Venture & Private Equity · Turnaround, sell or hold, settled on the numbers
Ferrum & Vale — The Decision Book
A portfolio company has missed plan seven quarters running and the partners are split three ways. The decision, settled on the numbers.
The brief, verbatim
I'm a partner at a lower-middle-market PE firm. Three years ago we bought Ferrum & Vale, a $46M specialty industrial distribution business (fictional company, real discipline), at 6.8x. It has missed plan seven quarters straight: EBITDA down from $6.8M to $4.9M, two of the five branch managers gone, our best supplier flirting with going direct. My partners are split three ways: fund a real turnaround, sell now and eat the mark, or hold and ride it out. Build me the decision book: the honest diagnosis of what is actually broken versus what is cyclical; the turnaround priced lever by lever with the odds stated like an adult; what a sale TODAY realistically fetches and from whom; what holding costs us in fund math and reputation; and a simulator where I can move the recovery assumptions and watch what each path returns, because this argument has eaten three Mondays and I want it settled on the numbers. End on a recommendation with a spine.
What the studio made
A twelve-page investment-committee decision book: the honest diagnosis of what is self-inflicted versus cyclical, the EBITDA bridge, the forward risk of the anchor supplier going direct, the turnaround priced lever by lever with stated odds, what a sale today really fetches and from whom, the cost of holding on the fund's clock, and a recommendation with a spine. Beside it, a live simulator and a working model where every path's returns move with the recovery assumptions, book, simulator and model in agreement.
The finished work
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You have something to build. Brief the studio in plain English and watch a room of specialists build it.
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