WAI is privately held conglomerate of about 10 companies spanning the trucking, food processing, real estate and insurance industries.
Challenges
Company had more opportunities for investing capital than capital to invest. Board of Directors was unsure of the returns from past investments across portfolio of companies.
- Wanted to develop portfolio strategy to understand current industry and company performance
- Needed a robust, comprehensive approach to allocating capital to companies within portfolio
Approach
- Conducted intensive Industry Analysis to understand market attractiveness. Evaluated each industry based on 10-15 strategic, operational and financial criteria
- Developed fact-based assessment of each individual company’s ability to win within their respective industry again using 10-15 criteria
- Assessed 10-year historical financial performance using ROIC as overarching measure to inform shareholders regarding their return on investment
- Created capital allocation framework and investments across each company
- Developed strategic recommendations for improving performance of each company
Results
- Supported implementation of strategies to accelerate revenue growth, increase gross margin and reduce invested capital deployed
- Helped achieve estimated EBIT impact of $75-100 million in 3 years
