M&A Process A to Z – The Essential Guide for Newly Assigned M&A Professionals
M&A: The Primary Engine for Corporate Growth in 2026
Since the second half of 2025, the M&A market has broken its prolonged silence and is showing clear signs of recovery.
What's different from previous cycles is that deals are no longer driven by simple scale expansion. Instead, transactions now have clearly defined strategic objectives: acquiring emerging technologies (AI and semiconductors), generating stable cash flows (energy and infrastructure), and executing business pivots to break through the limitations of existing operations.
Capital is flowing decisively into sectors with proven growth momentum — infrastructure, K-Beauty, and AI semiconductors in particular.
These sectors now account for over 60% of total deal volume, and the valuation gap between high-demand sectors and the rest of the market continues to widen.
In 2026, the high exchange rate environment is making Korean assets increasingly attractive on a price basis. Against this backdrop, the trend of separating winners from losers — and the acceleration of cross-border deals driven by technology acquisition — is expected to intensify further.
As M&A re-emerges as a defining engine of corporate growth, the first capability deal teams must develop is a structured, end-to-end process that translates macro market trends into executable deals.
M&A Process: The Full Picture at a Glance
When M&A professionals are first assigned to a deal team, the most immediate challenge is understanding exactly where they are in the process — and what they need to prepare next.
In practice, M&A execution does not begin with Due Diligence (DD) or valuation. Multiple review stages precede those steps.
This guide assumes that strategic planning is already complete, and focuses on the M&A execution process that deal teams actually carry out — from market research through deal structuring.
Step-by-Step M&A Process: Detailed Breakdown
1) Market Research: Narrowing Down the Target Industry and Segment
Market research is the process of defining which industries and segments are in scope for M&A consideration — before evaluating any individual company. The focus shifts from 'what' to buy to 'where' the most strategic opportunities lie.
M&A professionals on a corporate deal team typically carry out the following:
Assess market size and growth potential using industry reports.
Identify business areas that align with the group's medium-to-long-term strategy.
Map structural industry risks, including regulatory and entry barriers.
The outputs of this stage serve as the baseline for the subsequent Longlist and Pre-Study phases.
2) Longlist Development: Casting a Wide Net for Potential Acquisition Targets
The Longlist stage focuses on building the broadest possible pool of potential acquisition targets within the target industry. At this point, the priority is not to identify the best candidates, but to ensure no viable target is overlooked.
Key activities at this stage include:
Extracting candidate companies from industry databases and research reports.
Identifying targets based on historical M&A activity among competitors and peers.
Conducting an initial screen for acquisition feasibility based on ownership structure and prior divestiture history.
The Longlist becomes the starting point for the Pre-Study and feasibility analysis that follow.
3) Pre-Study (Pre-DD): Rapid First-Pass Screening
The Pre-Study (or "Quick DD") is the filter used to determine whether a target warrants further resource investment before committing to full Due Diligence (DD). It demands fast judgment under conditions of limited information.
Key activities at this stage include:
Conducting a quick comparative analysis based on publicly available financial metrics.
Summarizing the core business model and revenue structure.
Formulating initial hypotheses on potential synergies.
The purpose of the Pre-Study is to make a rapid go/no-go decision: whether to proceed with deeper analysis or eliminate the target at this stage.
4) Feasibility Analysis: Deciding Whether to Pursue the Acquisition
The feasibility analysis stage provides a comprehensive assessment of whether an acquisition makes strategic sense and is financially viable. The outputs directly inform internal decision-making and approval processes.
M&A professionals focus on the following:
Evaluating strategic fit against the stated acquisition rationale.
Modeling the post-acquisition P&L structure and financial impact.
Identifying key business and organizational risk factors.
5) Due Diligence (DD): Rigorous Risk Verification
Due Diligence (DD) is the process of systematically verifying potential risks across financial, legal, tax, and operational dimensions. This is typically the stage where collaboration with external advisors begins in earnest.
Key activities include:
Identifying and summarizing critical issues across financial, legal, and tax Due Diligence (DD).
Assessing Red Flags and potential Deal Breakers.
Surfacing issues that require negotiation or specific deal conditions.
