Not a stupid question, it's basically the job of the Investment Bank to help company management, the auditors and company lawyers to pull it all together. It's

Not a stupid question, it's basically the job of the Investment Bank to help company management, the auditors and company lawyers to pull it all together. It's one of the main things they hang their traditional 7% fee on. I'd say in a good process the company would take a year or two of clean up and positioning of the financials and the corporation and then solid 6 months with the bankers (and accountants and lawyers) of drafting "the story" and getting all the boilerplate together.