What the
Deck Doesn't
Tell You.
A monthly intelligence brief that dissects private equity deals the way long-form journalism dissects power — with patience, sourcing, and the nerve to name names.
"He's been here since 11 PM. The IC is at 8."
"The deal closed at 8.5x. The leverage was 7.2x. Three people in that room knew both numbers meant the same thing."
— Issue X, The Quiet Departure
A month in private equity,
told from the inside.
Allocate follows the arc of a PE professional's month — from whispered sourcing through management presentations, 2 AM models, IC memos drafted on flights, and the moment a term sheet lands. Each issue goes deeper than the deck.
The Whisper
A banker calls before the market opens. "It's not officially in process yet." You've heard this before. You ask two questions: who's the sponsor, and what's the trailing twelve. You already know the third answer — whether you'll pick up the phone on Thursday.
Sourcing Note
The Management Presentation
Slide 14 is always the tell. It's where the sponsor decides how much they trust you. Some show the customer list. Most show a pie chart with the top five labeled "Diversified Industrial End-Markets." You've learned to ask what happens to the EBITDA if the second-largest customer doesn't renew.
"The questions you don't ask in the room are the ones that end up in the IC memo."
Mgmt. Pres. Annotations
"Ask again at follow-up."
The Model at 2 AM
The base case is a story someone told you. The downside case is the truth you find when everyone else has gone to sleep. You've run the debt service at 5.5x, 6.0x, and 6.5x leverage. The equity breaks at 6.2x if EBITDA misses by 12%. You write that number down on a Post-it and stick it to the monitor.
Stress Test Output
The IC Memo on the Flight
You write the IC memo the same way you write everything important — against the wind. You argue the bear case first, then earn the right to the bull. By the time the plane lands, you've written the sentence you'll either defend or regret: "At current entry, the equity is impaired before we miss guidance by a single quarter."
"The questions you don't ask in the room are the ones that end up in the IC memo."
IC Memo Draft
The brief goes where pitch decks don't.
Each issue dissects a single deal or pattern with original sourcing — term sheets, credit agreements, management references, and the footnotes that change the math.
The Earnout That Wasn't
How a $40M earnout structured as senior debt changed the waterfall on a $280M industrial deal — and why three of four advisors missed it.
"The earnout was disclosed in footnote 14 of the credit agreement, not the CIM. By the time the LP quarterly showed a 1.3x, the structure had already paid the earnout twice."
Simplified Waterfall
Full Analysis — Subscribers Only
Four Customers
A $2.1B industrial roll-up. Four customers representing 61% of revenue. None of them under contract. The IC memo that asked the question nobody wanted answered.
Simplified Waterfall
From the Archive
ALLOCATE · Vol. I, Issue VII "The Quiet Departure" At month 8 post-close, the operating partner left. No announcement. No 8-K equivalent. One LinkedIn update, three weeks later. The EBITDA revision came at month 14. We'd flagged the departure in Issue VIII.
"The signal was in the silence."
Brief by the numbers
Which kind of
deal reader are you?
Every subscriber comes to Allocate with a different blind spot. The seven-question diagnostic identifies yours — and routes you to the back issue most likely to challenge your default framework.
The Structurer
You read the waterfall before you read the thesis.
Capital structure is the variable that tells you whether the story is real. You live in leverage turns, coverage ratios, and the bridge from GAAP to adjusted.
Recommended Back Issue
Issue IX — The Earnout That Wasn't
The Operator
You bet on people before you bet on markets.
Management quality isn't soft to you — it's the primary variable. You've read enough post-mortems to know the CEO's second answer matters more than the first.
Recommended Back Issue
Issue X — The Quiet Departure
The Contrarian
You find signal in what everyone else agreed to ignore.
The footnote, the asterisk, the metric nobody tracks — that's where you live. Consensus thesis dressed as conviction is your recurring frustration.
Recommended Back Issue
Issue XI — Four Customers
Seven questions. One archetype. One issue that challenges how you read deals.
No credit card · First issue free
"Allocate is the only brief I read before IC. Not because it tells me what to think — because it tells me what questions I forgot to ask."
Marcus Chen
VP, Carlyle Group · Washington, D.C.
"The Four Customers issue changed how I structure our customer concentration diligence. We now ask for originals, not summaries."
Priya Nair
Associate, Warburg Pincus · New York, NY
"I've been in PE for fourteen years. Allocate is the first brief that treats associates like they can handle the truth."
James Okafor
Principal, KKR · Menlo Park, CA
"As an independent sponsor, I can't afford to be wrong about management quality. The Quiet Departure issue is required reading for every deal we source."
Sarah Whitfield
Managing Partner, Meridian Capital · Chicago, IL
"Allocate is the only brief I read before IC. Not because it tells me what to think — because it tells me what questions I forgot to ask."
Marcus Chen
VP, Carlyle Group · Washington, D.C.
"The Four Customers issue changed how I structure our customer concentration diligence. We now ask for originals, not summaries."
Priya Nair
Associate, Warburg Pincus · New York, NY
"I've been in PE for fourteen years. Allocate is the first brief that treats associates like they can handle the truth."
James Okafor
Principal, KKR · Menlo Park, CA
"As an independent sponsor, I can't afford to be wrong about management quality. The Quiet Departure issue is required reading for every deal we source."
Sarah Whitfield
Managing Partner, Meridian Capital · Chicago, IL
The brief that reads
what the deck redacts.
Monthly. Long-form. Sourced. Allocate arrives at 6 AM on the first Monday of each month — before the market opens, before the week accelerates. Twelve pages. One deal. No summary.
Capital structure, management assessment, and the metric the sponsor didn't model
Term sheets, credit agreements, reference calls — not press releases
Cross-vintage analysis that reveals what the current cycle is hiding
Each issue includes a back-issue recommendation based on your blind spot
Pricing
$240 / year
First issue free · Cancel anytime · No credit card to start
Start with a free issue
No card · No commitment · First Monday of March
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