Capability 03 · Diagnose
Where is the value, or the risk?
Diagnose a company, cost structure, asset or portfolio. Release cash trapped in inventory and receivables, audit component should-costs and trading-house markups, benchmark post-merger org spans, layers and multi-institution financial viability, stress-test seller CIMs pre-LOI, and stress-test asset cash flows.
You getDiagnostic and peer benchmark: AI research, checked by our analysts.
Discuss your projectCompany diagnostic ↓Peer benchmark ↓Risk against your framework ↓Diagnose · 1 of 3
Company diagnostic.
Pressure-test a target, competitor or borrower before a pitch or investment committee. Get an independent red-flag assessment, peer unit-economics comparisons and a focused diligence agenda, with every source marked.
- Who it is for
- Private equity deal teams, corporate development leaders, commercial lenders and advisory partners preparing for a bid or committee.
- What you get
- A pre-LOI red-flag diagnostic or deep dive testing market claims, customer concentration, margin durability and diligence priorities.
- Format
- Document; spreadsheet; slides on request.
- Scope and timing
- Scope, formats and delivery dates agreed before work starts.
- What you provide
- The company, the thesis or seller claims you are testing, your peer set if you have one, and a contact on your team to agree the scope with us.
- Refresh
- On your calendar, or when the company reports or enters exclusivity.
The diagnostic tests management's narrative against independent market, customer and peer evidence, isolates the commercial red flags and names the three questions to take into the data room.
Do management's market-growth and margin claims hold up pre-LOI?
- Answer
- Proceed with caution. Core aftermarket backlog is durable, but seller's stated segment growth outpaces independent customs and peer shipments.
- Why
- Peer filings and tender awards confirm steady replacement demand, whereas new-build volume reflects a temporary restocking cycle.
- Could not verify
- Customer renewal rate quoted in the teaser deck. It stays flagged for the data room.
- Three things to raise
- 01New-build versus aftermarket gross-margin split.
- 02Paid-off tooling amortization in vendor quotes.
- 03The unverified renewal figure.
How we run it
- 01You
Name the target or borrower and the investment or credit question it serves.
- 02Together
Agree the thesis claims to test, the peer set and the permitted sources.
- 03AI agents
Gather independent market, regulatory, customer and peer evidence against the thesis.
- 04Our analysts
Reconcile disclosures, test growth and margin assumptions and frame the diligence agenda; evidence gaps stay flagged.
- 05You
Walk into the management presentation or investment committee with the key assumptions tested.
Scope boundaries
The engagement covers research and analysis. The following are outside this work:
- A valuation opinion.
- Invented private financials.
- A substitute for your own expert sign-off.
Diagnose · 2 of 3
Peer benchmark.
Quantify the cash and margin gaps against top-quartile peers. We reconcile working-capital days, build bottom-up component should-cost models and benchmark SG&A and IT drag so management can act.
- Who it is for
- CFOs, COOs, Chief Procurement Officers, operating partners and advisory teams targeting cash release and margin recovery.
- What you get
- A reconciled working-capital, should-cost or SG&A peer benchmark, with quantified cash-release and margin-recovery hypotheses.
- Format
- Document; spreadsheet; slides.
- Scope and timing
- Scope, formats and delivery dates agreed before work starts.
- What you provide
- The company or SKU category, your peer set and framing, permitted internal material, and a contact on your team to agree the scope with us.
- Refresh
- Quarterly or annually, as commodity indices or peer filings update.
The benchmark reconciles accounting footnotes across peers, breaks component quotes into raw material, energy, labour and margin, and quantifies the cash or EBITDA tied to each operating gap.
| Measure | Company A | Against peers | Basis | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Days inventory in branch stock | Slower turn | Above peer range | Reconciled FIFO basis | high |
| Machined component quotes vs. mill index | Surcharge retained | Above should-cost | Parametric cost model | high |
| Management spans and layers | Not comparable | — | Post-merger basis differs · flagged | low |
| Unbilled receivables cycle | Longer | Above peer range | Two peers undisclosed | medium |
See an illustrative output in full (performance diagnostic brief) →
How we run it
- 01You
Name the company, cost category or working-capital line and the target outcome.
- 02Together
Agree the peer set, cost breakdown structure and accounting normalizations.
- 03AI agents
Extract footnote disclosures, commodity indices and peer operating metrics across the scope.
- 04Our analysts
Reconcile accounting policy differences, model should-cost and cash-conversion gaps, and rank the recovery levers.
- 05You
Take the quantified levers into vendor negotiations, cash sprints or budget reviews.
Scope boundaries
The engagement covers research and analysis. The following are outside this work:
- Unverified jurisdictional or compliance claims.
- A proprietary score in place of your framework.
- Redistribution of licensed third-party data.
Diagnose · 3 of 3
Risk against your framework.
Translate regulatory, cost and supply-chain exposure into asset cash-flow bridges and credit decisions. We model facility capex economics, compliance liabilities and borrower readiness against your framework.
- Who it is for
- Infrastructure and pension investors, commercial and private-credit lenders, and energy, mining or industrial operators.
