Operating value across the hold.
Most portfolio value-creation programs set standards from the center and track them in reviews. The gap is the layer between the standard and the frontline: installation. Proudfoot is that layer.
For a single portfolio company, the entry is the same as for any operator: a free assessment that sizes the prize, an AI Diagnostic that grounds it in the company’s own operating data, a Five-Day Diagnostic that makes it decision-grade.
For a portfolio, the same motion runs as one agreement: a diagnostic per company, calibrated to its profile and priced to its scale, a common benchmark across the portfolio, and results that compound into exit value.
The model serves private equity portfolios and decentralised industrial groups alike, and it works subsidiary by subsidiary, preserving each company’s autonomy while giving the owner portfolio-level operational visibility.
Run the assessment on one portfolio company and see what it returns.
Where the value lives, and where it leaks.
The value-creation plan is written in diligence and priced into the deal. Then ownership begins, and the plan meets the operation: the 100-day plan lands on a management team already running flat out, the synergy case assumes capacity the frontline does not have, and the operating partner is one person across eight companies. By month 18 the run-rate no longer matches the model and nobody can point to the week it slipped. The gap is not the plan; it is installation, the layer between the standard set at the center and the behavior on the frontline, and it is the layer no quarterly review can reach.
The hold period prices the gap brutally. Operational improvement captured in year one compounds through exit; the same improvement found in year four barely reaches the multiple. And in current exit conditions, operational earnings growth is doing the work multiple expansion used to do, which makes the installation layer the difference between the base case and the upside case.
Where the discipline lands.
A single portfolio company
The same ladder any operator climbs: the free assessment sizes the prize in two minutes, the AI Diagnostic grounds it in the company's own operating data in days, the Five-Day Diagnostic makes it decision-grade on site. The portfolio company's management owns the result; the owner sees the evidence.
A sector or platform roll-up
Bolt-on integration is an operating-system problem wearing an M&A costume: two plants, two cadences, two definitions of a good shift. Proudfoot installs one operating discipline across the platform so the synergy case is banked on the frontline, not reported in the deck.
A whole-portfolio agreement
One agreement, a diagnostic per company calibrated to its profile and priced to its scale, a common operational benchmark across the holdings, and a sequenced installation programme that follows the evidence. Subsidiary autonomy is preserved; the centre gains portfolio-level operational visibility independent of self-reporting.
Diligence and the first hundred days
Pre-close, the assessment and AI Diagnostic motion turns operational upside from a diligence assumption into a sized, evidence-based number. Post-close, the same findings become the first hundred days' installation plan, so value creation starts at completion rather than after the first disappointing quarter.
Exit preparation
Eighteen months before exit, the question is which operational story the buyer's diligence will find. An installed operating system with a measured improvement trajectory is worth more than the same EBITDA explained by a slide, because the buyer can see it holding.
What the owner gets.
Three returns, and they compound. EBITDA at the portfolio company, delivered on the frontline and measured weekly against an agreed baseline. A portfolio benchmark the center can trust, because it is read from operating data rather than collected from management self-reporting. And an exit story buyers can verify: the operating discipline is visible on the frontline, in the cadence, in the supervisor's daily report, long after the consultants have left.
Frequently asked questions about Proudfoot in private equity
As the installation layer of their program, not a rival to it. The operating team sets standards and priorities; Proudfoot installs them at each portfolio company, on the frontline, with the company's own supervisors, and reports against the operating team's own measures. The center-led program gets the one thing it cannot do from the center.
Yes, identically. Any owner of multiple operating companies faces the same structure: autonomy at the subsidiary, visibility needed at the center, and improvement that has to be installed locally. The portfolio motion preserves the operating model that made the group work while closing the gap it creates.
The first AI Diagnostic returns a sized, evidenced prize within days of data access. The first Five-Day Diagnostic produces a decision within the week it runs. Installation banks first value inside a quarter, measured weekly, and every subsequent portfolio company starts faster because the benchmark is already built.
What it looks like when it lands.
A private-equity-backed ophthalmology provider
A private-equity-backed US physician-led medical group
