The £50m integration tax no one talks about.
Watched another PE-backed acquisition this week.
6 months post-close, the acquiring sales team still hasn't:
Instead? They're pushing the parent company's playbook onto a business they don't understand.
The damage:
The fix is simple:
Interview 10-20 of the acquired company's best customers in week one.
Find the pattern in:
Then clone it ruthlessly across the combined sales team.
We just did this for a PE portfolio company.
Took them from £14m to £22.5m in 12 months.
Zero headcount added.
The killer question for any acquirer:
"Which customer profile in the target company actually drives profit, and can we replicate it at scale?"
If you can't answer that in the first 90 days, you've just bought yourself a very expensive distraction.