Key takeaways
- The short answer: a CIM (confidential information memorandum) is the 30–80+ page document a seller gives buyers after they sign an NDA; an investment teaser is the 1–2 page anonymous summary sent first. Both templates below are tables you can export to Excel or Google Sheets.
- CIM template: 13 sections, from the executive summary and investment highlights to 3–5 years of historical financials, projections and the transaction overview.
- Teaser template: 9 fields, with no company name, regions instead of cities and revenue and EBITDA as ranges.
- Timing: a targeted sale contacts 20–60 buyers, gets 8–15 NDAs signed and 3–6 indications of interest, and takes 28–36 weeks from kickoff to closing (Papermark).
- Who reads it: 27 private equity buyers announced new buyout or growth funds between 1 September and 8 November 2026, $76B in 26 funds, according to the Private Equity List fund tracker.
- Buyer universe: 3,543 private equity firms in Private Equity List; 1,555 of them write cheques of $10–50M.
 United States | |
|---|---|
| Asia | |
| Europe |
Source: Private Equity List fund tracker, 1 September – 8 November 2026
What is a CIM: the confidential information memorandum in M&A
Definition: a CIM is the sale document of a private company. It describes the business, its market, its team and its numbers in enough detail for a buyer to make a first offer.
When it is sent: only after a buyer signs a non-disclosure agreement. IMAP, an M&A advisory group, puts a CIM at 30–80+ pages; Mergers & Inquisitions calls it a 50+ page document.
Who writes it: in investment banking, the sell-side bank's analysts and associates draft it from information the owner supplies. Smaller sellers use an M&A adviser or write it themselves.
What it leads to: buyers read the CIM and send an indication of interest (IOI), a non-binding price range. The best IOIs get a management presentation and the data room.
Legal status: a CIM is a marketing document; the binding terms come later in the purchase agreement. Private placements of fund interests use a private placement memorandum, written by lawyers.
What is an investment teaser
Definition: a one- or two-page summary of the business with no company name. It is the first thing buyers see.
Who gets it: a broad list of buyers, some of them competitors, so it stays thin. A buyer who wants more signs the NDA and receives the CIM.
What it carries: sector and region, revenue and EBITDA ranges, the business model, 3–5 investment highlights, why the owner is selling and how to request the CIM (IMAP).
In M&A and private equity: the teaser is this one-pager. Startups send a similar short teaser deck before the full pitch deck.
CIM template: the 13 sections, in order
The table is the template. Each row is a section of the CIM, with what to write and one example line for a made-up company, Project Atlas, a US commercial HVAC services business. Illustrative example, not data. Use the CSV button to open it in Excel or Google Sheets and replace the example column with your own text.
| Section | What to include | What buyers check | Example line (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Cover and disclaimer | Project name, "Confidential", adviser, date, a note that the document is not an offer and buyers must rely on their own diligence | That the NDA covers this document | Project Atlas. Confidential information memorandum. November 2026. |
| 2. Executive summary | The business in one paragraph, 4–6 investment highlights, headline financials, what is for sale | Whether to read on: size, growth, margin, why now | Atlas services 1,900 commercial buildings in Texas; 82% of revenue is recurring maintenance. |
| 3. Company overview | History, locations, ownership, legal structure, headcount | Who owns what, and what the buyer actually acquires | Founded in 2004; two shareholders; 214 employees in four branches. |
| 4. Products and services | Each service line with its share of revenue and gross margin | Which lines make the money | Maintenance contracts 61% of revenue, repairs 21%, installation 18%. |
| 5. Customers | Customer types, top-10 share, contract length, retention | Concentration: how much revenue leaves if one customer goes | Top 10 customers are 24% of revenue; the largest is 5%. |
| 6. Market and competition | Market size with a source, growth drivers, named competitors, why customers pick you | Room to grow and the risk of losing share | Atlas is one of three independent providers with more than 100 technicians in its region. |
| 7. Sales and marketing | How customers are won, sales team, pipeline, pricing | Whether growth depends on the founder | Six account managers; 70% of new contracts come from referrals by building managers. |
| 8. Operations | Sites, suppliers, systems, certifications, employees by function | What must be fixed or replaced after closing | Dispatch runs on ServiceTitan; technician turnover 14% a year. |
| 9. Management team | Who runs the business, tenure, who stays after the sale | Whether the team stays without the seller | CEO and CFO will stay and reinvest; the founder steps back to chairman. |
| 10. Historical financials | Income statement, balance sheet and cash flow for 3–5 years; adjusted EBITDA with each adjustment explained | Quality of earnings: are the add-backs real | Revenue $42M, adjusted EBITDA $6.1M in 2025, after $0.4M of owner costs added back. |
| 11. Projections | 3–5 year forecast, the assumptions behind it, the current year's trading so far | Whether the forecast is backed by contracts or hope | Revenue forecast to grow 9% a year, two-thirds from contracts already signed. |
| 12. Growth opportunities | New regions, services, pricing, acquisitions, each with a rough size | The buyer's own value creation plan | Twelve local competitors with $3–8M of revenue could be bought and added. |
| 13. Transaction overview | What is for sale, the seller's goals (price, rollover, role), process and dates, contact | Structure and how to bid | Sale of 100% of the shares; owners open to a 20% rollover. IOIs due 15 January. |
Order: Mergers & Inquisitions gives the classic bank order: overview and investment highlights, products and services, market, sales and marketing, management, financials and projections, risk factors and appendices. IMAP adds business model, growth opportunities and a transaction overview.
