Operational Excellence October 2020 • Privateequityinternational.Com
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Operational Excellence October 2020 • privateequityinternational.com Value creation in action OpEx Awards winners revealed Are you preparing for the ‘new world’ of private equity? As a leading provider of tech-enabled fund services, we’re experienced in PRIVATE CAPITAL FUND helping private equity managers overcome their operational challenges. ADMINISTRATION SPV AND LOAN ADMINISTRATION We work with 80% of the Top 50 PEI firms across our network of over MIDDLE OFFICE AND SHADOW 30 countries. You can rely on our end-to-end capabilities, expert teams ACCOUNTING and state of the art technology to provide a truly customised offering. TECHNOLOGY AIFM MANCO Get in touch at [email protected] AIFMD DEPOSITARY to discuss your challenges with one of our REGULATORY AND COMPLIANCE funds experts. Regulatory information is detailed on intertrustgroup.com/legalnotice intertrustgroup.com Contents How to contact us Senior Editor, Private Equity, Americas Isobel Markham [email protected], +1 646 380 6194 Senior Editor, Private Equity, EMEA Adam Le Operational Excellence [email protected], +44 20 7566 5437 Senior Special Projects Editor Graeme Kerr [email protected], +44 20 3862 7491 ISSN 1474–8800 • OCTOBER 2020 Special Projects Editor Louise Fordham [email protected], +44 20 7566 5440 Senior Reporters Carmela Mendoza [email protected], +44 203 640 7512 Insight Rod James [email protected], +44 20 7566 5453 Senior Reporter – Asia Alex Lynn 2 [email protected], +852 3704 4638 Key trends PE’s value creation Contributors Amy Carroll, Claire Coe Smith, Vicky Meek, playbook looks to prove its worth Victoria Robson Value creation Four key learnings Managing Editor, Production: Mike Simlett Production Editors: Daniel Blackburn, from the OpEx Awards 6 Adam Koppeser EDITOR’S LETTER Value creation Copy Editors: Eric Fish, Nicholas Manderson reimagined for a new era 7 Art Director: Mike Scorer Head of Design: Miriam Vysna Senior Designer: Lee Southey Honour roll 16 Designers: Denise Berjak, Pio Blanco Analysis Meet the judges 18 Head of Marketing Solutions, Private Equity Group: Winners in the Americas 22 Alistair Robinson 8 Winners in Asia-Pacific 29 [email protected], +44 20 7566 5454 Subscriptions and reprints Driving value creation through Winners in EMEA 36 [email protected] data analytics Data insights can be Customer Service [email protected] key to improving portfolio company Kucher on why pricing should be Editorial Director, US: Rich Melville profitability, says RSM’s Rich Davis high on the value creation agenda 26 Editorial Director: Philip Borel The operating partner of tomorrow Director, Product: Amanda Janis Reassessing carve-outs’ value Why GPs are on the hunt for Director of Research and Analytics: Dan Gunner creation potential PE may do well individuals with more diverse Managing Director, Americas: Colm Gilmore to consider carve-out opportunities, Managing Director, Asia: Chris Petersen skill sets 10 say Friederich von Hurter and Filip Chief Commercial Officer: Paul McLean A challenging win PER’s Gail Chief Executive: Tim McLoughlin Debevc of PwC Germany 33 McManus on addressing gender Partnering with family-led firms imbalance in operating teams 13 CPP Investments’ Rodolfo Spielmann Why tech transformation is ‘critical’ on building relationships 40 to growth The pandemic has underlined the power of digitisation Why misjudged cuts can misfire in PE, says Intertrust Group’s Chitra Rework human capital strategies Baskar 14 before trimming budgets, says FMG Leading’s Matt Brubaker 41 Sustaining procurement’s impact For subscription information visit privateequityinternational.com on EBITDA Efficio explains how Cultivating human capital How strong procurement foundations can effective talent management can create long-term value 20 seed benefits across portfolios 42 Pricing: PE’s hidden gem? Simon- The secret CEO 44 October 2020 • Operational Excellence 1 Key trends Private equity’s value creation playbook looks to prove its worth amid today’s pandemic- induced uncertainty inancial engineering will [The crisis] has that not only did this intervention ever be integral to the “ save companies but helped them private equity model; underlined the thrive. McKinsey found that GPs with it is called leveraged operating groups achieved internal buyout for a reason. Still, importance of being rates of return roughly 500 basis the shift in GPs’ focus highly engaged in points higher than those without Ftowards creating value through on their 2009-13-vintage funds, a operational improvement has been good times and phenomenon unapparent in relation one of the most striking trends of the to other vintages. past 10 years, writes Rod James. bad ” A 2018 paper titled Private Equity Every one of the 25 largest Stewart Kohl, Riverside Company and Financial Fragility During the private equity firms in the world Crisis found sponsors’ willingness has an operating group focused on implementation and journey to to get stuck in not only