Most of my work is with owners on their own business, the same commercial management read either way. But the standard does not care which side of the table you are on. If you are looking at an acquisition, the same read applies, pointed at theirs instead of yours.
The report looks the same at every grade. It simply gets more proven as you climb. Where a grade cannot yet see something it says so plainly, and those named gaps are the map of exactly what the next grade buys.
You need: a company name. Nothing else.
Public record only. Size, sector, ownership, the filed-accounts trend, any charges or distress signals, the digital footprint, and a one-paragraph thesis with what would have to be true for this to work.
You get: a fast go or park, and the questions worth asking next.
You need: Grade 1, plus the seller's pack. The information memorandum, any property valuation, any workbook they have built.
Maintainable earnings modelled as scenarios once a realistic management team is charged for, a valuation bracket, the deal and funding read, and the consolidated question set to put to the seller.
You get: a reasoned go or no-go you can act on, with the gaps named.
You need: Grade 2, plus the numbers. Full profit and loss line by line, accounts with notes, three years of bank statements, contract and asset registers, the tax position, data room access.
Verified earnings rather than modelled. The deal structured and funded off real cash, with full financial, legal and commercial due diligence.
You get: a firm position rather than a bracket, ready to negotiate against.
Still working out what to look for rather than looking at something specific? The same method runs backwards: a set of criteria in, a ranked shortlist of candidates out, with a one-line reason against each name.
A business that only works because its owner is in it every day is a different purchase from one that runs on its own, even when the profit line looks identical. That is the same measure I use on the sell side, and it is the one most acquisition reads skip because it does not appear in the accounts.
Charge a realistic management team against the earnings, and a lot of businesses look very different very quickly.
I have sat on the operating side of this: post-acquisition integration when one engineering group bought another, and the year-one reality of two businesses still running as two. What the read looks for is shaped by having had to fix what a bad one misses. That case study.
A read that overstates what it can see is worth less than one that marks its own gaps.
Fifteen minutes. Tell me what you are considering and I will tell you honestly which grade is worth doing, and whether it is worth doing at all.