Tombstone

A tombstone is the plain announcement with which banks and advisors record a completed deal: the parties involved, the type of transaction, sometimes the size, and the role of the advisor. The name comes from US securities law, where advertisements for offerings were limited to bare mandatory particulars with no promotional design and consequently resembled gravestones. In practice the format is mainly a marketing device: tombstones are framed as deal toys and fill the credentials pages of pitch materials.

For clients they are a rough selection criterion, showing what size and sector of deals an advisor has actually closed. Their evidential value is limited, though, because the stated role is often vaguer than the actual contribution: phrases such as advising on the process leave open whether the firm led it or merely delivered a component, and in the mid-market size figures are regularly absent because prices are not disclosed. More informative than a collection of announcements is therefore the question of who personally worked on the mandate and whether references may be contacted. For the advisor the tombstone also serves an internal purpose as a visible conclusion to a long process.

Format and content follow a fixed pattern: the target's logo, a short description of the transaction, the size where disclosure is permitted, the date and the adviser's role. It requires the client's consent, which is dealt with in the engagement letter and in practice is often limited to naming the deal without disclosing the value. For clients, granting consent is a trade-off between the confidentiality they want and supporting an adviser they intend to keep working with.