Evolution Capital Advisors Presents Caveat Emptor: Buyer Beware
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The Deal Beneath the Deal.
Very nice story. Show me the numbers.
From 80 slides to one thread
19 November 2026
The Reform Club, 104 Pall Mall, London
Arrival from 08:00 · Welcome at 08:30 · Close at 11:00
Invitation only
- The EC Analytics Advantage
What is really driving the growth?
How much of the revenue is genuinely recurring?
Which customers are carrying the business?
What happens when the forecast meets reality?
A very nice story. But would you buy it?
Every deal starts with a story.
A technology business with strong growth. Good customers. Improving margins. A management team with a convincing explanation for what comes next.
Then come the numbers.
And, traditionally, the 80-slide report.
On 19 November, we will take that story apart.
Not by adding more slides, but by asking better questions and following the numbers back to the evidence beneath them.
At the Reform Club, where Phileas Fogg’s famous wager captured a world being made faster by steamships and railways, we will look at how technology, data and experience are changing the way deals are assessed.
Because AI can make the numbers faster and cheaper.
It does not make them true.
The value moves to the people who know which numbers to trust.
- THE QUESTION IS SIMPLE
Would you buy it?
We will start with a business that looks good on paper.
A technology business. A very nice story. Headline numbers that appear convincing.
Then we will give you the questions.
What would you want to know before buying it?
What should due diligence be able to prove?
Where does the process take too much time?
And which numbers would you want to see beneath the headline?
Your questions will shape what we show next.
No formal voting. No passive audience. The room helps set the agenda.
- What will we explore?
Revenue quality
Customer cohorts
Margin
Customer concentration
Retention
Forecast
For each, we will look at what technology can accelerate, what it can help review, and where human judgement still matters.
And we will come back to three simple questions:
Is it real?
Will it repeat?
Who keeps it?
From 80 slides to one thread
The traditional FDD report can tell a compelling story.
But what happens when you want to challenge one number?
Where did it come from?
What sits behind it?
Does the explanation hold when you look at the underlying data?
This is the gap we want to explore.
Not whether technology replaces due diligence.
But what happens when better data, better tools and experienced advisors work together.
08:00
Arrival and coffee
Arrive from 08:00 and join us for breakfast at the Reform Club.
08:30
Welcome
Why did we start Caveat Emptor? What is the series for? And what should you expect from the morning?
We set the question for the day:
When AI can produce the numbers in minutes, how do you know which ones to trust?
08:35
The Confession Session
A candid look at deals that did not quite go to plan.
Jonathan and John share what they missed at the time and what they would look for now.
No client names. Just the lessons.
Customer cohorts
Revenue quality
Margin
Concentration
Retention
Operational performance
Forecast assumptions
08:50
Around the Deal in 80 Slides
Introducing the deal: a very nice story
A technology business. A convincing story. Headline numbers that look good.
Then the traditional route to understanding it: an 80-slide report.
09:00
Would you buy it?
What do you want to know?
Work through the questions you would ask before buying.
What do you want diligence to support?
Which parts of the process take the most work?
Your questions become the pick list for the live analysis.
09:00
Breakfast
Take a little more time to add questions to the cards on your table.
09:30
A Study in Scarlet
What due diligence can do today
Follow a headline number from the story to the source, live on EC Analytics.
The analysis will respond to the questions raised by the room.
We will look at where AI speeds things up, where it helps review consistency and flag red flags, and where a person still has to judge.
09:50
The Country of the Blind
The role of the experienced advisor
When everyone has access to the same AI, who actually sees?
A discussion about the role of the experienced advisor in the due diligence process, what AI does well, and where judgement still decides.
10:00
The Shape of Things to Come
How the advisor's role will change
A short trip into the next two years and beyond.
What changes when advisors can work with better data, shorter timelines and increasingly capable technology?
And what happens when everyone becomes deal-ready all the time?
Any forward-looking points will be clearly presented as views or hypotheses rather than predictions.
10:10
Around the world with Billy and Lara
Billy and Lara, the crew of the World’s Toughest Row, share what it took to prepare, what they learned about resilience and teamwork, and what they would do differently.
A different perspective on preparation, judgement and performing when the conditions change.
10:25
Close
Three takeaways from the morning, and what comes next in the Caveat Emptor series.
10:30
Networking
Stay for conversation and networking until 11:00.
What you'll take away
- What sits behind headline growth
- The importance of customer cohorts, concentration and retention
- The questions experienced dealmakers ask early
SHARPER JUDGEMENT
- How buyers assess revenue quality
- Where forecast assumptions can distort an investment case
- How interactive data can change the way FDD is understood
Who should be in the room?
4 PROFILES
Looking beyond the reported numbers to understand performance, risk and future value.
Thinking about growth, investment, valuation or an eventual transaction.
Assessing technology businesses and the assumptions underpinning investment cases.
Looking at transactions through the evidence, not just the deal narrative.
THE DEAL BENEATH THE DEAL
Meet the People
Behind the Converstion
Financial due diligence is ultimately about judgement. What matters? What doesn’t? What deserves another question? And where can apparently strong performance conceal a very different underlying picture?
INDUSTRY & TRANSACTION EXPERTS
John Mills
Senior Tax Advisor
Sam Godfrey
Transaction Services Director
BEYOND THE DEAL
Billy Taylor
Ocean Rower
Lara V
Ocean Rower
PRESENTED BY
Jonathan Benaim
FDD Specialist & Transaction Expert
Evolution Capital
Following the launch of EC Analytics in January and increasing client demand for financial due diligence services (FDD), we are delighted to announce the appointment of Jonathan Benaim, ACCA Chartered Accountant, FDD Specialist, and Transaction Guru, as our new Transaction Manager.
Why Caveat Emptor?
08:00 — 10:30, LONDON
Caveat Emptor means “buyer beware”.
It is a useful principle for a world where numbers can be produced faster than ever, but where speed does not necessarily mean certainty.
This series looks at what happens beneath the headline.
The data.
The questions.
The assumptions.
The judgement.
And the people who know where to look.
Part of the Caveat Emptor series
THREE CONVERSATIONS. ONE QUESTION.
Across three conversations, Evolution Capital brings investors, CFOs, founders, technology leaders and experienced dealmakers together to examine the stories behind technology transactions. What is the business really worth?
sponsoring the Indian Ocean Row – The World’s Toughest Row
Meet our tax and financial due diligence team
Sam Godfrey
Transaction Services Director | ACA
Jonathan Benaim
Transaction Manager | ACA
Duljan Leka
Data Analyst | ACA
Erdit Qendro
ACCA Data Analyst
- Request a Confidential Consultation
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