History: buyers prefer 3–5 years of historical financials; the M&I example CIM shows two years and a five-year projection.
Appendices: detailed financial statements, customer lists by anonymised code, site lists and licences. Keep anything a competitor could use for the data room.
Investment teaser template: one page, nine fields
The same made-up company as a blind teaser. Illustrative example, not data. Export it with the CSV button and fill in your own lines.
| Field | What to write | Example (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Project name | A code name, never the company name | Project Atlas |
| 2. Headline | Sector, region and what makes it attractive in one line | Recurring-revenue commercial HVAC services platform in the US South |
| 3. Business description | 3–4 sentences on what the company does and for whom, with no names | Maintains, repairs and installs heating and cooling systems for offices, schools and hospitals. |
| 4. Sector and geography | Region or state, not the city | Building services; Texas |
| 5. Key figures | Revenue and EBITDA as ranges, growth, employees | Revenue $40–45M; adjusted EBITDA $6–7M; 200+ employees |
| 6. Investment highlights | 3–5 bullet points, each with a number | 82% recurring revenue; no customer above 5%; 21 years of history |
| 7. Transaction | Stake for sale and why the owner is selling | Majority or 100% sale; founder retiring, management stays |
| 8. Process | Who runs the sale and the next date | Adviser-led; CIM available now, first-round offers in January |
| 9. Next step | Sign the NDA to receive the CIM; adviser contact | Return the signed NDA to the adviser to receive the CIM |
Anonymity check: remove company, brand and product names; use regions, not cities; give ranges when the sector is small enough for exact figures to reveal the company.
Length: one page is the norm (WaveUp, IMAP); two at most.
Review: the owner and a lawyer read the teaser before it goes out, because it reaches competitors.
CIM example: a filled-in executive summary
An executive summary is what most buyers read first, and bankers spend most of their time on it and on the financial section (Mergers & Inquisitions). Here is one for Project Atlas. Illustrative example, not data.
The business: Atlas maintains, repairs and installs heating and cooling systems for 1,900 commercial buildings across four branches in Texas.
Recurring revenue: 82% of revenue comes from maintenance contracts that renew each year; 93% of contract value renewed in 2025.
Spread-out customers: the top 10 customers are 24% of revenue and the largest is 5%.
Growth: revenue grew from $31M in 2022 to $42M in 2025; adjusted EBITDA from $4.2M to $6.1M.
Room to buy: twelve local competitors with $3–8M of revenue each could be acquired and added to the branch network.
The deal: the owners will sell up to 100% of the shares; the CEO and CFO stay and are open to reinvesting.
CIM vs teaser vs pitch deck vs offering memorandum
| Document | Length | When it is sent | NDA first | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Investment teaser | 1–2 pages | First contact with every buyer | No | Selling a company or raising growth capital |
| CIM | 30–80+ pages | After the NDA, before first offers | Yes | Selling a company, majority or minority stakes |
| Management presentation | A meeting plus slides | After the indications of interest | Yes | Letting shortlisted buyers meet the team |
| Pitch deck | A short slide deck | First meeting with an investor | Usually no | Startup equity rounds |
| Private placement or offering memorandum | A legal disclosure document | With the subscription papers | Often | Selling securities: fund interests, real estate deals, Reg D offerings |
Teaser vs CIM: the teaser goes wide and says little; the CIM goes to fewer buyers and says almost everything except what stays in the data room.
