For a sell-side broker or M&A advisor this moment arrives after the engagement has ended on paper. The seller may stay on as a consultant and the buyer may invite you to a courtesy check-in. Neither makes you the buyer's adviser, but both give you a look at the new organization before it settles.
Authority from signing to the integration review
One rule settles most of it. SourceX's screening guidance says that once a company is acquired, the acquirer's CEO decides for it, not the former board. Before closing, the target's own CEO decides, and nobody should use the buyer's process as a back door to reach the target.
The structure of the sale decides where the records went. In a stock sale they stay with the company under its new owners; in an asset sale the buyer usually owns what the purchase agreement lists and the seller keeps excluded records, as SourceX's note on records after an asset sale explains. An excluded archive is a separate question for the seller's side and its counsel.
Securities guidance written about your own trade shows why the buyer's side holds the decision. The SEC staff's 2014 no-action letter on M&A brokers says a buyer could actively operate an acquired private company through the power to elect its executive officers and approve its annual budget. Whoever picks the officers picks the CEO whose yes counts.
| Stage | Who decides a licensing conversation | Where the records usually sit | What the former sell-side advisor can do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Letter of intent and diligence | The target's CEO | The target's systems, with copies in the data room | Nothing through the buyer; any referral runs through your client and that CEO |
| Signed, not closed | The target's CEO | The target's systems | Wait, unless that CEO raises it |
| Closing and transition | The acquirer's CEO, from closing day | Inside the buyer's group, or wherever the asset list put them | Note the date and listen; the seller knows the history but no longer decides |
| Integration review | The acquirer's CEO | Settled system by system: kept, migrated or retired | Run the responsibility interview if the acquirer agrees |
| Steady state | The acquirer's CEO | The buyer's platforms and archives | An ordinary referral through someone the CEO listens to |
A new owner that plans its first months well, as in the search fund first 100 days plan, inventories systems before retiring any; the integration review is where that inventory acquires owners.
Why the sponsor is seldom anyone you met in the deal
The people a broker knows best after a sale are deal people, and each is a weak sponsor for a different reason. Which of them should make the introduction is a separate question, answered by the contact map for closed sales.
- The buyer's corporate development lead ran the acquisition, usually moves on to the next one and does not run the acquired operations.
- The seller in a transition role knows the records better than anyone, which makes them the best witness to the history. They no longer decide, and if part of their price rides on an earn-out, an idea from them can look self-interested; the earn-out guide covers that conversation.
- The integration lead knows plans and dates. What that team can disclose is mapped in what an integration team can tell a referral partner; this page puts those answers to a narrower use, naming one sponsor.
Here a sponsor is the person who carries a short note to the acquirer's CEO and fields the CEO's first questions. The CEO authorizes a licensing discussion and signs; the sponsor prepares the case and asks. A good one has day-to-day responsibility for the records, a working line to the CEO and the willingness to use it. Here the sponsor carries the idea to a CEO who has not heard it yet; choosing a sponsor inside the company covers the later step, after the CEO's yes.
The integration responsibility interview
Hold it with one person the acquirer names, usually the integration lead or the executive now running the acquired business, and only after asking whether the acquirer wants the conversation at all. Each question locates a responsibility; a complete answer is a role or, at most, a range.
| # | Question | Responsibility it locates | A complete answer | Stop and route to the CEO if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Which entity holds the acquired business's records now? | Custody | "Still the subsidiary" | It turns on the purchase agreement |
| 2 | Which record families came across intact? | Custody | Names such as tickets or dispatch | They offer an export |
| 3 | Which system holds each family, and is it staying? | System | "The old service desk, retiring next year" | The date has not been cleared |
| 4 | Who administers that system now? | System | A role | They offer a login |
| 5 | Whose team creates or relies on those records today? | Process | "Regional service operations" | Nobody can say |
| 6 | Who decides whether a family is kept, migrated or deleted? | Retention | "General counsel, with IT" | A hold or a dispute comes up |
| 7 | Who manages the customer and vendor contracts that touch them? | Contracts | A role | They start reading clauses to you |
| 8 | Which of these people meets the CEO regularly? | CEO line | A role | The CEO's office handles such questions |
| 9 | Has anyone inside raised licensing or AI use of the old records? | Prior interest | Yes, no, or "ask the COO" | It came up during the deal itself |
| 10 | Has the business or its new parent been in touch with SourceX? | Earlier contact | Yes, no or unknown | Yes: pause and let SourceX's duplicate review decide |
| 11 | Whom would the CEO expect to bring an idea like this? | Sponsor | A role | "Send it to me": the interviewee is the route |
| 12 | May I send that person four lines, and say you suggested it? | Permission | Yes or no | No: thank them and stop |
Nothing on the list exposes content: no exports, samples, customer lists or price, and nothing a pre-closing clean team saw.
