What Buyers Really Look For: Inside the Mind of a Global Investment Banker

What goes through the mind of an investment banker when they're evaluating a business? What inspires confidence? What raises questions? And in an era where AI is transforming dealmaking, what will always remain uniquely human?

Nombulelo Ntuli, an investment banker at Deutsche Bank, has worked across both the sell side and the buy side, giving her a rare perspective on how businesses are positioned, scrutinised and ultimately judged. As part of the next generation of dealmakers, she's also witnessing first-hand how technology is reshaping the industry and the skills that will define its future.

Our CEO sat down to discuss what buyers really look for in management teams, how CEOs can build confidence long before a transaction, and why, despite advances in AI, deals will always be about people.

How important are people skills in dealmaking?

They’re incredibly important because you're often dealing with someone's life's work.

It's easy to view a transaction as another deal because that's the environment we operate in. But for a founder or management team, this might represent ten, twenty or thirty years of effort. It could represent most of their adult life.

I think people sometimes forget that. When management teams feel that you understand what they've built and genuinely respect the effort that has gone into creating it, it creates an immediate connection. It becomes less about a transaction and more about helping them achieve the best outcome for something they have invested years of their lives into.

Understanding that human element is incredibly important. You're not just buying or selling an asset. You're engaging with people who care deeply about what they've built.

What has dealmaking taught you about CEOs and management teams?

One of the things I’ve learnt is that the easiest ways to build trust is to find common ground with someone. Once people feel understood, they start seeing you as someone who is working alongside them rather than someone working against them.

It changes the dynamic entirely. When you're able to create that connection, people become more open, more collaborative and more willing to work through challenges together. I think that's one of the reasons relationship-building remains so important in our industry. The more time I've spent in deals, the more I've realised that transactions are ultimately driven by people. Businesses don't make decisions. People do.

AI is dominating every conversation right now. How do you think it will change dealmaking?

In my mind, AI will make dealmaking even more of a people business…

AI is already becoming capable of handling a significant amount of execution work, and that trend will continue. Over time, teams will be able to execute transactions with fewer people and probably at a lower cost. The implication is that the value shifts elsewhere.

Historically, lots of junior dealmakers spent their time supporting execution. Going forward, much more emphasis will be put on origination. The ability to identify opportunities, build relationships, have conversations and generate deal flow will become incredibly important.

That's why the human side of the business becomes even more valuable. Origination used to be something reserved for senior dealmakers. You spent years building technical skills before being given that responsibility. I don't think that's going to be the case anymore. Younger dealmakers will need to become comfortable originating opportunities much earlier in their careers.

What do you mean when you talk about origination?

Origination itself is a skill.

It's the ability to identify opportunities, form a view on them and then have the conviction to pursue them. It's being able to sit in front of management, senior colleagues or clients and explain why something is interesting and why it deserves attention.

At RMB, one of the things that was instilled very early on was that everybody should think like an originator. It wasn't viewed as something reserved for someone much more senior. If you thought something was interesting, you were expected to be able to support that view and engage in the conversation.

I think that's becoming increasingly important. As execution becomes more efficient, firms will need people who can create opportunities rather than simply process them. Deal volume will still matter, but the ability to originate opportunities will become a much more important differentiator.

You've worked on both sides of the table. What has moving from sell side to buy side taught you?

The biggest difference is depth.

On the sell side, you're telling the broader story of a business. You're looking at the strategy, the operations, the management team, the growth opportunities and the financial performance. You're building an equity story and helping buyers understand why a business is attractive.

On the buy side, you go much deeper. You spend a lot more time interrogating assumptions, understanding risks and analysing the details. Financial performance becomes a much bigger focus because you're ultimately evaluating whether or not you want to own the business.

What happens when a teaser lands on your desk?

The first thing I look at is the region. How fast is the region growing? Is the middle class growing? What are the underlying market dynamics? Is there a broader growth opportunity? From there, I look at the business itself. Can it grow? Is it scalable? Does the sector make sense? Is there enough market opportunity for us to get excited? Only after that do we start looking at the financials.

At teaser stage, you're really trying to determine whether the business is large enough, scalable enough and attractive enough to warrant further investigation. You're not making an investment decision. You're deciding whether it's worth spending more time on.

Having now sat on both sides of the table, what separates management teams that inspire confidence from those that don't?

Alignment.

As buyers, we're looking beyond the equity story itself. We're trying to understand whether the management team genuinely shares the same view of the business, its opportunities and its risks. You can usually tell when that alignment has been built over years versus a few weeks of preparation. The strongest businesses don't create cohesion for a transaction; they bring it into the process with them.

When someone understands the details, understands how decisions are made and can answer questions confidently, it becomes clear how involved they are. Conversely, when every second question needs to be redirected elsewhere, that tells you something too.

For someone on buy-side, management presentations are not just about understanding the business. They're about understanding the people leading it.

What advice would you give CEOs and management teams preparing for a transaction?

The strongest transactions are built on years of alignment before the sale process ever begins. My advice to management teams is simple: don't wait for a transaction to get aligned. Alignment around strategy, growth opportunities and the future direction of the business needs to be embedded long before a company goes to market.

I've sat with clients before where we've said exactly that: before you even think about selling, you need to get those fundamentals right. Because if a process doesn't go well, people notice. Markets remember. Potential buyers remember. The last thing you want is for people to walk away thinking management doesn't have a coherent view of the business.

What has dealmaking taught you about people?

One of the most surprising things I've learnt is that people are more alike than we think. Whether you're speaking to someone in Africa, Europe or the United States, people tend to react similarly when their competence is questioned, when they're under pressure or when they're talking about something they care deeply about.

I've also realised that people tend to be surprisingly consistent in how they see the world. Optimistic leaders tend to be optimistic across many areas of life. The same applies to how they tend to think about growth, risk and opportunity.

I also think people are simple when things are good and complex when things get difficult. That's when you really learn who they are.

What defines the next generation of dealmakers?

The speed at which we absorb and process information is probably one of the defining characteristics. We've grown up in an environment where information is constant and where you've always had to filter signal from noise. I think that naturally changes how we engage with problems and opportunities.

I also think hierarchies feel different. Today it's not strange for someone relatively early in their career to have direct conversations with very senior people across the world. I had a conversation recently with someone based in the United States who was significantly more senior than me and it felt completely natural. Twenty years ago, I don't think that would have been the norm.

For my generation, competency matters more than hierarchy. We care less about titles and more about whether someone has something valuable to contribute. I think that changes how we engage with people and how quickly we're willing to participate in conversations.