The first sentence carries a date
A report on a sale opens with something that happened on a named day and who said so. We do not open with a mood or a trend. We aim to give a date and a first-hand source; where we cannot, the item says so.
The vocabulary we hold ourselves to
Four phrases mean four different things in our copy. "Announced" is a public statement by a party. "Confirmed" means a party has verified it to us. "Registered" points to an entry in a public register. "Reportedly" comes with the name of the outlet that reported it.
Sources
For a key claim we look for the party’s own statement or a public register first, then for an independent second source. When only one exists we write "according to" and name it. We quote trade press briefly, credit the outlet and link to it, and do not rewrite its stories.
What each report must add
A deal item is not a press release in new words. It has to add at least one thing: a table of the parties and the type of transaction, what is known about the buyer and its backers, what the target’s ownership was before, or a plain list of what has not been disclosed.
People and firms
We name people only in the public role in which a party or a register names them, and not to imply wrongdoing. We make no statement about a regulatory breach unless we can link to the regulator’s published decision. Addresses, birth dates and estimates of anyone’s income stay out.
Opinions and estimates
Anything that is our own estimate is labelled as one. Figures carry a year and a period, and a table names its source and the date we looked.
Conflicts
If the Editor knows that a firm we write about has a commercial or financial connection to Partnership Stake, the piece says so plainly.
When we get it wrong
See Set It Right.