Build
Mergers and carve-outs
Mergers, carve-outs and company splits come with a legal date. By then the accounts, mailboxes, files and devices have to sit with the right entity, and the people have to be able to work.
The deal closes on a date. IT has to be ready that morning.
When two firms merge, one is split, or a team leaves to become its own company, the lawyers set a date. On that morning each person signs in to the entity they now belong to, writes from the right address, opens the files that came with them and nothing else. Behind that sit tenant-to-tenant migrations, a new tenant set up from scratch or a clean separation of data, and all of it has to be done before the date, in evenings and weekends, while both firms keep working. Which data may move with which entity is a legal question your advisers answer; we carry out what they decide, on time.
The route
From the signing to the first morning.
A deal follows the same route as every Build project, with one difference: the date at the end is set by a contract, not by us. So the plan is built backwards from it.
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Kick-off, from the date backwards
What has to be true on the morning of the legal date: who signs in where, under which domain, with which files and applications. Then the dates each step needs, counted back, and who decides what, agreed in writing with both sides.
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Access and safeguard, in both tenants
Admin access to every tenant involved in your firm’s own hands, and backups of each verified with a restore tested. Nothing is moved, split or deleted before there’s a way back on both sides.
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The map: what belongs to whom
Every account, mailbox, shared mailbox, site, Teams team, application and licence listed with the entity it goes to. The list is signed off by both sides before anything moves, because it’s the one document a dispute would come back to.
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The target set up first
The new or receiving tenant built before the move: sign-in through Entra ID, devices in Intune, a documented baseline, the sharing rules written down. People move into a finished structure, not a building site.
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Switchover before the date
Mailboxes, files and Teams moved in the nights before the legal date; the mail domain switched last, so no message is lost on the way. On the morning itself, people sign in to the new structure and work.
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Hypercare, then the clean cut
Thirty days close to both sides, then the separation finished: the moved data removed from the old tenant, access reviewed and the result on record. Then into daily operations, in Manage or with your own team.
On record
In the project order and the handover documentation.
- The map of accounts, mailboxes, files and licences, with the entity each went to
- The dates: the legal date and each step counted back from it
- The restore test in each tenant, with its date
- What was moved, when, and what was removed from the old side afterwards
- Who holds admin access in each tenant now, by name
The map and the removal record are what an auditor, a buyer or the other side asks for later. They exist the day the project ends.
What usually goes wrong around a legal date.
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IT hears about the deal last
The signing is done, the date is three weeks away, and nobody has counted how many nights the move needs. The steps that take longest, licences and the mail domain, are the ones that can’t be rushed.
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Data separated by hope
A carve-out moves what people think belongs to the new entity. Months later the old tenant still holds the files, or the new one holds files it shouldn’t. The signed map prevents both.
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Two tenants for years
After a merger each firm keeps its own tenant, with two sets of rules, two admin teams and files shared across the gap by email. The target structure is decided before the move, not after.
Also under Build
- Provider exits and takeovers Access secured, systems documented and the switchover planned around your deadlines, even when the handover isn’t friendly.
- Microsoft 365 and Azure migrations Servers and VPNs in the office retired where they no longer earn their keep, service by service.
- CAD and BIM environments Workstations, project shares and licence servers built for working across sites, so models stay fast and in sync.
- Office moves and new sites Network, internet, phones and printing ready before the first desk is occupied, with a plan B for the line.
- Rollouts New laptops, software or phones rolled out in waves, a pilot group first, without a lost working day.
Questions we get
How early should we involve you?
As soon as a date exists, ideally before it’s fixed. The plan runs backwards from the legal date, and the steps that take longest, moving licences and the mail domain, are the ones nobody can rush. If the deal is still being decided, that planning is Steer’s work; carrying it out is Build’s.
Can both firms keep working during the move?
Yes. Preparation runs in the background, moves run in the nights before the date, and each firm keeps its old way open until the new one is confirmed. On the morning of the legal date people sign in and work.
What about the data that must not move?
Your advisers decide what belongs to which entity; the legal assessment stays with you. We put that decision into the map, move only what’s on it, and remove the moved data from the old side afterwards, with the removal on record.
We’re a project company that ends after the project. Is that a Build job?
Setting up or winding down a project company is the same route in miniature: a tenant of its own, accounts and files by the date, and a clean end with the data archived for the years you’re bound to keep it. Smaller ones run inside Manage; the bigger ones as Build.
Start
A deal with a date on it?
In a first call we go through the date, what has to be true that morning, and which steps have to start now.
- No first level
- No surprises
- Pilot before you buy