helped supporting value creation in their exit, and possibly even beyond, if companies survive but also allowed portfolios, according to McKinsey. we reinvest in a business,” Geoff them to increase market share These teams are also getting more Tomlinson, value creation partner at versus non-PE-backed peers. hands on. In 2015, the consultancy LDC, told Private Equity International The situation today differs from found operating teams spent almost last year. “This is a much broader the GFC in several ways. Though a third of their time “monitoring and responsibility for operating partners extensive investment means GPs reporting” company performance. than has previously been the case, are better resourced to help than a In 2018 this dropped to 19 particularly in pre-deal.” decade ago, the unpredictability of percent, with “driving measurable the virus makes it harder for GPs to performance improvement” coming Lessons from the GFC provide strategic guidance to their to represent more than 50 percent It is prescient that a key driver of this businesses, the paper’s co-author of time spent. trend was the global financial crisis, Josh Lerner, a Harvard University “We aim to support portfolio when it became clear GPs would professor, tells PEI. companies throughout the life-cycle have to intervene, financially and The growth in operational of an investment – from pre-deal, operationally, to save businesses resources has also been matched by through the growth strategy under stress. With hindsight, it seems an expansion in the number of deals 2 Private Equity International • October 2020 NSSK Value Up Program in Ac�on! Winner - Opera�onal Excellence Award Insight replicated across our portfolio. They saw demand increase as sales to groceries boomed, and they met that demand while overcoming a strict lockdown, shipping challenges and scores of unknowns. They are an inspiration.” Further tests ahead For the aforementioned Northern European pension fund manager, the crisis has reaffirmed his belief in backing GPs with an operational focus, though he acknowledges his good fortune in being highly exposed to sectors such as software-as-a-service, whose spike in popularity during lockdown has that firms are doing, notes Daniel the US. It had shipped 40,000 masks helped buoy the whole portfolio. Winther, head of private equity as of the end of April and planned to Speaking to PEI in September, and infrastructure at Skandia Asset ship an additional 860,000. six months since much of the world Management, which has around Algerian pharmaceutical introduced lockdown measures, he €4 billion in PE assets and favours business Biopharm, acquired by is at pains to emphasise the worst of GPs with a focus on operational Development Partners International the crisis may not be over and the improvement. “What I worry is that in 2013, converted two production removal of state support could be a they have maxed out,” he says. lines dedicated to the manufacture death sentence for some sponsor- “When a crisis hits like this one, of topical creams and gels to backed businesses, even with the where every company is getting hurt, producing hydroalcoholic gel for best efforts of the operational team. these resources will help but it might hand sanitiser. It donated the first “Some manufacturers said [at the not be enough.” 30,000 to various public bodies and start of the crisis] ‘let’s burn through In May, a Northern European will sell further batches “practically at our excess inventory and not order pension fund manager told cost”, PEI reported. more’. They’ve now burned through PEI he took comfort in how “It is an entrepreneurial response it and they need to start the plant embedded operating partners are to this crisis,” Sriwatsan Krishnan, up again, but they are not at full in their portfolio companies. They a Mumbai-based partner at capacity because the demand is just A PASSION FOR understand the business intimately consultancy Bain & Co, told PEI. not there. So, once again we have a and their compensation is closely Mid-market buyout shop Riverside cost absorption problem. We are in aligned with that of management. Company has seen a modest a kind of twilight zone.” FUTURE-PROOFING Most were hired, however, during a increase in the value of its portfolio Despite the considerable decade-long bull run. They clearly since the start of the crisis, with year- uncertainty, there is no suggestion understand growth but what about to-date sales and EBITDA around yet that coronavirus will challenge COMPANIES distress? flat on last year, a product of the firm the fundamental pillars of the learning quickly “to do more with operational improvement playbook. Positive early signs less”, says co-chief executive officer If anything, it is likely to hammer While the crisis still has a long Stewart Kohl. He cites the success home the benefits of not just being a way to run, the initial response of of Galvanina, a sparkling water financial engineer. operating partners has given cause company from Northern Italy, one of “It has underlined the importance for optimism.