Your portfolio company has to buy, its management has no time
The value creation plan calls for two acquisitions. The CEO is on operations, the CFO on the close, and the investment director cannot be in the company every week. I am: targets, approach, valuation, letter of intent, through to closing.
What you are facing, between two board meetings
The buy-and-build is in the plan. The targets are SMEs worth a few million, too small for an investment bank mandate, too many for the portfolio company’s team. Between two board meetings, nobody calls them.
Or the exit is approaching: you need a file buyers will read, adjustments that hold up in due diligence, and a management team that stays on its numbers during the process.
You are looking for a resource you know, who speaks the language of the fund and that of the CEO, and whom you can place in the portfolio company for as long as it takes.
Inside the portfolio company, for the fund
- Sourcing and approach - the list of targets with the reason each one matters, the approach as a trusted third party, the follow-up of answers.
- Valuation and letter of intent - a price the portfolio company’s board can defend, a structure (cash, earn-out, reinvestment) that protects the buyer.
- Due diligence - coordination of auditors and lawyers, questions to the target, the summary for the investment committee.
- Exit preparation - adjustments, Information Memorandum, data room, so that management presents a company that reads clearly.
- Reporting to the fund - one page a month: where each file stands, what is blocking, what is being decided.
A fixed fee, for as long as it takes
A monthly fixed fee for the time spent in the portfolio company, set in the quote with the fund and the CEO; a fixed fee per deliverable for a one-off assignment, a sale file, a valuation.
The model of an interim finance function, not that of a bank: one resource, one timetable, a price known in advance. A success component can be added on a full buy-side mandate, to align the timetable; it is never the base.
Wedia, the take-private by Cathay Capital
At Stifel I worked on the take-private of Wedia by Cathay Capital and analysed the platform’s build-up targets. At Edmond de Rothschild, the sale of Groupe Malherbe to GEODIS: forty subsidiaries, a data room of twenty thousand documents.
Since 2026, the same work from the company’s side, alongside Locala’s finance team on its external growth.
Three questions from funds
Do you work for the fund or for the portfolio company?
For the portfolio company, inside its team, with a report to the fund agreed at the outset. The CEO remains the day-to-day client; the fund knows each month where every file stands.
Do you work with the investment bank advising the exit?
Yes. The bank runs the process and talks to buyers; I prepare the file on the company’s side, the adjustments, the data room and the answers to questions, so that management holds its numbers during the process.
What size of targets?
SMEs from a few million to a few tens of millions of euros in revenue, most of the time: too small to mobilise a bank, large enough to change a portfolio company’s plan.
A portfolio company that has to buy, or prepare its exit?
Describe the situation in full confidence: I reply within 24 hours with a way of doing it and a timetable.