M&A Advisory.
Pre-close diligence, post-close integration, and PE portfolio value creation. The work that turns deal thesis into realized value.
The deal model is a hypothesis. The operating model is what makes it true. Most transactions are won or lost in the first hundred days after close, when the integration plan meets operational reality and the synergy curve either compounds or slips into successive quarters.
Our work spans both sides of close. Pre-close, we conduct diligence on the dimensions that traditional financial and legal advisors don't fully cover: operating-model fit, technology and cyber posture, integration risk, day-one readiness, and the realistic shape of the synergy case. Post-close, we run or stand up the integration management office, sequence the workstreams, track benefit realization with discipline, and resolve the cross-functional decisions that decide whether value is captured or eroded.
This practice is built around a deliberately uncommon stack: program management discipline, deep insurance and risk fluency, and cyber and technology risk depth. A single advisor connects the operational, financial, and risk dimensions of a transaction. No handoffs between specialist firms. Every practitioner holds the relevant professional credentials in their domain.
A single advisor across the full arc of a transaction — from the diligence that prices the deal correctly to the portfolio operating discipline that compounds across a hold period.
| Phase | Focus | Representative work |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-close | Price the deal correctly; surface what dominates year one. | Operating-model, technology, cyber, and risk & insurance due diligence; realistic synergy shaping. |
| Day one | Be ready to operate the moment the deal closes. | IMO standup, day-one decision sequencing, cutover readiness with clear ownership. |
| Post-close | Capture the value the model assumed. | IT integration execution, TSA advisory, synergy tracking, carve-out & divestiture support, post-close insurance program design. |
| PE portfolio | Compound operating discipline across the hold period. | VCP execution, 100-day playbooks, portco PMO standup, add-on integration, exit readiness. |
The deal model is a hypothesis; the operating model is what makes it true. Most of the value that goes missing in a transaction leaks in the space between them — a synergy case that read well at the investment committee and quietly eroded over the months after close, or a cost that diligence never surfaced and the buyer inherited. What a sponsor wants from finance through a deal is conviction: a number that survives diligence, a synergy curve that can actually be realized, and a finance function that will still be standing behind those figures at exit. Our transaction finance is run by senior people who spent careers inside corporate finance, much of it reporting directly to public-company CFOs through repeated acquisitions and integrations. We have built the models that committees approve and then lived with the consequences of those models through integration, which is a different thing entirely from building them and walking away.
| Stage | What we own |
|---|---|
| Pre-deal | Financial due diligence and quality-of-earnings work tied back to the investment model — so the earnings the price is built on are the earnings the business actually has — alongside deal-model pressure-testing and a synergy case built from the bottom up and sized to survive the investment committee, separating the synergies the buyer can underwrite from the ones that are aspirational going in. |
| Carve-out / standalone | Stranded-cost and standalone-cost modeling, transition-services-agreement economics, and the Day-1 financial readiness that separation deals depend on — the costs left behind when a parent's shared services go away, understood before they land on the new entity. |
| Day 1 & close | Opening-balance-sheet and purchase-accounting readiness, working-capital true-up mechanics, and the cash and treasury sequencing that a clean close depends on. |
| Post-close | Synergy realization tracked against the original thesis, P&L and reporting integration, and the financial governance that holds the synergy curve to what was committed — carried through to the point where the numbers have to withstand a buyer's diligence again at exit. |
This depth is also what lets us stand behind an outcome-aligned fee. Tying a fee to a result only works if the metric is defined, the baseline is established honestly, and the result is genuinely attributable to the work rather than to the market — the same discipline a sponsor applies before underwriting a synergy number. That is ordinary practice for a team that has owned these numbers inside public companies, and it is why, on the right engagement, we will put a portion of our fee on the synergy figure we help you commit to.
Risk & Insurance Due Diligence
In a sponsor-backed transaction, the risk and insurance picture is rarely diligenced with the same rigor as the financials — and it is frequently where post-close surprises originate. We run pre-close risk and insurance due diligence as a distinct workstream: quantifying the target's actual exposure profile, reviewing claims history and loss runs, stress-testing the existing program against the combined entity's risk, and mapping the interplay between representations & warranties insurance and the underlying coverage towers. The output is a clear-eyed view of what the buyer is actually assuming, what the program will cost post-close, and where the latent liabilities sit.