CIM vs pitch deck: a founder raising a seed or Series A round sends a deck, not a CIM; the capital raise guide lists what goes in that pack.
CIM vs investment memorandum: buyers write an investment memorandum for their own committee after reading your CIM; "investment memorandum template" searches often mean that internal document.
When the teaser and CIM go out: the sell-side timeline
| Phase | Weeks from kickoff | What the seller sends | What buyers send back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preparation | 1–6 | Nothing yet: CIM, teaser, model and buyer list are written | — |
| Outreach and NDAs | 5–10 | Teaser to the buyer list, then the CIM after each NDA | Signed NDAs and questions |
| Indications of interest | 9–12 | Process letter with the bid date | IOIs: a price range and structure |
| Management presentations and LOIs | 12–16 | Data room access, meetings with the team | Letters of intent with price and exclusivity |
| Confirmatory diligence | 16–28 | Answers, contracts, quality of earnings report | Purchase agreement mark-up |
| Signing and closing | 28–36 | Final disclosure schedules | Payment at closing |
Source: week ranges from Papermark's sell-side playbook, October 2026.
The funnel: a targeted process commonly contacts 20–60 buyers, gets 8–15 NDAs and 3–6 indications of interest (Papermark).
Longer view: WaveUp plans 9–12 months from hiring an adviser to closing, 6–9 if the company is well prepared; exclusivity after an LOI usually lasts 30–60 days.
Write the CIM before the teaser goes out: a buyer who signs the NDA expects the CIM the same week.
Who receives your CIM: private equity buyers with new money
A teaser works best with buyers that have just raised a fund, because they have to invest it. Between 1 September and 8 November 2026, 27 private equity firms announced new buyout or growth funds in the Private Equity List fund tracker. 26 of those funds add up to $76B as announced; CVC's fund is a target. The typical fund is $1.2B.
 Advent GPE XI | |
|---|---|
 ICG Europe Fund IX | |
 West Street Capital Partners IX | |
 Valor Equity Partners | |
 Siguler Guff Small Buyout VI | |
| Advent Mid-Market Fund | |
 Spectrum Equity Fund XI | |
 Consonance Private Equity III |
Source: Private Equity List fund tracker, size as announced
United States
20 of the 27 buyers are US firms. Healthcare is the most common focus: Consonance, Sheridan, Aphias, Transformation Capital, FFL and Iron Path all name it.
| Buyer | HQ | New fund | What it buys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advent International | Boston | GPE XI, $27B, and Mid-Market Fund, $3B | Global buyouts; the new mid-market fund takes smaller deals |
| Goldman Sachs ESSG | New York | West Street Capital Partners IX, $9.6B | Large buyouts and growth investments |
| Valor Equity Partners | Chicago | Latest fund, about $3.3B | Operational growth in tech-enabled, manufacturing and energy companies |
| Siguler Guff | New York | Small Buyout Opportunities Fund VI, $3B | Founder-owned US businesses |
| Spectrum Equity | Boston | Fund XI, $2.5B | Growth equity in fintech, marketing and media businesses |
| Consonance Capital Partners | New York | Consonance Private Equity III, $1.35B | Healthcare services and healthcare technology |
 FFL Partners | San Francisco | FFL Capital Partners VI, $1.35B | Middle-market healthcare and tech-enabled services |
 Princeton Equity Group | Princeton, NJ | Princeton Equity Partners III, $1.3B | Franchisors and multi-location businesses |
 Morgan Stanley Investment Management | New York | North Haven Growth & Innovation Fund, $1.3B | Growth equity, its first fund of this kind |
 TPG | San Francisco | TPG Emerging Companies Asia, $1.3B | Mid-sized companies in Asia |
 Investcorp | New York | North American Private Equity Fund II, $1.22B | Mid-market buyouts in North America |
 Sheridan Capital Partners | Chicago | Fund IV, $1.1B | Healthcare: outsourced services, products and patient services |
 Aphias Capital | San Francisco | Fund I, $1.05B | Healthcare and business services; team from H.I.G. Capital |
| Transformation Capital | Boston | Fund IV, $850M | Digital health growth equity |
 GEM | Charlotte | Independent Sponsors Fund II, $685M | Backs independent sponsors' lower middle market deals |
 Monomoy Capital Partners | New York | Monomoy Family Fund I, $589M | Middle-market industrial, consumer and business services |
 Iron Path Capital | Nashville | Fund II, $450M | Healthcare, business services and industrial companies |
 Rising Point Capital Management | Chicago | Fund I, $325M | Industrial, construction and infrastructure services |
 Artemis Capital Partners | Boston | Fund IV, $254M | Industrial technology: automation, aerospace and defence |
 Savory Fund | Salt Lake City | Savory Fund III, $201.5M | Emerging restaurant concepts |
Europe
Three European buyers raised or set out to raise new funds, from €12B in London to €171.5M in Poland.
