Field note · October 2026

The deals too small for a banker, too quiet for a database

There's an assumption on the supply side — among RIAs, family offices, and exit advisors — that deal flow for companies going through a liquidity event runs through investment bankers or big law firms. For the handful of nine-figure transactions, it does. For nearly everything else, it doesn't.

A founder-led company doing a modest recapitalization, a partial sale, or an ownership handoff rarely crosses a banker's desk at all. It's too small for a bulge-bracket process, too under the radar for most advisory shops to find before the deal is already done and the proceeds are already sitting somewhere without a plan.

The companies most in need of early advice are exactly the ones no sourcing system is built to find.

That's not a problem anyone solves by subscribing to a better database — these events show up as a leadership change, a funding round, a partnership announcement, long before they show up as "M&A deal" anywhere searchable. By the time a transaction is formally listed, the advisory relationship that should have formed around it already missed its window.

Finding these companies early, while the structure is still open, is a sourcing problem before it's a sales problem.

- Haitem Bounaim routes between companies in liquidity transitions and the advisors, family offices, and exit specialists who serve them.