Uncovering an undisclosed ownership link pre-acquisition
An institutional investor required a full corporate due diligence review of a target company ahead of a cross-border acquisition.
Our team reconciled ownership structures across three corporate registries and layered in litigation and insolvency indicator checks under our AIRP methodology.
An undisclosed beneficial ownership link to a sanctioned entity was surfaced before signing, allowing the investor to renegotiate terms.
An institutional investor was days from signing a cross-border acquisition and needed a final layer of assurance that the target's ownership structure was exactly as represented in the disclosure documents. Given the transaction size, even a minor undisclosed link could materially change the risk calculus.
Our team reconciled the target's ownership chain across three separate corporate registries, cross-checking each beneficial owner against litigation and insolvency indicators as part of our standard AIRP layer. Discrepancies between the disclosed structure and registry filings were flagged for manual verification rather than automated assumption.
That manual verification step surfaced a beneficial ownership link to a sanctioned entity that had not appeared anywhere in the target's disclosure. The investor's counsel used the finding to renegotiate transaction terms before signing, avoiding exposure that would only have surfaced post-close.
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