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Buy-side is the advisory and process posture of representing a purchaser — origination, screening, valuation, bid strategy, diligence coordination and negotiation — as opposed to sell-side, which represents the seller.
Buy-side clients are corporates, PE funds, family offices and, occasionally, MBI teams. The advisor’s job is to win the right asset at a price and structure that still works after diligence — not to “get a deal done.”
Two different jobs hide under the same label:
Illustration only.
A corporate development team retains a boutique to originate bolt-ons in Iberian HVAC distribution. Over nine months the advisor maps 70 platforms, approaches 22, signs 4 NDAs, submits 2 IOIs, and wins none — because a financial buyer paid a full auction price on the only process that went live. That can still be a successful mandate if the alternative was an undisciplined bid. Buy-side is measured in decision quality, not always in closings.
Buy-side fees that are purely success-based can push toward closing a mediocre file. Retainers plus a modest success fee align better with “walk away.” Inside a live auction, the scarce skill is knowing where you are in the price discovery and when QoE has broken the teaser.
Strategic pipelines; PE platform and add-on search; carve-out purchases from corporates.
Information asymmetry: the seller’s advisor controls the room. Buy-side “valuations” produced in 48 hours are scenarios, not IVS opinions. Staple financing from the sell-side bank is a conflict to manage, not a favour.
Dazur’s investor and acquirer matching is buy-side infrastructure: the same structured company data that a sell-side room contains, screened against mandate criteria, so origination is not a PDF graveyard.