| Buyer | HQ | New fund | What it buys |
|---|---|---|---|
 CVC | Luxembourg | Europe / Americas Fund X, €26B target | Large buyouts in Europe and the Americas |
| Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) | London | ICG Europe Fund IX, €12B | European companies, with flexible equity and structured capital |
 Avallon MBO | Łódź | Fourth fund, €171.5M | Management buyouts in Poland, now with more technology |
Asia
Four Asian buyers, plus TPG's new Asia mid-cap fund listed under the United States.
| Buyer | HQ | New fund | What it buys |
|---|---|---|---|
 Ikhlas Capital | Singapore | Second fund, $370M | Companies across South East Asia |
 Lakeshore Capital | Bangkok | Fund III, $305M | Thai healthcare, food, logistics and retail companies |
 Carpediem Capital | Mumbai | Fund III, $210M target | Indian consumer-facing small and mid-sized companies |
 Excelsior Capital Vietnam | Vietnam | Second fund, over $170M | Education, consumer and technology companies |
How many buyers fit your deal: building the teaser list
Start with cheque size: the equity a buyer puts in is the price minus the debt. For a $40M deal with half of it borrowed, that is about $20M, and 1,555 of the 3,543 private equity firms in Private Equity List write $10–50M cheques.
Then region and sector: 2,135 firms invest in North America and 2,023 in Europe. Filter the private equity firms list by sector and country to get to a long list of 40–60 names.
Add family offices: 249 family offices in Private Equity List; those that buy companies directly often hold them longer than a fund would.
Add independent sponsors: they find a deal first and raise the equity afterwards; GEM's new $685M fund exists to back them. Our independent sponsors guide lists 38 capital partners.
Put buyers with new money first: funds that just closed are in the new funds tracker; the private equity buyers guide lists every buyer with a 2026 fund by region and company size.
Export the list: in search, combine type, cheque size, sector and country, then export names, websites and partner contacts for the teaser emails.
Common CIM and teaser mistakes
A teaser that names the company: a city, a product name or an exact revenue figure in a small sector is enough for a competitor to work it out.
Adjusted EBITDA without a bridge: every add-back needs its own line and reason; buyers' quality of earnings work will test each one.
A forecast with no link to history: a jump from 5% growth to 25% needs signed contracts or a named new product behind it.
Hiding customer concentration: buyers find it in the data room, and the price drops later in the process, when the seller has less leverage.
A CIM written for the owner: buyers want what they will own after closing, so the management section has to say who stays.
Sending to everyone: a teaser sent to buyers whose cheque size or sector does not fit wastes NDAs and leaks the sale. Papermark's targeted processes contact 20–60 buyers.
Where the CIM fits in a capital raise
Selling or raising growth capital: the same CIM and teaser work for a minority growth equity round; the transaction section then describes the stake and the use of funds.
Startups: a seed or Series A raise uses a pitch deck, a cap table template and a data room instead; the capital raise guide sets out the full process.
Debt alongside equity: buyers of mid-market companies usually borrow part of the price, often from private equity lenders; a debt CIM for lenders adds the proposed terms, such as interest rate, maturity and covenants (Mergers & Inquisitions).
Data and methodology
Buyers: private equity firms whose new buyout or growth fund was announced between 1 September and 8 November 2026 in the Private Equity List fund tracker; only verified announcements, firms with a published profile. Secondaries, credit, real estate, infrastructure and fund-of-funds vehicles were left out.
Fund sizes: as announced, linked to each announcement; euro funds shown in euros, totals in US dollars at the tracker's conversion. CVC's €26B and Carpediem's $210M are targets and are not in the $76B.
Firm counts: cheque size, investment region and type from Private Equity List profiles as of 9 November 2026.
External figures: document lengths, sections and process timing come from IMAP, Mergers & Inquisitions, Papermark and WaveUp, linked in the text. Project Atlas is a made-up company.
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