A Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) is the polished packet a broker sends about a business for sale. It is a sales document first and an information document second. Reading one well is a skill you can learn.
Follow the earnings
Go straight to the earnings and the add-back schedule. Recreate SDE yourself and challenge every add-back. Then check the trend: is revenue growing, flat, or quietly declining? A single strong year can hide a downward slope.
Hunt for concentration and dependence
Ask what happens if the top customer leaves, if a key employee quits, or if the owner — who may hold every relationship — walks out the door. Customer concentration, key-person risk, and owner dependence are the risks that most often turn a “great business” into a bad purchase.
A CIM tells you what to ask, not what to believe. Practice with AI-graded teardowns inside the free Academy before you evaluate a live deal.