Synergy value realisation
Integration · A US gas compression company
A newly listed natural gas compression company, formed by a merger, needed quick wins for investors.
Read moreServices - Deal value: the price you paid, delivered.
A deal is bought on a value case, and most of that value is made or lost in the operations, long after the price is agreed.
Our partners and senior practitioners hold the value case from underwrite to exit, so at any point the board can see whether the deal is still worth what was paid for it.
What we do - We hold the value case
Led by a partner or senior practitioner, from the underwrite to exit.
- An underwrite you can track. We turn the investment case into value drivers and synergy lines, each with an owner, a target and a quarterly trajectory, linked to the work that delivers it.
- A baseline locked at Day 1. Progress is measured against what was underwritten, not against a plan that has drifted since.
- Synergies tracked by workstream. Cost, revenue, capital and one-time synergies, phased across years 1 to 5. Workstream leads update each line as the work happens, and variance shows at line-item level.
- Every synergy reconciled. At each year end, every synergy is reconciled as realised, in flight, deferred or missed, with the reasons recorded.
- A value bridge for the board. A view kept apart from the weekly delivery status: whether the deal is still worth what you said it was.
- Across the portfolio. For investors, deal value rolls up across portfolio companies, so one live view shows every deal against its underwrite.
The value bridge
What the business did, and what the deal structure did.
The value bridge splits total return into operational drivers and financial drivers, from the underwrite to now. Revenue synergies feed the growth leg and cost synergies feed the margin leg, and each leg shows its anticipated value, plan, realised value and how much has been attained.
Synergies - From the underwrite to the year-end reconciliation
Each synergy keeps the same line, owner and target from the day the deal is underwritten to the day it is reconciled.
Step 1
Underwrite
Before the deal is signed
The synergy case, line by line, with owners, phasing and Conservative, Base and Aggressive scenarios.Step 2
Day 1 baseline
At close
The case is locked, so every later number is measured against it.Step 3
Quarterly progress
Every quarter
Workstream leads update each line; variance against the underwrite is shown by deal, portfolio and workstream.Step 4
Reconciliation
Each year end
Realised, in flight, deferred or missed, with the reasons recorded.
Research - Where buyout value really comes from.
atlanticma.ai rebuilt 33 public leveraged buyouts, closed between 2003 and 2016, from the buyers’ and targets’ own SEC and Companies House filings. In most of them, the value came from what the business did, which is the work an integration does.
- Public buyouts rebuilt from their own filingsLBO corpus study
- 33
- Deals where EBITDA growth was the largest source of valueLBO corpus study
- 20 of 33
- Of value was operational, on the 19 deals whose bridge reconcilesLBO corpus study
- 63%
The study shows the model reproduces filed outcomes from filed inputs, within 1% of the filed net debt on 31 of 33 deals and of the filed sponsor return on 30 of 32. It is not a forecast. The two deals outside that standard, Debenhams and Hilton, are published, not dropped. The method began with Richard Parry’s London Business School dissertation on the Debenhams buyout.
Read the LBO corpus studyWhere atlanticma.ai fits
We run the value case on atlanticma.ai. Its Deal Value view combines the deal model, synergy tracking by workstream and the decisions taken in meetings into one value bridge, which moves as the work happens rather than being rebuilt by hand each quarter.
Targets and quarterly actuals are read from your existing workbooks, and nothing is imported until a person approves it. The platform scores nothing and recommends nothing: the numbers are set by people.
Related case study
Have a deal in mind?
Tell us about the transaction and the timetable. A partner will come back to you, not a sales team.
Where to find us
Atlantic M&A Partners
- Boston, MA
- London, UK
- Rijswijk, Netherlands
- Bonn, Germany