Deal Timetable, Term Sheet, Day-1 Readiness, PMI Workstream, Merger Consequences, Earn-Out, Escrow and Indemnity, Purchase Price Allocation, Break-Up Fee, Stub Equity and Quality of Earnings.

The learning path

The chapters are ordered as a single connected build, not an alphabetical list — from valuation, to deal structure and financing, to synergies, documentation and completion.

Who it's for

Bankers, corporate-development teams, private-equity investors and advisers who build, check or challenge the numbers behind a transaction.

How to use it

Work straight through to master the category, or jump to a single model when you need it for live work.

Book 04 of the Business Framework Library, part of The Investment Banking Practitioner’s Handbook Series. Master this category on its own, or reach for the Business Framework Compendium when you want the one-page reference to all 467 frameworks.

By John Colley — Cambridge University MA · MBA with Distinction, Bayes Business School · 30+ years in investment banking, M&A and private equity.