Post-Acquisition Integration

• Most 100 day plans fail because they are strategy documents, not operating contracts, with no real owner or budget attached
• The strongest integrations treat the acquired business as raw material for a "third company," not something to absorb
• An offshore model across 31 portfolio companies delivered 1.8 million dollars in savings, 92% retention and 3 to 5% EBITDA gains in eight months
• Reviewing PEO relationships portfolio wide surfaces renewal exposure that stays invisible company by company

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Operational Value Creation

• HubSpot's new PE Program signed two new PE partners in three weeks, betting on AI led GTM modernization as the biggest unclaimed value lever
• Over 600 procurement and operations projects across Ireland, Great Britain and Europe delivered more than 75 million pounds in savings
• Building shared capabilities like talent, pricing, procurement and technology across a portfolio is emerging as a bigger differentiator than deal picking alone
• Value in a deal is built or destroyed after the wire clears, not during negotiation over price

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AI Infrastructure and Platforms

• Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman formed Ode, a 1.5 billion dollar AI joint venture with Anthropic, while OpenAI countered with a 4 billion dollar venture backed by TPG
• Ode engineers are embedded at Citrin Cooperman building a client portal and at Baker Tilly US mapping tax and audit workflows
• Onyx Labs launched an agentic operating system spanning diligence through exit, with named tools for AI strategy, GTM and procurement
• Suppli is automating accounts receivable for portfolio companies, targeting the 45 to 60 plus day DSO common in manufacturing and distribution

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AI Strategy and Adoption

• McKinsey finds 70% of employees feel ready to use AI, but only 27% of leaders believe their organization is
• One advisor's talks with nearly 100 PE firms shifted from proof of concept pilots in 2025 to production deployment in 2026
• One portfolio wide deployment maps 40 AI agents across sourcing, diligence, portfolio monitoring and LP reporting
• AI Pathfinder's PE AI Strategy Day in London on 15 September will gather 85 firms, including 3i, Apax, BC Partners, Carlyle and CVC

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CFO and Finance Leadership

• A CFO behind 1.2 billion dollars in EBITDA growth credits it to underwriting every major commitment, not just reporting the past
• PE sponsors increasingly use interim CFOs to keep the value creation plan moving during leadership transitions
• Proven PE CFOs with prior exits often leave within 12 to 18 months, pushing some firms toward first time PE CFOs instead
• A search for a CFO at a 30 million euro ARR PE owned SaaS company found the role shifting from backward looking reporting toward active transformation leadership

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Executive Talent and Governance

• 73% of founder CEOs are replaced within 18 months of a PE deal, mainly because nobody taught them the board dynamics they're graded on
• The best PE backed CEOs treat the 100 day plan as a ceiling, arriving with views on leadership and cost base already formed
• Akoya Capital built an operator led firm around 22 platforms and 500 million dollars deployed, prioritizing operators over financial expertise
• Hiring is the highest leverage move in private equity: the right team can overcome a weak strategy, but not the reverse

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Consolidation and Platform Strategy

• Grant Thornton's 5 billion dollar acquisition of CBIZ signals a new phase of consolidation in professional services
• Blackstone and TPG's 18 billion dollar acquisition of Hologic is the largest healthcare PE deal of the year
• Airtable, valued at 11 billion dollars in 2021, sold to Bending Spoons for 1.285 billion dollars, under 3x annualized revenue
• A weekly German mid market recap included JLL Partners buying Life Couriers and Paragon Partners buying Babtec Informationssysteme
• SCHMABO's acquisition of Hettig German Precision folds a manufacturer into its supply chain to cut exposure to supplier delays
• Landscaping consolidation is running almost entirely through bolt ons, since most platform ready targets lack a leadership bench
• 68% of IT related carve out TSAs require an extension, with costs climbing from 1.5 to 3% of target revenue to as much as 5%

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Reports and Research

• KPMG's Pulse of Private Equity puts rolling 12 month EMEA PE investment at 782 billion dollars, with large cap deals staying active
• Bain & Company's 2026 Global Healthcare Private Equity Report found more than 190 billion dollars invested in healthcare PE deals in 2025, a record
• Alvarez & Marsal's European PE Value Creation Report ties rising returns to hands on operational improvement, not market conditions
• Operations now drive 47% of buyout value creation, up from 25%, as financial engineering's share fell from 51%
• Adams Street Partners found 72% of LPs now favor the middle market over mega buyouts for its operational value creation
• KPMG argues that as exits take longer, cash generation and DPI matter more to investors than paper valuations
• Mergermarket's trend analysis points to rising selectivity, with investors favoring resilient fundamentals over capital availability

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Thanks to Lee McCabe, David Treybig, Sereena Pathiratne, Rodney Steele, Daphne Costa Lopes, Justin McGorman, Barry Toren, Joe Zuk, Allan Koltin, Ercan Ucak, Drew Dawson, Praneet Gill, Dan Muscatello, Muhammad Ayub, Steve Budd, Greg Montgomery, Shannon Talbot, Robert Friedman, Lucas Bechtle, Adam Coffey, Shaun Stevens, Max Dezara, Alicia Motomura, Erik Boender, Dr Ola Brown, Philipp Kraft, Yannick Elhag, Sebastian Esser, Justin White, Chris Barber, Tilman Ost, Mike Trenouth, George Davies, Eidji Braghin, Carole W Streicher and more for contributing insights to this edition.

Find the full list of posts and voices on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-linkedin-cw-34-35-private-equity-value-creation-thomas-allgeyer-tvrdf/?trackingId=WPYuGoyH1bIsXdfEFHSmrQ%3D%3D