Skip to content
GLOSSARYTERMS AS A CREDIT DESK USES THEM

Completion accounts

What are completion accounts, and how do they change an acquisition price?

ONE OF 416 TERMS · FREE · NO SIGNUP

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED

// THE SHORT ANSWER

Completion accounts are a balance sheet drawn up as at the day an acquisition completes, used to adjust an agreed price for the net debt and working capital actually handed over. The buyer pays an estimate at completion and the difference is settled months later, once the accounts are agreed or an expert decides a dispute. An enterprise value of US$50m, net debt of US$6m and working capital of US$7m against a peg of US$8m give an equity price of US$43m. An acquisition lender funds the estimate, so it reads how a later top-up would be paid for and whether a refund must prepay the loan.

BASIS  Practitioner judgment from sixteen years in commercial banking, set out in How Bankers Think (Highbank Press, 2026). Every borrower on this site is a composite constructed for teaching, not a client. The market is mid-market commercial lending as practised in New Zealand and Australia; where a convention differs elsewhere, the page says so.

// THE FULL PAGE

Completion Accounts: a Worked Example →

The price is paid on an estimate and settled on an argument.

// WHAT IT IS NOT

Normalised working capital is the target, or peg, the business is measured against; completion accounts are the mechanism that measures the actual figure on the day and moves the price.

// WORKED IN

// NEXT TO IT

FACILITIES AND THEIR SHAPE

All 416 terms on one page