A deal that scores 64 and a deal that scores 65 are one point apart. In The Docket's tiers they are also in different places: one is Worth Watching and the other is On the Docket, and the label on the entry changes with it. That raises a question every reader reaches sooner or later. Is a score in the 60s good, and does the line at 65 mean what it appears to mean?
The short answers are that a score in the 60s is a real result and not a consolation prize, and that the line is a place to start reading, not a place to stop. The rest of this piece explains why, using the scoring ledger through Docket No. 024 as evidence. It does not repeat what the methodology page says about the tiers or the three pillars. It goes one level underneath: how a score near the line gets built, what differs between the two sides of it, and how to read an entry on either side.
A score is the sum of three pillar scores, and each pillar score is the sum of smaller judgments. Each of those judgments can lose points for a named reason, and in a published entry the reasons are listed: a reconciliation that does not close, a document that is missing, a lease term that is not stated. A typical item costs somewhere between two and seven points.
That is the key to reading a score near the line. Because individual items are worth several points each, the distance between a 62 and a 67 is frequently one item, not a general impression of quality. The score is coarse in a specific way: it moves in steps, and the steps are about the size of the gap between the two sides of the tier line.
An invented example makes the point. Picture a small service business that has everything a buyer would want except a statement of who runs the work when the owner is away. It scores 62. The seller revises the listing to name a general manager with six years in the role, and nothing else about the business changes. The same business now scores 66, because one withheld item of four points has been resolved. The business did not improve. The evidence about it did, and the score follows the evidence.
Now picture a second business that also scores 62, but because one customer provides 60% of its revenue. No revision to the listing fixes that. The score will stay at 62 for as long as the customer share stays where it is. Both businesses sit in the same band, and they are not the same kind of 62. One is a business waiting for a document. The other is a business with a structural feature that the price either reflects or does not.
If the tier line were a cliff, the ledger would show deals piling up just under it, or an unusual gap above it. It shows neither. Through Docket No. 024 the ledger holds 356 scored deals. Twelve of them scored 64 and fourteen scored 65. Sixty-one scored from 60 to 64 and forty scored from 65 to 69. In all, 101 deals, or 28.4% of everything scored, landed somewhere between 60 and 69. Only the band directly below it, 50 to 59, holds more, with 119 deals, while the band above it, 70 to 79, holds 26.
A second way to see it: 70 deals, about one in five, sit within three points of the line, from 62 to 67. A reader who follows the ledger for a few weeks will meet near-line scores constantly, which is why it is worth knowing how to read them. The line is drawn through the thick of where deals naturally land. A deal that crosses it has not performed some feat that the deal one point below it failed to perform.
The same ledger shows how rarely scores run high. Thirty-four deals scored 70 or more and eight scored 80 or more. So a 65 is not a middling result that happens to be labeled well. It is a result in roughly the top fifth of everything scored.
A second thing changes how a score in the 60s reads, which is what the asset class typically produces. Across the ledger, scored business acquisitions average 57.1, private credit notes average 61.3, real estate offerings average 51.6 and private funds average 45.9. The averages differ because the evidence available differs. A Form D for a private fund says very little about the fund's holdings or fees, so that class loses points on disclosure almost by construction. A private credit note has a standardized structure and, often, a repeat borrower with a visible history.
The consequence is practical. A 62 on a private fund sits far above what that class usually scores. A 62 on a private credit note sits barely above the class average. The number carries the same label either way, and the same score means a different thing in each. A reader comparing a business listing to a fund filing by score alone is comparing measurements taken against two different backgrounds. The score is best used inside a class first, and across classes only with that caveat in view.
Three things change at the line. The entry's label changes. The entry's length and format change, since a deal on the Docket gets a full entry with its scoring breakdown and sourcing disclosed, while a Worth Watching deal gets a shorter write-up with its caveats. And the Dossier changes: of the 27 Dossiers in the ledger, the lowest-scoring one is a 65. The Dossier is an editorial choice and is not tied to a score, but so far every one has gone to a deal at or above the line, which tells a reader something about where the closer looks have gone.