Reading the answers: one owner per family, then one sponsor
Lay the answers out as a grid of people against responsibilities. The sponsor usually sits where process responsibility meets a line to the CEO. Retention and contract owners are consulted before any note goes out, but they rarely carry the idea.
| Person (Illustrative) | Custody or system | Process | Retention or contracts | Line to the CEO | Role in the introduction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regional VP, service, formerly the target's operations head | Dispatch system administrator reports to her | Yes | No | Through the COO | Briefs the sponsor |
| Group COO | No | Accountable for every service region | No | Weekly operating review | Sponsor |
| IT integration lead | The old service desk | No | Owns the migration plan | No | Source of dates |
| General counsel | No | No | Retention and customer contracts | Yes | Consulted before any note |
| The seller, on a consulting agreement | Knows the history | No | No | Rarely | Witness, not sponsor |
Deal-room knowledge against facts the company approves
As a referral partner you never see or handle the company's records, its inventory or its data room, and the Channel Partner Agreement gives a partner no authority to share any of them. What you learned as the seller's advisor, from the information memorandum to the price, stays inside that engagement.
| Item | Where it came from | Can it go in the note? |
|---|---|---|
| Record families and years, at summary level | The interview, confirmed by the sponsor | Yes, in wording the sponsor approves |
| Systems that are retiring, and roughly when | The integration lead | Only if the date is already cleared |
| Customer names, volumes or concentration | The data room | No |
| Price, working capital, escrow or earn-out targets | The purchase agreement | No |
| A claim that the records "add value to the deal" | Nobody | No; it is not a fact, and it is not your call |
Do not manufacture deal value. A licensing conversation after closing is not a price adjustment, an earn-out lever or a reason to reopen escrow, and nobody can put a figure on it early: SourceX keeps pricing indicative until the company signs a Dataset Deal Confirmation with SourceX, which fixes the dataset, payout, rights, processing route and deadlines. A seller asking whether licensing could lift an earn-out should put that to their counsel and the buyer.
A note that rides with the sponsor, and the file you keep
- Time it. After closing and outside cutover weeks. If a system holding a record family is about to retire, tell the sponsor, because records that are deleted cannot be licensed later.
- Route it. Four lines to the sponsor: what SourceX does, which record families and years make the business worth a look, that the CEO decides, and that checking fit needs no files. The sponsor chooses whether to take it further.
- Record it. If the CEO wants the conversation, sign the SourceX Channel Partner Agreement first if you have not, then record the introduction in writing that day; an oral introduction is unprotected until confirmed in writing.
- Close it. If the sponsor or the CEO says no, file the date and the reason and send nothing more. Either way, keep a dated note of each conversation: who answered, at what level, and what you chose not to ask.
Credit follows dated records. Under section 2 of the terms, the first valid introduction of a new company inside the 90-day window is credited once that company files a verified application; under section 3, earlier contact with SourceX makes the company a duplicate. For the reward, the acquired business and its new parent are one company: the USD 50,000 floor applies once, to that company's first qualifying transaction, and later qualifying transactions agreed within the 12-month Repeat Window pay 15% with no cap. If the buyer's group spoke with SourceX before the deal, the published terms do not say how that bears on the business it bought; SourceX works that out in duplicate review.
One check-in, two possible sponsors (Illustrative)
Illustrative. Both companies and every fact about them are made up for this example, and no outcome is implied.
A broker sold a 230-person commercial HVAC service company to a 1,400-person facilities group in an asset purchase. Ten weeks after closing, the seller, retained as a consultant, invites the broker to a check-in with the group's integration lead, who agrees to answer a separate question about the acquired service history at summary level.
The answers: service history since 2012 was on the asset list and sits in the old field-service system, due to retire after open work orders migrate; the regional VP of service runs the team that uses it; the general counsel owns retention; the group COO reviews operations weekly with the CEO; nobody has contacted SourceX.
The grid gives two candidates: the regional VP, closest to the records but without a line to the CEO, and the COO, who has the line and the accountability. The note goes to the regional VP, who briefs the COO, who decides whether to raise it. Two weeks later the COO says the CEO would take a short call, and the broker, who signed the Channel Partner Agreement months earlier, records the introduction in writing that afternoon. Fit and any license are for SourceX's review and the CEO.
What could have gone wrong: at the start, the seller offered to "pull a copy of the old database so SourceX can look". The broker declined. The database moved to the group with the assets, the seller no longer decides, and a partner never handles records.
Where the responsibility interview misleads
- Org charts move. In the first months after closing, a sponsor named in week ten may hold a different job by week twenty. Date every answer.
- Titles are not responsibilities. A "head of data" may own none of the records that matter, which is why the interview asks what people do.
- Some acquirers say no. A buyer may bar staff from talking with the seller's former advisers; then only a relationship that already reaches the CEO will do.
- Rights and demand stay open. Customer contracts that moved with the business, and whether the records match a current program, are settled in SourceX's review, not in the interview.
- Asking has a cost. A former sell-side advisor asking questions after closing can look like prospecting. Nobody has published how acquirers react to it; log each ask and its outcome.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
Once the interview has produced a willing sponsor and the acquirer's CEO wants to hear more, create your partner account, test the acquired business against who qualifies and go through the program terms before the four lines leave your outbox. More transaction playbooks sit in the guides library and on the business broker page.