Cross-border acquisitions look attractive on paper. The target company has revenue, customers, and operations in a market you want to enter. The price seems reasonable. The seller is motivated. The financials check out—at least according to the documents you've reviewed. You close the deal, and within months you discover the revenue was inflated, key contracts were verbal and unenforceable, regulatory compliance was fabricated, or the business depends entirely on relationships you don't have and can't replicate. By the time you see the real picture, your capital is locked in and your options are damage control or write-off.

Standard due diligence frameworks assume functioning institutions: audited financials you can trust, enforceable contracts, reliable regulatory filings, and background checks that actually reveal risk. In emerging markets, none of those assumptions hold consistently. Documents can be professionally forged. Revenue can be real but temporary, propped up by arrangements that won't survive ownership transfer. Compliance certifications may exist on paper while actual operations violate regulations daily. The seller isn't necessarily lying—they may genuinely believe their business is what they're representing—but the gap between documentation and operational reality can be massive.

This briefing teaches you how to conduct due diligence when you can't trust the documents alone. You'll learn how to verify revenue beyond financial statements, assess regulatory risk when compliance is performative, evaluate key relationships that won't transfer with the sale, and identify the operational dependencies that will break the business after you own it. Some red flags are obvious. Others only surface through behavioral observation, informal conversations, and pattern recognition. The goal isn't perfect information—it's knowing enough to walk away from disasters and structure protections into deals where risk is manageable.