What does not change is the diligence a buyer needs to do. A deal at 65 has cleared a standard of evidence, which is a statement about what is known. It is not a statement that nothing important is unknown. A 65 can carry a risk line as serious as a 63's, and the difference between them can be a single answer from a seller. Each entry's risk line states the specific gap that held the score back, and the practical rule is to read it before reading the number.
Worth Watching entries are published with a named gap, and the most useful thing a reader can do with that gap is sort it. Three kinds recur.
The first is an information gap: a missing document, an unexplained difference between two figures, an undisclosed lease term. A request to the seller or sponsor can close it, and a buyer who closes it has effectively found a better deal than the score reflects. In the invented example above, the missing general manager is an information gap.
The second is a structural gap: a customer concentration, a price that is high against earnings, a fee load, an owner who is the business. No request resolves one of these. A buyer can only accept it, price it or walk away. A structural gap in the 60s is the more informative kind, because it describes the deal as it is.
The third is a verification gap: an operator or borrower whose identity or history could not be confirmed by independent sources. It is closed only by independent confirmation, which a reader can sometimes obtain and a publication cannot supply on a reader's behalf. These gaps matter most in vehicles where the person is most of the deal, such as a small fund.
Reading the band this way turns "Worth Watching" from a vague verdict into a work list. The strength line says what earned the score. The risk line says which of the three kinds of gap is holding it down.
A deal in this band has cleared, and the right question changes from "what is missing" to "is the catch survivable." A 65 or 66 is the minimum evidence for the Docket, not a recommendation, and the catch it carries is usually a gap of the information kind that the seller had not yet closed or a structural feature that the price absorbs.
A recent example is a San Diego HVAC company that cleared at 65 in Docket No. 024. Its entry named a missing earnings figure as the catch, which is the sort of item a buyer can ask about directly. Cleared deals at the line tend to look like this: a strong enough structure, a real operating team or a verified operator, and one open item that decides how much the buyer should pay.
The mistake to avoid in this band is treating the label as an answer. The label says the evidence passed a standard. Whether the open item is small enough for a particular buyer is a separate judgment that belongs to the buyer.
A reader can run three questions on any entry in this range in a few minutes.
Which pillar is holding the score down? Each entry shows or implies how many points were lost in Deal Structure, Operator Track Record and Market Conditions. A deal held down on structure calls for documents. A deal held down on operator calls for independent verification of the people. A deal held down on market calls for patience or a lower price, since the outside world cannot be negotiated with.
Is the withheld item information, structure or verification? The sort above tells a reader whether a conversation with the seller can change the picture, or whether the only lever is the price.
What would have to be true for this to score four points higher, and could that happen before the money moves? If the answer is a document the seller can produce this week, the deal is better than its score. If the answer is that the customer base would have to be different, the score is describing the deal accurately and the number is not a rounding error.
A score in the 60s is not a rejection and not an endorsement. It is a sorted starting point. The four points that separate 62 from 66 are usually one or two named things, and those things are written in the entry. The number is useful for deciding the order in which to read, and the entry is where the decision gets made.
Three habits follow. Read the strength and risk lines before the score, since they say what the number is made of. Compare scores within an asset class before comparing across classes. And treat the tier line as a convenience for publishing, with a deal one point on either side of it being, for most purposes, the same deal. The ledger agrees: the line runs through the thick of the crowd.
This piece reflects The Docket's independent editorial judgment and is educational in purpose. It is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest in any specific deal, asset class, or structure. The two businesses described as examples are invented for illustration. Ledger figures are drawn from published issues through Docket No. 024. All investment decisions, and the diligence behind them, are the sole responsibility of the reader.
Framework Explainer · getthedocket.com · October 28, 2026