For sponsors and their portfolio companies

Operating-model value creation, measured against the hold period.

Most operating improvement is sold on an annual calendar. Yours runs on a deal clock. We work with sponsors and their portfolio companies to turn operating-model change into EBITDA movement that can be evidenced at exit — from diligence through the hundred days to the quality-of-operations story a buyer will test.

Where we fit in the hold period

Four points on the clock, four different jobs.

01

Pre-deal

Operational and commercial diligence support

We read the operating model behind the numbers: where the cost actually sits, which processes carry the volume, and which reported margins depend on effort that will not scale. Output is a short written view of operational risk and upside, sized and sequenced, in time for the investment committee.

02

First 100 days

Value creation plan, quick wins, baseline

We build the value creation plan against a measured operational baseline rather than a forecast, and land two or three quick wins that pay for the work. Every initiative gets an owner, a metric and a date.

03

Mid-hold

Margin expansion, add-on integration, carve-out standup

Margin expansion through process re-architecture and AI integration where it removes cost rather than adds tooling. Where the thesis involves add-ons, we integrate operations onto one process standard instead of leaving parallel back offices in place.

04

Pre-exit

Exit readiness and the quality-of-operations narrative

We assemble the operations story a buyer will diligence: what changed, what it was measured against, and what is durable without the sponsor. Loose ends that would surface in a buyer's diligence get closed before the process opens, not during it.

What a sponsor gets

Deliverables a deal team can use directly.

Operating-model diligence read

A written view of how the business actually runs, where cost concentrates, and which operational assumptions in the model are load-bearing.

100-day plan

A sequenced plan with named owners, measured baselines and dated checkpoints — not a workshop output.

EBITDA bridge from operational levers

Each line of the bridge traces to a specific process change with a before number, so the bridge survives challenge.

Add-on integration playbook

One process standard, one measurement definition, and a repeatable sequence for folding the next acquisition in.

Carve-out and standalone readiness

The operating capabilities the business needs to run without the parent, mapped, prioritised and stood up against the TSA clock.

Exit-readiness operations story

A defensible quality-of-operations narrative with the evidence attached, prepared before the process rather than during it.

How this differs from our operating engagements

Same method. Different clock, different reporting line.

We are not going to claim a separate private equity methodology, because there isn't one. The work is the same work: map the operating model, find where cost and cycle time actually sit, standardise the processes that carry the volume, then integrate AI into what remains. What changes is the clock and the reporting line. A sponsor engagement is scoped against a hold period rather than a budget year, the baseline has to be defensible to a deal team and later to a buyer, findings go to the deal partner and the board as well as to management, and every improvement is stated as a line in an EBITDA bridge rather than an operational win. That changes the pace, the evidence standard and the reporting — not the method.

Book a portfolio conversation.

Bring one company or the whole portfolio. We'll tell you where the operating upside is, how long it takes, and whether it is worth doing before exit.

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