Private equity portfolio company value creation

How Rapid Value Delivery can dramatically enhance returns

Transforming portfolio companies to capture topline growth and margin enhancement

At the heart of every investment thesis is the push to deliver value. Particularly in tough economic conditions, it can be challenging for private equity investors to reach value targets within the investment window.

Rapidly delivering value requires an outcomes-focused approach to identifying and driving value creation within a portfolio company. The goal? Efficiently capturing new sources of topline growth and margin enhancement. Done right, portfolio company leadership creates sustained outcomes and success that can be confidently monetized upon exit.

How PwC’s Rapid Value Delivery approach can help turn strategy into value

The confidence to drive transformation within your portfolio company begins with actionable insights. Our Deals specialists help identify the highest return on investment opportunities that can be underwritten during due diligence, then bring fit-for-purpose private equity portfolio solutions to help you execute on those opportunities once the deal closes. The result: a faster exit at a higher valuation — even in challenging economic times.

Our dedicated sector teams – all of whom work exclusively with private equity clients – provide holistic and actionable insights, underpinned by solutions that are optimized for your organization, seamlessly executed and management owned. Speed at every stage is paramount, which is why our approach:

Systematically identifies value throughout the P&L and working capital
Leverages value creation playbooks and benchmark data sources by subsector to efficiently identify and operationalize performance improvement opportunities
Uses diagnostic tools, advanced tech and AI to improve the speed and accuracy of the opportunities identified, and expedite capability development and deployment
Works closely with management to promote stakeholder alignment across the company, deal team and operating team
Establishes value tracking mechanisms to drive accountability for benefits realization

The benefit? Drive EBITDA and cash with a tried-and-true approach

Why wait when you can create real, sustainable change faster and more reliably:

ROI first: Focus precious resources on the most valuable ROI opportunities across growth, operational and digital areas of the business.

Tools: Use world-class technology, IP and data science to accelerate outcomes and support long-term capabilities.

Quick wins: Generate fuel for growth to drive the more strategic initiatives while staying cash flow positive.

Targeted technology implementation: Achieve results without unnecessarily costly technology investments.

Stakeholder buy-in: Create sustained results with active collaboration among key players.

Look at how we’ve helped clients exceed targets

Consumer markets

Our client is a PE-owned multisite roll-up with several hundred locations nationwide. The business was established through a series of acquisitions and faced challenges baselining revenue performance and assessing pricing power. PwC conducted a six-week assessment and identified and helped deliver a 25% EBITDA uplift through surgical pricing actions across the network. Each location’s recommendation was the result of a bottom-up build of pricing power based on the local dynamics of the trade area. PwC supported the company with the implementation, then handed over the tools to enable the commercial team to dynamically assess and adjust pricing on an ongoing basis.

Business services

A private equity client engaged us to perform a comprehensive review of the operating model of a leading US advisory, tax and assurance firm during pre-deal diligence. Our analysis spanned various business service lines and support functions, identifying key opportunities to enhance EBITDA and drive efficiencies. We identified 50%-70% in incremental EBITDA improvement opportunities through strategic initiatives such as improving resource utilization, implementing technology-enabled automation, expanding and scaling up offshore capabilities, leveraging a flexible workforce and reducing internal operating expenses.

Health industries

Our client was a PE-owned multisite healthcare provider with 100+ locations across the country. The business had grown through acquisition and faced challenges identifying and prioritizing opportunities for same-store EBITDA growth post-close. PwC conducted an eight-week assessment and identified 50%+ same-store EBITDA improvement opportunity by optimizing pricing, utilization, referrals and service mix, as well as building targeted de novo sites. Opportunity sizing and location-specific recommendations resulted from site-level assessments of performance, resource utilization, physician market power, market demand, referral channel share and more. PwC developed a pragmatic, phased rollout plan, including identifying pilot sites and key change management levers to drive value realization.

Industrial products

Our client is a PE-owned industrial packaging company with global operations. PwC was engaged to support development of its enterprise strategy to double EBITDA over five years, leveraging integrated cross-functional teams to develop an effective growth strategy, improve operational cost structure, improve its environmental sustainability, and build a digital roadmap. After conducting in-depth analyses of market opportunities, operational benchmarking, and organization and functional capabilities, we developed an integrated value creation plan where 75% of the EBITDA improvement would come from growth initiatives and the remainder from operational and digital initiatives. The insights and content developed were also designed for use by the PE owner in an eventual sale process, reducing future sell-side work and facilitating a more successful exit.

Technology

A leading PE firm engaged PwC to conduct an integrated diligence of a spinout of a market-leading governance, risk and compliance platform. This effort was focused on the investment levers critical to the deal thesis and, as such, spanned financial, commercial, pricing, operations, product technology and tax deal considerations. One essential value lever to the business was the technical and product differentiation within certain customer segments. Working closely together, our teams identified and quantified investments needed to address product gaps identified relative to key market competitors. These insights helped inform the PE firm’s successful bid and to deliver on the post-close value creation plan. The cross-functional team continued through the sign-to-close period, helping with closing statements, tax structuring, transition services agreement exit planning, and technology value creation work including support of subsequent bolt-on acquisitions.

Contact us

Manoj Mahenthiran

Rapid Value Delivery Leader, PwC US

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