What the board had at the end

The board started with one product range they wanted to exit, and little else.

Ninety days later they could name the route, the price floor, and the buyers, and act with confidence.

Sector: precision component manufacturing. Geography: Europe, North America, Australia. Duration: 90 days.

Client anonymised at their request. An NDA is signed before any data is reviewed.

If your board knows it wants out but cannot yet put numbers to the decision, this is what structured analysis produces.

Where the client started

At the start, the client had a product range they wanted to exit. That was the whole brief.

No market intelligence. No financial model. No view of who might buy, or at what price. No comparison of the options.

The board knew they wanted out. They did not know how, which route was best, or what the decision was worth.

Ninety days later, every one of those gaps was closed.

A board that cannot quantify its options cannot make a decision. It can only state a preference. Preference is not strategy.

The full set of deliverables

Across the three months, the engagement produced:

• a verified supply chain map across Europe, North America and Australia, seven tiers deep, with named companies, ownership and customer links
• four exit options assessed against the client’s constraints, with the reasoning for each recorded
• two financial models, Sell and Phase out, each with scenarios and net present value at 8%
• a breakeven analysis, setting the floor sale price at €284,678
• a scored universe of 49 possible buyers, narrowed to a shortlist of 11
• three buyer types, and four priority targets for first approach
• a Phase 2 roadmap, from preparation through to completion and handover

What the board could now decide

A list of deliverables is not a decision. What matters is what the analysis let the board do.

They could now answer five questions they could not answer before.

• Which exit route produces the better financial outcome, and by how much?
• At what sale price does Sell become less attractive than Phase out?
• Which companies are the realistic buyers, and in what order to approach them?
• What does the fallback look like if the sale fails?
• What happens to the obsolete stock, whichever route is taken?

Each had a specific answer. A number, a name, or a threshold. Not a direction.

The value of structured analysis is not the volume of output. It is the specificity of what the board can now say yes or no to.

The recommendation, and why it held

The recommendation was to sell.

The financial advantage was real but small. On an expected value basis, Sell beat Phase out by €6,727. That number alone would not justify it.

Three factors together made the case.

Sell delivered certainty within 12 months, rather than 48 months of execution risk. Tool failure and customer departure transferred to the buyer on day one.

And the recommendation did not depend on hitting the target price. The breakeven was €284,678. Below that floor, Phase out became the better option, and the board knew exactly where the floor sat.

The correction that mattered

One outcome from the research phase deserves its own mention.

During the supply chain mapping, a company that would have ranked among the top targets was found to have entered judicial liquidation. It had since been bought by a major European group and traded under new ownership.

Had outreach begun without that correction, the client would have approached an entity that no longer existed in the form they expected. The case for that approach would have rested on wrong information.

Catching it before the process cost nothing. Catching it during outreach would have cost credibility with the buyer community, and added weeks.

In an exit process, one wrong assumption about a key target can derail the whole approach. Market intelligence is not background reading.

What Phase 2 looks like

This engagement closed with a decision, a shortlist, and a roadmap.

Phase 2 is the execution, and we run it. The work follows a clear sequence.

• prepare for market: update the prospectus, build the data room, produce the teaser and the management presentation
• approach buyers: sequenced outreach to the four priority targets, with messaging tailored to each buyer type
• manage the process: control information flow, hold the negotiating position, and protect commercial confidentiality
• due diligence and transaction: support the buyer through review, and manage the deal to completion
• transition: run the six month support period and ensure a clean handover

If no acceptable offer arrives within nine months, the fallback triggers. Phase out begins at once, with the model and decision gates already in place.

The client does not return to the drawing board. The work is already done.

Ninety days, in one line

A board that started with a wish to exit ended with a route, a floor price, a ranked list of buyers, and a fallback ready to run.

Previous in this series

Part 1, before strategy, you need intelligence. How the market picture was built before any recommendation.

Part 2, four strategies, two modelled, one recommendation. How four exit options became two financial models and a buyer shortlist.