Project Linden Belgium
An investment bank in Belgium
- Scope
- Outlook, mandate by mandate
- Template
- The workstreams of a sell-side process
- Took
- 12 days, first build to ready for testing
What the firm needed
On a mandate, what each side has promised sits in email threads. The firm wanted the state of every conversation on a deal in one place, so that nothing owed gets missed.
What we delivered
Mail sorted to the mandate
Connects to Outlook and places each thread on one mandate. Anything unsure waits in an unassigned queue.
One register of what is owed
Who owes what to whom and by when, set against eight workstreams from NDA and teaser to closing conditions.
The sentence behind each line
Every item carries the exact sentence that produced it and a pointer back to the message.
Board, calendar and people views
For one mandate or across all of them, with export and print.
How each figure was checked
- Every item carries the exact sentence that produced it and a pointer back to the message it came from.
- A person closes every item. Nothing is marked settled on its own.
- Mail that sits outside a mandate is read to sort it and is never kept.
How long it took
12 days from first build to ready for testing.
- 30 August
- First build
- 11 September
- Ready for testing
The rules it was built to
- A person closes every item. Nothing is marked settled on its own.
- Mail outside a mandate is read to sort it and is never kept.
- Access is by mandate, so one deal team cannot see another's.
What is not on record
- The firm's brief is not on record in its own words, so what stands above is our own description of the project.
Each client's data, and anything tuned to it, stays with that client. Yours is scoped from your own needs.
Firm names are withheld and project names are code names, as on any live deal. The files shown are redrawn without client data, so their figures are placeholders unless a page says otherwise.
Project Linden_Commitment register.xlsxG9fx=IF(F9<AsOf,"Past window","Open")
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Project Linden: commitment register | |||||||
| 2 | (As at Friday 30 October 2026; 14 commitments across 8 workstreams; each line carries the sentence that produced it) | |||||||
| 3 | ||||||||
| 4 | Ref | Workstream | Commitment | Owed by | Owed to | Due | Status | Source sentence, verbatim |
| 5 | C-01 | NDA & Teaser | Return countersigned NDA | Firm | Buyer C | 12-Oct | Settled | We will send the countersigned NDA back to you by Monday. |
| 6 | C-02 | NDA & Teaser | Sign off teaser wording | Founder | Firm | 14-Oct | Settled | I will confirm the wording on the teaser by Wednesday. |
| 7 | C-03 | CIM | Comments on section 4 | Founder | Firm | 23-Oct | Settled | You will have my comments on section 4 by Friday. |
| 8 | C-04 | CIM | Issue CIM v3 to NDA parties | Firm | Buyers | 26-Oct | Settled | We will issue version 3 to all NDA parties on Monday. |
| 9 | C-05 | Buyer Outreach | Reply on process timetable | Firm | Buyer F | 27-Oct | Past window | We will come back to you on the timetable by Tuesday. |
| 10 | C-06 | Buyer Outreach | Confirm whether it will bid | Sponsor D | Firm | 03-Nov | Open | We will confirm whether we intend to bid by Tuesday. |
| 11 | C-07 | Management Meetings | Hold 5 November for Buyer A | Firm | Buyer A | 02-Nov | Open | We will hold the morning of 5 November for you. |
| 12 | C-08 | Management Meetings | Draft management presentation | Firm | Founder | 03-Nov | In progress | We will send you the first draft of the deck by Tuesday. |
| 13 | C-09 | LOI | Circulate process letter | Firm | Buyers | 06-Nov | In progress | The process letter will go to all parties by Friday. |
| 14 | C-10 | Diligence Q&A | Upload FY25 management accounts | Founder | Firm | 28-Oct | Past window | I will upload the FY25 management accounts by Wednesday. |
| 15 | C-11 | Diligence Q&A | Answer question on churn | Firm | Buyer B | 04-Nov | Open | We will answer your question on churn by Wednesday. |
| 16 | C-12 | Diligence Q&A | Confirm data room index | Firm | Buyers | 29-Oct | Settled | We will confirm the final index by Thursday. |
| 17 | C-13 | SPA Negotiation | Send mark-up to buyer's counsel | Seller's counsel | Buyer's counsel | 09-Nov | Open | We will send our mark-up to buyer's counsel by Monday. |
| 18 | C-14 | Closing Conditions | List change of control consents | Seller's counsel | Firm | 11-Nov | Open | We will list the consents needed by 11 November. |
| 19 | ||||||||
| 20 | Total | 14 commitments | Open 5, In progress 2, Past window 2, Settled 5 | |||||
| 21 | ||||||||
| 22 | Source: Mandate email threads, each line linked to its message. Note: Redrawn without client data. Figures are placeholders. |
RegisterBoardCalendarPeople
Related reading
Where should human review sit in an AI workflow?
A useful checkpoint is specific, well-timed and easy to resolve. Design review around the decisions a deal team must own, not a generic approval button at the end.
A deal timeline should record decisions, not just email
Copying messages into another inbox creates a second place to search. A useful deal timeline captures the event, its source, the proposed change and the person who confirmed it.
Connecting Outlook to your deal CRM without creating another inbox
Deal updates arrive in email, but the pipeline lives somewhere else. A practical way to capture activity, match it to the right mandate and give uncertain changes a human checkpoint.