The data room

The data room is a potential treasure trove of proprietary intelligence about oil and gas assets that are up for sale, but one must admit that there are more salubrious places in which to ply one's trade. The author has experienced intense scrutiny by security guards before being permitted to enter a windowless room, with flickering fluorescent lighting and drab monochromatic decor. The seismic workstation and computers sat on bare tables, alongside boxes of musty documentation. The link with the world outside is via the seller's staff, who pop their heads round the door every hour or so to ask if one has any questions or needs any missing reports data to be brought from the archives. This work space is to be one’s “home” for the next few days. Welcome to the Orwellian world of pain that is known as the physical data room (PDR). And the virtual data room (VDR) is not much better, as the M&A team, who has been tasked with due diligence of a large asset portfolio in an impossibly short space of time, can say goodbye to their families and friends for the project duration as they withdraw into their cubicles each day for complete immersion in an online world in order to make sense of a morass of electronic data downloads that is being continually updated by the seller. This chapter covers the various types of data room one might be faced with and why they are so important.