For PE sponsors running platform-and-add-on strategies, this compounds across the portfolio: a repeatable diligence discipline that prices risk correctly at entry and informs the post-close program design that protects the investment thesis.
- Exposure quantification & loss-run review
- R&W / RWI structuring and coverage interplay
- Program adequacy vs. combined-entity risk
- Carve-out & bolt-on insurance implications
- Latent & contingent liability surfacing
- Post-close program design & cost view
- Pre-close diligence. Operating-model, technology, cyber, and risk-transfer diligence. We surface the issues that will dominate the first integration year before the deal closes.
- Day-one readiness. Stand up the integration management office, sequence day-one decisions, and prepare the operating model for cutover with clear ownership.
- IT integration execution. End-to-end technology integration from pre-close diligence through Day 1 readiness and post-close execution. Integration team standup, MSA and SPA technology provisions, milestone-to-close governance. We have reduced integration cost and time-to-market by 25% across sequential acquisitions through process maturity and reusable integration infrastructure.
- Transition Service Agreement advisory. TSA drafting input, scope negotiation, separation logistics, and the operating-model decisions on both sides of close. Most TSAs underestimate dependencies. We surface them before the contract is signed.
- Synergy tracking & realization. Build the financial reporting infrastructure that translates the deal-model synergy case into tracked, owned, audit-ready benefit realization.
- Integration management office. Run or stand up the IMO through the first integration year. Governance, cadence, and the cross-functional escalation that keeps decisions moving.
- Carve-out & divestiture support. Separation execution and the operating-model decisions that determine post-divestiture viability for both buyer and seller.
- Post-close insurance program design. Once the deal closes, the combined entity needs a program that reflects its new risk profile — restructured towers, renegotiated terms, and the coverage posture the new balance sheet actually requires.
Private Equity Value Creation.
Operating-partner support for sponsors and their portfolio companies. From VCP execution through exit readiness.
Sponsors invest in a thesis. The work of capturing it lives in the portfolio company itself, where strategy meets the operating reality the IC slide deck didn't anticipate. We work with sponsors and management teams to translate the value creation plan into executed initiatives, on a calendar that respects the hold period.
We are senior, lean, and built to operate inside portfolio companies without disrupting them. We bring the program discipline of a transformation practice and the operating-partner sensibility of a sponsor team. The output is realized value, documented for the board and defensible at exit.
Our practitioners have served as primary enterprise risk advisor to PE firms managing 30+ portfolio companies, running multi-line risk programs across the portfolio through hard market conditions, adverse claims activity, and active M&A including carve-outs, divestitures, and bolt-on acquisitions. Where we earn it, that work develops into firm-level mandates: standing engagement across every portfolio company under the sponsor, reflecting multi-year credibility with senior finance and operating leadership at the fund.
- VCP execution. Convert the value creation plan into a sequenced, owned, financially tracked execution roadmap. Run the cadence that delivers it on a hold-period calendar.
- 100-day operational playbook. Design and run the first 100 days post-close. Quick wins identified and captured. Operating-model decisions made before they ossify. Reporting that the sponsor and board can act on.
- PMO & governance for portcos. Stand up or modernize a PMO that produces decision-grade reporting. Right-sized governance for the company's stage. The discipline to manage initiatives in concert without crushing operating velocity.
- Operating-partner advisory. Standing counsel to sponsors and operating partners on portfolio-wide initiatives, cross-portco platform builds, and the operating disciplines that compound across the fund.
- Add-on integration. Integration support for platform-and-add-on strategies. The discipline to land tuck-ins on schedule and capture the synergies that justified them.
- Exit readiness. Operating-model uplift, reporting maturity, and risk posture sharpening in the 12-18 months before sale or IPO. The work that improves the sale narrative and survives buy-side diligence.