Most requests arrive as a subject: a company, a person, a market, a deal. We take them as a question, because the shape of the question decides what the document has to be, how long it runs, and when it is finished.
If what you have does not sit cleanly in one of these, that is normal and it is our job to place it. Say it in your own words and we will tell you which of the four it is, or that it is none of them.
A claim already made by somebody else, tested until it either breaks or stops breaking. A number in a deck, a stated ownership chain, a track record, a history, a certification. The document says what holds, what does not, and precisely where the line between the two falls.
Typically Counterparties, investment claims, track records, certifications, stated revenue and headcount.
Holdings, layers, directorships, addresses, and the distance between the registered picture and the working one. This is the longest of the four because the answer is usually a shape rather than a sentence, and a shape has to be drawn before it can be argued with.
Typically Group structures, beneficial ownership, related-party dealings, supplier and tender networks.
Read as a surface rather than as a list of events, so the shape of the change is visible before the individual facts are. This is the class that answers a question about direction, and the one most often taken as a standing brief rather than once.
Typically Competitors, markets, regulatory direction, an organisation's public activity over time.
Stated as a bounded quantity rather than as an opinion. The narrowest of the four and usually the fastest, because the scope is fixed by the decision itself: everything that does not move the choice is left out of the document rather than summarised in it.
Typically Enter or do not enter, sign or do not sign, which of two counterparties, which of two markets.
Lengths are what these classes have run to, not a promise. A document is as long as the question, and a padded page is a page you paid for twice.
In one sentence, with the answer that would settle it. If that cannot be written yet, there is no commission yet, and we say so rather than start.
Including what will not be answered. A scope without a stated limit is a scope that grows quietly, and it grows at your expense or at ours.
You hear nothing until there is something worth hearing, or until something we find makes the original question the wrong one. That second call is made early, not at delivery.
Every figure ships with the material it was computed from. You can check any line of it without us, and that is the point rather than a courtesy.
If a sample has been prepared for you it is behind this door, in full, with its sources. If one has not, say what you are trying to establish and we will tell you whether it can be.
