Case Studies
Perfecting Project Outcomes
Broady Group publishes select case studies to show how we think, how we work, and what changes as a result of the work. Some details are anonymized to protect client confidentiality.
Building a First-Platform Investment Thesis in a Fragmented Services Sector
Engagement type: Investment Strategy
Client type: Mid-market private equity firm
Geography: United States
Stage: Pre-deal
001 / 005
Context
A mid-market PE fund with a strong track record in consumer and industrial businesses was preparing to move into B2B services for the first time. The thesis had been directionally agreed internally, but the sector was fragmented, lacked meaningful public comparables, and had seen deal activity that was difficult to interpret from the outside. The fund needed a market map that reflected how the sector truly operated not how it appeared in broker research before committing to a formal origination push.
002 / 005
The Decision
The investment committee required a fully evidenced entry thesis before authorizing the origination budget. The question was not whether the sector was interesting, but whether the fund’s specific capability set could generate a defensible return profile at the price points the market would bear.
003 / 005
Our Work
We began by defining the sector’s real boundaries, which meant discarding the standard industry classification codes and rebuilding the competitive set around how buyers and sellers in the market described their own category.
From that foundation, the Broady Group team conducted direct interviews with 22 individuals (operators, intermediaries, former executives) across the sector. We mapped the distribution of margin and customer concentration and identified the switching costs at the sub-segment level. Our focus was to pull out the structural factors that explained which businesses in the sector had outperformed expectations and which had not, and crucially, which of those factors a financial sponsor could influence post-acquisition.
We then built a risk-weighted entry thesis that was explicit about what the fund’s approach required the market to do, and what it did not.
004 / 005
What Changed
Before the engagement, the fund had a hypothesis. After it, they had a thesis with defined entry criteria, a clear view of which sub-segments offered the most favorable risk-adjusted opportunity, and a screened list of five primary acquisition targets ranked against those criteria. The origination team had a structured brief that reduced the time from first conversation to indicative interest by a measurable margin.
The fund completed its first platform acquisition in that sector nine months after the engagement closed.
005 / 005
Outputs Delivered
- Sector market map: A structured view of the competitive landscape by sub-segment (including size, fragmentation and margin benchmarks)
- Entry thesis document: Risk-weighted investment rationale with defined criteria for platform and add-on acquisitions
- Target screening framework: A scored evaluation tool applied across the initial target universe
- Assumption stress test: An explicit statement of what the thesis requires the market to do, and the conditions under which the rationale weakens
Strategic Due Diligence for a Corporate Acquisition Under Time Pressure
Engagement type: Transaction Advisory
Client type: Mid-market corporate acquirer
Geography: United States / Cross-border
Stage: Active diligence
001 / 005
Context
A corporate development team at a US industrial group was running diligence on an international acquisition target with a hard exclusivity deadline. Financial and legal workstreams were already in motion, but their confidence in the proposed deal was wavering. What the team lacked was an independent strategic view of the target’s competitive position, and specifically, whether its market share was structurally defensible or a function of circumstances unlikely to persist post-acquisition. The requested timeline from instruction to delivery was 18 days.
002 / 005
The Decision
The acquiring group’s board required a credible answer to one question before approving the transaction: was the target’s revenue base as durable as management’s materials suggested? The internal team could model the numbers, but they needed someone to challenge the assumptions behind them.
003 / 005
Our Work
We focused the engagement on the three competitive factors most material to the target’s revenue durability: customer relationships, pricing position relative to alternatives, and the degree to which the target’s service offering was genuinely differentiated from the competitive set.
Broady Group conducted rapid primary research across the target’s key customer segments, speaking with procurement contacts and sector advisors with direct knowledge of how the buying decisions in that category were made. We mapped the competitive landscape across the target’s two primary geographies and assessed the realistic substitution risk under three market scenarios.
We were able to deliver a findings briefing at Day 12 which allowed the client to incorporate the strategic perspective into their ongoing financial workstreams and complete the full written assessment by Day 17.
004 / 005
What Changed
The acquiring team entered the engagement with one concern, but our work surfaced a crucial second concern. A customer concentration dynamic was visible in the data but had not been stress-tested in the deal model. The client used our findings to negotiate an adjusted earn-out structure that directly addressed the risk, and the transaction closed on revised terms.
005 / 005
Outputs Delivered
- Competitive position assessment: An independent view of the target’s market standing across its two primary geographies
- Revenue durability analysis: A structured evaluation of durability across customer retention risk, pricing pressure, and substitution scenarios
- Day 12 verbal briefing: A preliminary findings session timed to inform ongoing financial diligence
- Written strategic assessment: A decision-ready document structured for board presentation, with scenario framing and a plain-language recommendation
Developing a Market Entry Blueprint for a New Investing Channel
Engagement type: Market & Sector Entry
Client type: Institutional asset manager
Geography: United States
Stage: Pre-commitment, thesis development
001 / 005
Context
A US-based institutional asset manager with an established presence in public markets had identified private credit as a strategic growth channel. Senior leadership had conviction on the direction, but there was no clear operational answer to the question of how to enter. The decision carried meaningful consequences for the client’s brand positioning and the state of client relationships, and the timing felt pertinent as the competitive landscape in private credit had shifted considerably in the 18 months prior to the engagement.
002 / 005
The Decision
Before committing to a build-partner-or-buy analysis with an investment banker, the leadership team wanted an independent strategic view on which entry model was most coherent given the firm’s existing strengths, their distribution relationships and the state of the risk appetite. They needed a decision framework grounded in how the private credit market really operated.
003 / 005
Our Work
Our strategy was to structure the engagement in two phases. In the first, we mapped the private credit landscape with precision – segmenting by the strategy type, investor base, region and distribution models to identify where the realistic competitive white space existed for a firm with the client’s profile.
In the second phase, we evaluated the three entry models against a consistent set of criteria and scored them accordingly. We looked at the speed to meaningful AUM, organizational disruption, distribution leverage and alignment with the firm’s existing brand positioning among institutional allocators. We then conducted conversations with allocators who had evaluated or committed to first- and second-generation private credit platforms, specifically to understand what they required from a new entrant to take it seriously.
As is the Broady Group way, we were direct about what we found. Two of the three entry models presented a credible path. One did not, and the reasons were specific enough to be actionable, not just cautionary.
004 / 005
What Changed
The client entered the engagement open to all three options. They left with a clear strategic rationale for one, a conditional path for a second contingent on a specific partnership structure, and a documented case against the third that they could use internally to close off that discussion. The leadership team described the output as the clearest external perspective they had received on the decision and used the entry framework directly in their board presentation.
005 / 005
Outputs Delivered
- Private credit landscape map: A segmented view of the competitive field by strategy, AUM scale, region, and distribution model, with an assessment of where the white space exists for a new entrant with the client’s profile
- Entry model evaluation: A structured assessment of build, partner and acquire options against consistent criteria, with a plain-language recommendation
- Allocator insight summary: Direct research findings on what institutional allocators require from a new private credit platform before committing capital
- Go/no-go decision framework: A set of explicit criteria for evaluating partnership or acquisition opportunities as they arise, tied to the firm’s specific strategic constraints