Pre-Transaction Operations
Built for owners who plan to sell or raise outside capital within the next two to four years.
Building a Business a Buyer Will Pay For
The gap between what a business earns and what it sells for. A business where the owner makes every significant decision is worth less than a business with a leadership team that executes without them. Buyers and investors pay a premium for operational infrastructure. They discount key-person concentration. The question for every pre-transaction company is how much of the value on paper will survive due diligence.
Most businesses that come to market look strong from the outside. Revenue is up, customers are loyal, the team is capable. What buyers find in due diligence is that the owner is the business: the key relationships, the institutional knowledge, the final word on everything that matters. That's a concentration risk, and buyers price it accordingly.
The time to fix that is two to three years before you plan to sell or raise institutional capital — when you have the runway to build a leadership team that owns its function, document the systems that currently live in people's heads, and show the kind of sustainable, repeatable performance that commands a premium multiple. In a 90-day deal process, buyers find what's already there.
I've spent more than 30 years building organizations that don't run through any one person. I've worked inside PE acquisitions and seen what investors examine in the weeks before a deal closes. I've stepped in to protect a transaction when a $750M investment was at risk, and I know what operational gaps give buyers reason to discount or walk. The infrastructure that makes a business acquirable is the same infrastructure that makes it run better right now.
Building it early is the only way to have it ready when you need it.