When the management presentation lies.
The gap between what the CEO presents to the sponsor and what the organization is actually executing, and how to surface it without breaking the relationship the sponsor needs to preserve.
Pattern recognition across the portfolio.
The operating gaps that show up in three holdings out of five, and what that tells you about the sponsor’s underwriting, the operating partner’s bandwidth, and where to deploy intervention first.
Why the 100-day plan is the wrong document.
The plan that matters is the one the organization can actually carry in year two, when the honeymoon narrative has expired and the unit economics start to tell the real story.
Defending EBITDA quality in a buyer’s diligence.
The operating discipline that holds through a Quality of Earnings, and the patterns that collapse under one. How the last twelve months of the hold period either build or destroy the multiple.
The three signals that predict a failed hold period.
Why the first 180 days of ownership predict the exit multiple more reliably than the underwriting model, and what sponsors are missing in the diligence-to-execution handoff.
Culture debt compounds like leverage.
What unresolved executive friction costs sponsor-backed companies, measured in basis points and lost hold time. The mechanic by which misaligned authority creates execution drag, drag creates margin leakage, and leakage compresses the multiple at exit.