Due Diligence (DD) is less about determining whether to proceed with the acquisition, and more about defining the conditions under which the acquisition can move forward.
6) Valuation: Establishing a Rational Price Range
The valuation stage involves determining enterprise value and setting a price band to anchor the negotiation.
Calculate the valuation range using DCF analysis and comparable transaction data.
Compare pre- and post-synergy scenarios.
Establish an internal reference price band for negotiation purposes.
The outputs of this stage serve as the foundation for deal structuring and negotiation strategy.
7) Deal Structuring: Designing the Transaction Architecture
Deal structuring translates the agreed acquisition terms into a concrete contractual framework. This is less about setting a final price and more about designing how risk will be allocated between the parties.
Corporate M&A professionals typically address the following:
Design the acquisition structure, including ownership stake and phased acquisition options.
Evaluate risk mitigation mechanisms such as Earn-out provisions.
Finalize the deal structure for internal approval and external negotiation.
Once this stage is complete, the M&A transaction formally enters the execution phase.
The Hardest Stages: Market Viability Assessment and Longlist Development
From a deal team's perspective, market viability assessment and Longlist development are the most challenging stages because they are structurally defined by information asymmetry.
A Google search or industry report can tell you the "size" and "trends" of a market — but it cannot tell you what actually drives purchase decisions, what it takes for customers to switch, how competitive dynamics are balanced, or what pricing leverage looks like. These qualitative factors are precisely what determine whether a deal succeeds or fails.
Most reports reflect lagging information and fall short of explaining why a specific company is winning in its market — or why it may be at risk.
Internal networking resources have equally clear limitations. Personal networks within any given industry or domain are inherently narrow, information from personal contacts is prone to bias, and cross-validating multiple perspectives is difficult.
As a result, the market viability and Longlist stages are prone to a paradox: an abundance of information, yet a shortage of the context needed to make decisions — making them the most uncertain and demanding stages for any M&A professional.
Why ENS Is Essential at This Stage
The difficulty of the market viability and Longlist stages does not stem from a lack of information. It stems from the absence of contextual intelligence — the kind of insight that actually grounds a decision.
This is precisely where an Expert Network Service (ENS) plays a decisive role, filling the gaps that secondary research cannot.
Unlike the lagging metrics found in secondary data, the firsthand experience of experts at the industry front line provides live, judgment-ready context from the field.
Rather than asking macro-level questions like "Is the market growing?", an ENS enables deal teams to directly verify: "Who is actually making money right now, and why aren't customers churning?" and "What structural risks aren't visible in the financials?" — rapidly validating hypotheses and eliminating unnecessary research iterations.
The efficiency of an ENS is maximized when screening an initial candidate pool.
Conducting an in-depth analysis of every company on a longlist is practically impossible. Short cross-check interviews with relevant stakeholders — competitors, former employees, customers — allow deal teams to quickly eliminate targets that look attractive on the surface but don't hold up under scrutiny.
In short, an ENS is the most practical strategy for concentrating limited resources on the right targets — simultaneously improving both the speed and accuracy of early-stage M&A work.
Maximizing Early-Stage M&A Research Efficiency with Brainconnect AI
As discussed, the core challenge in early-stage M&A is rapidly identifying the genuine targets from a large Longlist.
Brainconnect AI addresses the information cost dilemma deal teams face at this stage through three differentiated service offerings:
Up to 80% cost reduction vs. traditional ENS (20-minute micro-interviews): Brainconnect AI breaks from the industry norm of minimum one-hour billing by introducing 20-minute interview units. Deal teams can quickly confirm the answers to critical questions and move on — dramatically reducing the cost burden of early-stage screening.
3x more cross-validation for the same budget: Lower per-interview costs mean that the budget previously spent on a single Expert Interview can now cover three to four interviews with competitors, former employees, or customers. This eliminates information bias and enables multi-dimensional market validation.
Network spanning 47 countries: Requests can be submitted instantly via web or KakaoTalk — no complex consulting contracts required — with access to experts across 47 countries worldwide.
As M&A continues to grow in strategic importance, partner with Brainconnect.ai to reduce trial and error while achieving both speed and accuracy in your research.
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