No doubt you, too, have had the feeling, upon glancing at an article in a paper picked up in a train or café, that it might mean something to someone, but it means nothing to you. I read this sentence in the Times the other day: ‘Not everyone builds an M&A machine on the back of stuff people throw away, such as till receipts and paper cups.’ A machine? On the back of stuff? And what are M&As — like M&Ms?
But I persevered, and later in the piece a phrase appeared without which no indigestible article is complete: ‘Mr Roney’s due diligence on family firms is so painstaking that he typically waits for one of four issues: succession, financial crisis, health or divorce.’ Issues here means ‘problems’ and health means ‘sickness’. But what does due diligence mean?
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