Strategies / 04
Control, improvement, and a planned way out.
Control and control-adjacent positions in established private businesses, where the return is driven by what changes operationally rather than by multiple expansion or leverage alone.
- Market
- Private, established
- Horizon
- 3–7 years
- Construction
- Control, operationally led
Our approach
04.101
Underwrite the operating case
The investment case has to work on operational improvement alone. Multiple expansion is an outcome we will accept, never one we rely on.
02
Management decides the outcome
The most consequential decision is who runs the business after close, and that question is answered before we sign, not after.
03
Exit designed at entry
Who the eventual buyer is, and what they will need to see, shapes the plan from the first hundred days.
Process
04.201
Origination
Direct and relationship-led sourcing, weighted toward situations where we have a specific reason to be the right owner.
02
Commercial diligence
Customer concentration, pricing power, retention and the durability of the margin.
03
Value creation plan
A written plan with named owners and dates, agreed with management before close.
04
First hundred days
Reporting, capital discipline and the two or three changes that carry most of the case.
05
Exit
Run as a process, prepared over quarters rather than assembled when the window opens.
Risk
04.3Risk is managed where it originates.
Leverage is sized so the business survives a downside case, not so it optimises a base case. Concentration is inherent to control investing, so diligence depth substitutes for diversification. The recurring failure mode in this asset class is paying for a plan that requires everything to go right — pricing discipline is the primary control.
Other strategies
Investor access
For qualified investors.
Learn more about private equity at Antiphase, our process and access opportunities.