Beating the odds
A portfolio company focuses on its capabilities to see further ahead.
An exhaustive search for prospective acquisitions in the core market with the intention of growing scale had proved unsuccessful and distracting. The legacy from a previous senior management team was a lack of obvious cohesion and synergy in the portfolio and a reputation for overpayment in completing acquisitions. Management turned to Focus Solutions for assistance.
The solution lay in helping management identify and better articulate the Group’s core competencies that served to enhance the performance of individual companies in the portfolio: affording the ‘right to win’ in appropriate markets.
Our approach was to work closely with the acquisitions team to profile market spaces where a company is afforded a sustainable and defendable competitive advantage from being in the Group’s portfolio – utilising the Group’s core competencies. Previously disregarded adjacency markets were back on the agenda. A refined du-diligence process was developed and we supported with independent critique of ten acquisition prospects.
Management better understood the value leveraged by each company in the portfolio before completing an acquisition. The company acquisition is simultaneously benefiting from portfolio membership whilst also bringing additional value to some of the existing companies by strengthening their respective customer solutions. Portfolio synergy.