- What you get
- An asset- or portfolio-level financial and risk assessment: facility cash-flow scenarios, capex return curves, bankability gaps and source documentation.
- Format
- Document and spreadsheet.
- Scope and timing
- Scope, formats and delivery dates agreed before work starts.
- What you provide
- Your credit, investment or risk framework, the facilities, borrowers or holdings to assess, and any permitted engineering or specialist inputs.
- Refresh
- On your review cycle, or when carbon schedules, tariffs or capital rules shift.
An assessment links facility-level production and emissions disclosures to multi-year EBITDA and cash-flow impacts under escalating carbon prices, ranks abatement capex by payback, and flags unverified claims for specialist review.
| Your criterion | Evidence found | Gap or exposure | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carbon-price EBITDA bridge | Facility emissions filing; compliance schedule | Process-heat abatement capex unphased | Specialist review |
| Marginal abatement curve | Electrification and heat-recovery engineering study | None | high |
| Borrower traceability check | Off-take and scrap-loop contracts | Sub-tier feedstock provenance partial | medium |
| Borrower debt-service cushion | Audited statements; mill index sensitivity | None | high |
How we run it
- 01You
Define the facilities, borrowers or holdings and the credit or investment framework.
- 02Together
Agree the scenario curves, framework mapping and engineering or public sources we may use.
- 03AI agents
Assemble facility-level disclosures, permit filings, carbon-pricing schedules and peer abatement benchmarks.
- 04Our analysts
Model the cash-flow and EBITDA scenarios, evaluate abatement or circularity bankability, and highlight questions for specialist review.
- 05You
Feed the financial and risk outputs into your credit, investment or capex committee.
Scope boundaries
The engagement covers research and analysis. The following are outside this work:
- Regulatory certification.
- Assured ratings.
- Redistribution of third-party data.
How to start
One question, a fixed fee, a first read in days.
- Your question
- One live question, with the decision it serves.
- What comes back
- A reviewed answer with a point of view (a ranked shortlist, a diagnostic or a plan), with every source and anything unverified flagged.
- The fee
- The fee is fixed and agreed before work starts.
- The timing
- A first read in days, not weeks, then the reviewed brief on the date we agree.
We can provide regular research updates after the first project.
Anonymized engagements
Typical engagements.
Anonymized examples of delivered work.
Pilot → annual
An institutional investor
- The question
- Could a pilot become a repeatable diligence pipeline?
- What we delivered
- An institutional investor expanded from a pilot to an annual engagement.
Peer-benchmarked
A leading life & health insurer
- The question
- How does the business compare against an agreed peer set?
- What we delivered
- A leading life & health insurer's benchmarking, delivered against a defensible peer set — every comparison source-linked.
Macro → issuer
An institutional investor
- The question
- How exposed is each issuer in the portfolio to asset-level cost, regulatory and physical risk?
- What we delivered
- Repeatable asset cash-flow stress tests, facility cost bridges and physical-risk screening across a portfolio, every rating source-linked.
Commercial outcomes
Outcome programs powered by this capability.
Working Capital & Margin Recovery
Release trapped working capital and close structural margin gaps.
Should-Cost & Supply-Chain Resilience
Claw back supplier markups and eliminate sub-tier chokepoints.
Opportunity Assessment & Tender Capture
Focus commercial capital and bid budgets where you can win and expand margins.
Pre-LOI Diligence & Valuation Bridges
Originate off-market targets and stress-test seller claims pre-LOI.
Carve-Outs, Synergies & Org/ERP Rationalization
Isolate standalone carve-out value and remove post-merger org and ERP drag.
Asset Economics & Portfolio Coverage
Translate input costs, physical hazards and borrower disclosures into cash flow.
Your context
Research for your team.
From the 15Rock Review
Field notes & whitepapers on Diagnose.
Analyst-checked teardowns, benchmarks, and decision frameworks drawn from delivered engagements.
Pre-LOI Defence Commercial Due Diligence: Replacing Conflicting Market Reports with Sourced-vs.-Inferred Audits and Automated Valuation Bridges
Syndicated defence market reports diverge by up to 3.4x. Cell-level Sourced-vs.-Inferred provenance and a 15-minute intrinsic valuation bridge deliver IC certainty inside…
Breaking the Shipyard & Sustainment Bottleneck: Physics Should-Cost Teardowns and Sub-Tier Readiness Across Naval Programs
When naval availability stalls at 46% and sole-source suppliers hike prices 30%+, physics should-cost clean-sheeting and nuclear second-sourcing size C$35M in annual rotable…
The Regional Defence Concierge: Why Cluster Pitchbooks Need Machine-Level Proof, Not Logo Slides
Even a >3.5x advanced-manufacturing cluster suffers a 58% defence pipeline gap when its directory mixes academic labs with commercial plants and lacks machine-level proof.
Start with one question
Where should your team look for value, or for risk, first?
Tell us what you’re investigating and when you need an answer. We’ll discuss the scope, inputs and research that would help.