What breaks inside PE-backed companies, and what fixed it.
Written from inside five of them. One problem per post.
Buyout holds run seven years now. The plan was written for five.
Buyout holds at exit now average about seven years, up from five to six in 2010 to 2021 (Bain). With the financial levers pulled, only a better business is left.
The company that most needs an operator never gets one
Full-time operating partners average $338K to $655K in base pay alone (Heidrick & Struggles). A firm can justify that across a portfolio, not for the one company behind plan.
DiagnosisMost portfolio companies aren't underperforming. They're misdiagnosed.
Most portcos that miss plan are working hard on the wrong problem. Find the constraint first: talk to the people who touch the work, then use the numbers to rank what they said.
DiagnosisThe first question I ask inside a portfolio company
It isn't about revenue. It's what everybody knows is broken and nobody has said out loud in a meeting. The numbers come after, to rank the answers.
DiagnosisStart at demand, not capability
Most turnaround plans start with the org chart. The first question is whether there's demand you aren't serving, and where. Then delivery. Then capability and cost.
AIYour AI pilot worked and it still died
Most AI pilots die because somebody who left built them. Software nobody owns isn't an asset. At exit it's a diligence finding. The fix is who builds it.
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Weekly. What breaks inside PE-backed companies, and what to do about it.
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Tell me which company, what the number is doing, and how long it has been doing it.