Cross-border M&A advisors: introducing a US company after the deal closes

Why the months after closing matter

Closing ends your mandate, not your relationship. You spent months with the US CEO and CFO on the data room, management presentations and disclosure schedules, and you probably understand how the company keeps its records better than anyone at the acquirer's head office.

That knowledge is most useful in the first year of ownership. An acquirer based in Europe or Asia will often want its new US business on group email, group finance and a single CRM instance. Each migration forces a decision about which history moves, what gets archived and what is quietly deleted.

If you raise a records assessment before those decisions are final, the US company keeps an option it would otherwise lose: licensing its operating history to AI developers through SourceX for a one-time payment, while keeping ownership of the data.

Why is integration the trigger?

Integration is when legacy systems are retired, and retired systems are where years of records disappear.

AI developers are building agents that carry out multi-step work, and training them takes examples of how real companies handle tickets, deals, approvals and projects. Most of that material sits inside private systems rather than on the public web. Researchers at Epoch AI estimate that, if current trends continue, language models could fully use the stock of public human-written text between 2026 and 2032. It is a forecast with wide uncertainty, but it explains why permissioned company records attract interest.

For the company you advised, the question is narrower: will the full history of its helpdesk, CRM and shared drives survive the move to group systems? If nobody has decided yet, you have a reason to call.

Timeline: from signing to the first anniversary

Deal size and any transition services agreement shift the dates, but the sequence rarely changes: map the systems, migrate, then retire. Aim to be part of the conversation before the migration plan is signed off.

Who has to say yes after closing?

The US company now makes decisions inside its new owner's governance. The CEO is still your natural first contact, but a data license will usually need sign-off above them.

Never go around the acquirer. If the group's delegation-of-authority matrix reserves IP licensing to the parent board, the US CEO needs that approval before signing anything, and an introduction that surprises group management damages your standing with both sides of the deal you just closed.

Permissions, approvals and the purchase agreement

Three sets of documents decide what is possible, and you probably helped negotiate at least one of them.

1. The purchase agreement. Ask counsel whether the earn-out definition of revenue or EBITDA would capture a license payment, and whether any post-closing covenant restricts new IP arrangements. A license that moves an earn-out number can start a dispute between the sellers and the buyer.
2. The transition services agreement. In a carve-out, some of the target's records may still sit on the former parent's systems. Records held on another company's infrastructure need clear rights before anyone can license them.
3. Customer and employee terms. Records that mainly belong to the company's clients, and consumer or health data without a licensing basis, usually fall outside scope.

None of these is your call. Your contribution is raising the question early enough that the people who decide can answer it before records are lost.

What to say to the US CEO

Treat it as a conversation starter, not a pitch, and do not describe the company's records to anyone outside it.

If the CEO wants it in writing, adapt the post-closing note to the US CEO, which includes a copy note for the group integration lead. For a wider view of integration work, see the advisor plan for acquisition integrations.

What the company should preserve before migration

You never export, upload or review records yourself. What you can do is prompt the company to keep complete exports while it still can.

• The legacy email tenant archived in full before mailboxes are merged into the group tenant
• A CRM export with activity history, notes and closed-lost opportunities, not only the open pipeline
• Helpdesk tickets with full threads, internal notes and resolution codes
• Code repositories with commit and pull-request history, plus the issue tracker
• Shared drives and wikis, including SOPs and project folders from teams that have since left
• General ledger and payables detail for prior years in a readable export
• One named person at the US company who owns the export list

Companies with deep histories often run 10 to 15 or more systems, and archives of tools the company stopped using years ago are frequently the most distinctive part of the inventory.

Which acquired companies are worth the call?

Apply the baseline SourceX uses: a US company with 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), several years of documented operations, the right to license its records and an authorized sponsor such as the CEO, CFO or owner. Industry matters less than how much connected history exists. The M&A advisor partner page covers fit by deal type.

Skip the call when the target was mainly an agency or outsourcer whose records belong to its clients, when the acquirer has already deleted legacy archives, when the business mostly holds protected health information or consumer personal data, or when the earn-out is already in dispute.

Rewards, tax paperwork and your own rules

Partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 per referred company, and rewards become payable only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee. An introduction, a meeting or a signed license on its own does not trigger payment, and no reward is guaranteed. Credit goes to the first valid referrer whose introduction leads to a verified company application within the attribution window. The referral earnings calculator shows how the formula works.

Advisors can join from any supported country. If a US payer asks your firm for a W-8BEN-E, the guide to completing a W-8BEN-E for an advisory firm explains the form. Check your firm's conflicts policy and any regulator rules on third-party payments, and tell the client about the reward. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm with your own counsel, tax adviser or professional body before acting. The program terms set out the current details.

Next step

Pick one US company you advised in the last 18 months and find out where its integration stands. If legacy systems are still running, register as a partner and raise it with the CEO using your referral link, or let the CEO apply directly at sourcex.si/apply.