IC Memo Drafting

⚠️ **Finance warning / Avertissement finance** : informational only, not investment advice. A well-drafted memo is an argument, not a guarantee: the investment it recommends can still lose money, private equity carries a real risk of loss, and no return figure here is a promise of return. Curated by Skill Harbor: the IC memo drafting skill of the private equity pack in andreworia/claude-finance-skills. Use it after diligence is substantially complete and the deal team has formed a clear view; the memo is the written case for or against the decision and must survive cross-examination from senior investment professionals, LPs and risk committees, with no material diligence finding omitted. The method drafts nine sections and writes the executive summary last, because its thesis and risk statements must reflect what the body actually demonstrates: a one-page summary stating the company, the deal (structure, entry multiple, implied EV, equity cheque), the thesis in three bullets, the primary risk and its mitigant in one, the recommendation, and the base-case MOIC and IRR. The body covers a factual business description in plain language (what it does, who buys it, how it is sold, revenue model, scale, history, with no marketing copy), market and competitive position in two to three paragraphs drawn from the commercial workstream, deal overview (process, seller motivation, structure, leverage and tranches, conditions and use of proceeds), and a direct management assessment (track record of the CEO and CFO, prior sponsor experience, rollover and skin in the game, key-man risk, retention and reference findings, stated plainly whether strong or gapped). Diligence findings are structured by workstream: financial and quality of earnings (the haircut in absolute and percent terms, add-backs accepted and rejected with reasoning, net debt, capex profile, accounting concerns), commercial (thesis validation, customer reference summary, win and loss conclusions, risks absent from the CIM), legal (IP, compliance, litigation, contracts, privacy, employment) and technology where applicable, each finding with severity and resolution or accepted risk. The risk matrix carries five to eight risks traced to specific findings, each with probability, severity, mitigant and residual risk, and the returns section gives bear, base and bull MOIC and IRR, the assumptions that separate the scenarios, and the bid ceiling where the base case falls below the fund target. The recommendation, approve, conditional approval with precise conditions, or pass, is stated in the first sentence of its section. From the andreworia/claude-finance-skills repository (MIT). Honest caveats: every input (CIM teardown, diligence conclusions, QoE summary, returns output, management notes) is yours to supply and to verify; the skill drafts and stress-tests the argument, it does not invent the findings. Skill Harbor never reviews the code, review it yourself before use.