STRATEGY
Having a clear business strategy is essential for effective growth. Your business needs to understand how it can best position itself for growth while delivering on its core values, which sometimes means making difficult trade-off decisions.
We have worked with public, private and third-sector organisations to develop and deliver business strategies, ensuring they focus on what is essential for achieving their organisational goals. This work has included strategy consulting, advising on mergers and acquisitions and investment appraisals.
We have a broad client based in our strategy work, including visa processing companies, movie production studios, private equity companies, financial services businesses, music industry organisations, winemakers and more. The key to our clients' success is using a clear, repeatable approach to strategy development and implementation that delivers on their objectives in a way that is coherent and impactful, underpinned by robust research and analysis.
STRATEGY CONSULTING
Strategy development can be a planned process with deliberate premeditated actions or an organic process, responding to opportunities as they arise. Whichever way an organisation approaches strategy, it is essential that a strategy articulates how the organisation will transform its objectives, aspirations and values into a coherent set of activities that will achieve its aims.
The strategy consulting services Souter Point offers support organisations as they go through the strategy development and implementation process, ensuring that the right activities are being conducted to achieve business objectives in line with established values.
We provide structure to the strategy development and implementation processes, using frameworks based on Managing Successful Programmes and PRINCE2 Agile so that strategy teams have full visibility of the activities being undertaken and their expected value/ outputs. We also employ design thinking techniques during ideation sessions, ensuring that all involved in strategy work have an opportunity to contribute in a way that best suits their manner.
Strategy is essential to 'get right' when embarking on a business growth initiative and at Souter Point we provide the guidance and frameworks for you to focus on deep thinking while we support your ideas with solid analysis, data and recommendations.
Case Study: Growth strategy development at a music talent organisation
A large music talent organisation in the north of England appointed Souter Point to assist with the development of a strategy to grow the business over the next five years. The organisation had experience significant success since its inception more than 20 years previously, but was still feeling the after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was limiting growth.
Souter Point's strategy consulting work began with a senior management team workshop to identify areas where the business needed attention, and to generate ideas for how those areas could be addressed. Design thinking techniques were deployed to ensure all participants had the opportunity to contribute and so that new, novel ideas could be captured.
Following this initial session, Souter Point identified six strategic actions the organisation should take to address the challenges and opportunities the senior management team had identified. This was further enhanced following facilitation of an 'away day' with the organisation's board of trustees, leveraging the collective experience and diversity of those present to fine-tune the strategic actions.
The output was a series of specific strategic actions the organisation was to undertake to achieve its five-year plan.
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
Buying and disposing of businesses through mergers and acquisitions is a key part of business strategy but one that can come with considerable risk if not done carefully.
When seeking to acquire a company, due diligence is essential to ensure that investment memorandum and vendor due diligence documents accurately represent the target and the markets within which it operates. Without a detailed understanding of their contents, there is a risk an acquirer may overpay for an acquisition - or worse, acquire a company that does not offer the expected value.
When it comes to disposing of assets, such as companies or lines of business that no longer contribute to the organisation's strategy, creating compelling investment memorada and due diligence documentation ensures that the best prices can be secured for the assets.
Souter Point provides subject matter expert due diligence for investors looking to acquire businesses in the visa processing industry, and professional M&A support for acquisitions in all other sectors. We also support businesses preparing investment memoranda by producing equity stories and growth stories, which show assets in the best possible light.
Case Study: M&A advisory services for a private equity company looking to acquire VFS Global
When the world's largest visa processing company, VFS Global, was put up for sale, Souter Point was recruited by a private equity consortium of Switzerland-based Partners Group and Canadian pension fund, Cinven, to provide expert analysis on the due diligence documents.
As a company with a turnover approaching $1bn and an estimated valuation at around 5x EBITDA, acquiring VFS Global would be a multi-billion dollar deal.
Souter Point joined the due diligence team and responded to questions about the visa processing industry market dynamics, growth projections and representations made in the VFS Global due diligence documents, working with Partners Group and Cinven teams - as well as advisers at McKinsey - to ensure that the correct assumptions were being made for the valuation model.
The Partners Group/ Cinven consortium was appointed as the 'preferred bidder' by VFS Global's deal facilitator, however, and with strong pressure from Souter Point to push back in several areas, the consortium ultimately refused to increase its offer and the deal collapsed.
With the turmoil in the visa processing industry due to COVID-19-induced shutdown of every visa application centre in the world for several months, Partners Group expressed relief at not increasing their offer and acquiring VFS Global as their first three years of ownership would have been fraught with cost-cutting and emergency responses.
Case Study: Multi-hundred-million-pound asset disposal programme of 12 businesses at Capita
As part of a multi-year transformation programme, FTSE-250 listed Capita appointed Souter Point to assist with developing equity stories and growth stories for 12 businesses it was seeking to dispose of through a sale.
The businesses were extremely diverse and no longer fit Capita's strategy to become a digitally-enabled consulting and business process outsourcing company and were therefore being listed for sale. The businesses included organisations involved in business travel, secure messaging, insurance, rail ticketing, translation and interpretation and facilities management.
Souter Point worked with the managing directors and senior management teams at each business to intimately understand their organisation, markets, growth challenges and opportunities. This research was combined with further researc and analysis to create a compelling equity story for each business that highlighted its key selling points, as well as a growth story that demonstrated how a new owner could enhance their investment.
Capita successfully disposed of all businesses, generating more than £100m in cash that was then used to grow the company's new core businesses.
INVESTMENT APPRAISALS
Investments need to deliver on an organisation's strategy and it is essential that they are costed accurately and their utility fully understood. Souter Point has supported organisations looking for independent views on proposed investments and provided proposals for how they can be further exploited in line with the organisation's vision and values to deliver on strategic objectives.
Case Study: Multi-purpose studio for RVK Studios, Iceland's largest movie production company
RVK Studios, Iceland's largest movie production studio, experienced great success supporting Hollywood movies such as Everest and 2 Guns, as well as break-out Icelandic Scandinoir series Trapped.
The lure of Iceland was it's magnificant scenery, which has been used for features such as Star Wars: Rogue One and The Fast and the Furious 9, however, Iceland did not possess a Hollywood-sized production studio, meaning when the weather turned on an outdoor shoot, expensive film crews were left waiting for it to clear.
Sensing an investment opportunity, RVK Studios sought to acquire a warehouse on the outskirts of Reykyavik to convert into a movie production studio. The company would use the studio for its own productions, and rent it out to third-party movie production companies shooting in Iceland so that 'waits on weather' could be more productive.
As part of a team, Souter Point conducted an investment appraisal of the warehouse investment. After a tour of the facility and discussions with the investment bank funding the acquisition, Souter Point produced three options for how RVK Studios could leverage the new facility, two of which were fully costed.
The first involved costing the fit-out of the warehouse, which was in a considerable state of disrepair.
Secondly, Souter Point created three scenarios to illustrate potential third-party income from renting out the warehouse to other production companies.
A final, uncosted proposal was made to illustrate the 'art of the possible' if RVK Studios wanted to push the investment further, such as building what would be only the third underwater film production tank in the world in an adjacent lake, developing a hotel on a nearby site to address Iceland's chronic hotel shortage and establishing an Iceland film and TV museum to showcase Iceland's contribution to the arts.
The warehouse was utlimately fitted out and expanded into a second movie production studio on an adjacent lot, illustrating the success of the investment for movie production.