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Investment Banking

Sign off on the book before the client sees it.

On a sell-side process the model, the CIM and the management presentation are built by analysts and associates and signed by a VP and an MD who did not build them. Provenance checks each version against the last one and against the data room before it reaches them.

The problem

You sign off on work you did not build.

Every deliverable goes through five rounds or more, and the checking lands on the most expensive people on the deal.

Each round arrives as a new file with its reasons in an email thread. The VP compares it against memory, the MD reads it the night before it goes out, and one wrong figure on a cover page is enough to stop an overnight print run.

Late at night, a colleague leans over an associate’s desk to go through the work.

Where it fits

Three places it changes the work.

  1. The IREN model, version 1 and version 2 side by side in Provenance, with the change rail showing the terminal growth input and what it moved.

    01 Working through comments

    What changed since I last reviewed this.

    Each new version opens on the inputs that moved and the outputs they moved.

    Comments are checked against the change instead of against the whole file. Comments that contradict the last version usually come from reviewing the file rather than the change.

  2. A reviewer suggesting zero for freight normalisation on the Calder Drivers sheet, with a comment citing note 14 of the audited statements.

    02 The book, draft against draft

    The comments you made against the changes they made.

    Each draft of the CIM and the management presentation is compared with the last one.

    The VP checks what was actually changed instead of rereading the book.

  3. The Project Calder data room in Provenance: the figures the room states by line item and year, disagreements marked, the source page open beside them.

    03 First drafts from AI

    The first draft came from AI. Which figures still tie?

    When analysts draft with Copilot or Claude in Excel, Provenance shows which cells changed and whether each one still ties to its source.

    Every AI tool a bank rolls out adds changes someone has to review.

Run it on your next live deal.

Thirty days, with two success metrics agreed in writing before day one.