Investment brief
The enterprise intends to acquire complementary industrial-service businesses. Targets may offer specialist methods, customer access or regional density, but earnings may also depend on founders, a small technical team, informal contracts or one annual shutdown cycle. The Board seeks an advisor who can separate genuine platform value from a collection of fragile revenues.
The mandate is to improve acquisition decisions and integration accountability. It is not to maximise completed transactions. The advisor is not appointed as director, broker, auditor or investment banker.
Before a target enters serious negotiation
Define the capability being purchased and why it cannot be built more economically in-house. Assess method ownership, licences, customer rights, key-person dependence, technical equipment, credentials and the ability to transfer knowledge. A target scorecard should distinguish technical advantage, repeat demand, density, diversification and mere size.
Reconstruct earnings by customer, equipment, contract, job and operating cycle. Include mobilisation, overtime, travel, subcontractors, rework, warranty, equipment, credit and central support. Normalise owner compensation and related-party terms without using speculative synergies to support the valuation.
Review customer concentration by collected contribution and operational dependence, not only revenue. A profitable customer may still control technician deployment, pricing, working capital and the target's entire service calendar.
At the investment decision
The advisor will challenge professional claims, safety history, environmental exposure, employment, tax, permits, cyber, data rights, equipment condition and customer indemnities. Specialist legal, engineering, tax and audit opinions remain with appointed professionals; the advisor's task is to connect them to valuation and Board risk acceptance.
Transaction terms should reflect retention, liabilities, working capital, contingencies and realistic earn-outs. Incentives must not encourage premature billing, unsafe job throughput or postponement of necessary expenditure. Present no-synergy, achievable-synergy and failure cases, including customer attrition, technician exit and delayed shutdown demand.
Financing should preserve liquidity for integration and remediation. The Board must understand covenant, refinancing and cash exposure if benefits arrive late. Structure cannot repair a weak industrial thesis.
After ownership changes
Sequence safety, credentials, access, finance, payroll, procurement, customer communication and technical assurance before aggressive brand or sales changes. Preserve differentiated expertise where common processes would damage capability. Build integration around accountable owners, funded actions and evidence.
Measure customers retained, collected contribution, technician retention, quality, safety, integration costs, working capital and cross-selling actually delivered. Compare results with the original baseline. The advisor should recommend correction, separation or disposal when the thesis fails, rather than conceal underperformance through another acquisition.
The Board's transaction record
For each serious target, maintain the investment thesis, diligence evidence, unresolved risk, valuation range, downside, approval conditions and integration charter. The portfolio review must show benefits realised and capital still at risk. A successful recommendation may be to reject a transaction.
The advisor's own record
Candidates should have at least 25 years across industrial services, plant operations, engineering, private equity, corporate development, finance, audit or integration. Former CEOs, COOs, CFOs, operating partners and acquisition leaders are encouraged to apply. Experience with founder transitions and people-intensive technical businesses is particularly relevant.
IICA registration is not required. Interests in targets, customers, lenders, intermediaries or competitors must be disclosed before involvement. Introductions, contingent fees and connected-party economics require advance agreement. No personal benefit may be hidden in a recommendation or routed through another advisor.
The expected result is a selective acquisition system that retains industrial capability and converts it into cash—not an acquisition narrative unsupported by integration.