How an M&A clean room strategy can accelerate transactions synergies

Clean rooms used in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) can accelerate deal synergies, provide secure, compliant data exchange and mitigate risk.

In brief

• The security of an M&A clean room allows for data exchange that empowers business function alignment during dealmaking.
• M&A synergies can be accelerated with early analysis and integration planning in a clean room.
• Clean rooms can mitigate cybersecurity and regulatory risks.

A strong M&A clean room strategy can enable speed, precision and value in today’s transaction environment, where deal timelines are compressed, and increased regulatory scrutiny demands strict financial data compliance.

How can a clean room accelerate M&A synergies with confidence?

Clean rooms allow outside advisors — or other approved third-party clean team members — to access competitively sensitive information from both the buyer and seller during the sign-to-close period. This enables the appropriate stakeholders to conduct deeper analysis of key commercial and operational levers, including customer overlaps, procurement consolidation, product harmonization and organizational structure alignment, well before day one.

Armed with this analysis, teams can enter day one with ready-to-execute plans instead of scrambling to build them post-close. This clarity accelerates the integration timeline and brings forward the moment when value is actually captured.

The result:

• Better integration planning and a broader lens on M&A synergies
• Accelerated day one decisions with pre-close insights
• Faster realization of cost and revenue synergies
• Reduced time to value, improving competitive positioning

What role do M&A clean rooms play in compliance, cybersecurity and global risk mitigation?

Clean rooms are a critical shield in today’s evolving regulatory landscape. With antitrust scrutiny on the rise and regulators demanding stricter proof of competitive safeguards, clean rooms offer a demonstrable, documented audit trail showing how sensitive information was accessed, by whom and for what purpose.

But regulatory risk isn’t the only concern. Cybersecurity threats are also heightened during deal execution. An M&A clean room, when configured with strong technical controls, acts as a secure zone where information is encrypted, access-controlled and monitored. This minimizes exposure of sensitive commercial, customer or employee data during one of the most vulnerable phases of a deal.

Global acquirers must also consider tariffs, sanctions and cross-border trade sensitivities. Clean room analysis enables teams to simulate post-deal supply chain and manufacturing scenarios that help them plan for tariff implications or vendor shifts before integration begins.

The result:

• A clear, auditable compliance record during regulatory review
• The likelihood of reduced cyber risk during sensitive data exchange
• Insightful planning for tariff exposure and cross-border operations

How does an M&A clean room empower decision-making across business functions

The value of a clean room isn’t limited to one function. It supports decision-making for the deal team and operational leaders alike. By providing secure access to key data sets, clean rooms empower each function to plan proactively, develop day one actions and reduce surprises post-close.

Functions that benefit include:

• Corporate development and finance: synergy modeling, financial integration and deal structuring
• Procurement and supply chain: vendor consolidation, tariff mapping and cost optimization
• Commercial/sales and marketing: customer segmentation, pricing strategy and channel rationalization
• Operations and manufacturing: network redesign, capacity planning and SKU analysis
• Talent: workforce mapping, retention risk and organization structure planning
• IT and cybersecurity: systems integration, access controls and cyber posture benchmarking

With clean room-enabled insights, these teams can align on a shared, compliant foundation of facts that help the organization hit the ground running post-close.

The result:

• Integrated, function-level planning rooted in real data
• Stronger day one readiness across departments
• Cross-organizational alignment on sensitive information handling

How does an M&A clean room work?

Consider a recent transaction where an M&A clean room helped a newly combined company align on day one planning and identify synergy initiatives six months ahead of the standard timeline.

The deal involved two global consumer retail companies with operations spanning North America, Europe and Asia, and it faced complex regulatory requirements, commercial overlap and significant tariff exposure.

A clean room was established immediately post-sign and staffed by EY-Parthenon advisors with functional experience in finance, supply chain and commercial operations. Within the clean room, these advisors were granted secure access to product-level sales data, supplier contracts and employee structures with strict protocols to comply with antitrust regulations.

Early analysis in a clean room delivered several key benefits:

• Additional savings: Synergy modeling uncovered additional savings, more than doubling the initially targeted M&A synergies, including those in procurement consolidation and logistics streamlining.
• Augmented sourcing strategy: Tariff risk mapping enabled a proactive reconfiguration of global sourcing strategies.
• Clarity and alignment: Sanitized reporting allowed integration leaders to plan for day one execution with clarity and alignment across functions.
• Compliance speed: The clean room also helped accelerate preparation for the antitrust review process by demonstrating strong compliance and maintaining a complete audit trail of information access and use.

The M&A clean room: a strategic tool for modern M&A

In a market where speed, insight and compliance must coexist, clean rooms offer a smart, structured solution. They enable early, meaningful analysis while protecting the deal from regulatory and cybersecurity risks.

For organizations looking to improve integration outcomes, reduce time to value and operate with confidence during high-stakes transactions, clean rooms are no longer just a leading practice. They are a business imperative.

Thank you to Devesh Kumar for his contributions to this article.