M&A Playbook — Business

A strategic playbook for both sides of M&A: acquiring companies and being acquired. It covers strategic rationale, due diligence checklists, valuation approaches, integration planning, and negotiation tactics, producing a structured framework to guide deals from initial rationale through close.

c-level-advisor claude-code

📂 View skill on GitHub ↗ 🚀 How to use

✨ What it does

Provides a due diligence checklist with key questions and red flags across financial, technical, legal, people, market,
Outlines valuation approaches including revenue multiples, comparable transactions, DCF, and acqui-hire ranges, with gui
Includes negotiation points tables for both acquirers and sellers, covering terms like valuation, earnout, lockup, and r
Lists red flags to watch for on both sides of the deal
Defines a verification loop that hands off legal, data, and valuation analysis to sibling skills
Maps contributions from C-suite roles to M&A activities

🎯 When to use it

Evaluating a potential acquisition target
Preparing your company to be acquired
Conducting M&A due diligence
Planning post-acquisition integration
Negotiating deal terms such as valuation, earnouts, or lockups

🚀 How to use

Trigger by asking for M&A strategy, due diligence, or acquisition preparation. The skill expects a description of your situation (acquiring or being acquired) and relevant context. It guides you through strategic rationale, due diligence, valuation, negotiation, and integration. Example prompts:

I'm considering acquiring a SaaS startup. What should I check in due diligence?

We're preparing to be acquired. What steps should we take 6-12 months before?

📄 Output: A structured framework and checklists to guide M&A decisions, including due diligence checklists, negotiation points, and integration planning references.

📦 Add this skill to Claude Code

# 1. Get the skills repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills /tmp/claude-skills

# 2. Copy this skill into your project (or ~/.claude/skills for all projects)
mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/claude-skills/c-level-advisor/skills/ma-playbook .claude/skills/ma-playbook

Skill source: c-level-advisor/skills/ma-playbook/SKILL.md

⚠️ Good to know

Valuation ranges are illustrative and must be verified against current market data; the skill is qualitative and defers quantitative modeling to CFO tools.

❓ FAQ

What are the first steps when acquiring a company?

Start with strategic rationale: answer buy vs build, what you're really buying (talent, product, market), and integration complexity before proceeding to target screening and due diligence.

How should I prepare to be acquired?

Begin 6-12 months ahead by cleaning up financials, documenting IP and contracts, reducing customer concentration, locking up key employees, building a data room, and engaging an M&A advisor.

What are common red flags in M&A?

Red flags include no clear strategic rationale, ignoring culture clash, key people not locked in, lack of an integration plan, and valuation based on projections rather than actuals.

🤖 Overview, features, install steps and FAQ were generated from the project's SKILL.md on Sep 4, 2026. Always check the original source before running commands.