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Our Services

Accelerating Growth, Maximising Deal Value

Clarity, Confidence, and Value at Every Stage of Growth

Fairgrove provides deep strategic and commercial insight across three core areas: Growth Strategy & Value Creation, Voice Of The Customer and Mergers & Acquisitions. Whether supporting board-level decision-making, uncovering actionable customer intelligence, or guiding high-stakes transactions, we equip our clients with the clarity and confidence needed to act decisively and create lasting value.

Growth Strategy & Value Creation

Maximising shareholder value is the fundamental challenge for any Chief Executive. We work with clients to make complex, high-stakes decisions that have a direct impact on sales, profitability, brand equity and customer satisfaction. We quantify the impact of these decisions, and provide the evidence needed to allocate resources to maximum effect at group, company and business unit level.

Optionally for clients, we can deploy market-leading third-party workflow software to ensure strategic plans are always up-to-date, instantly accessible, and easily monitored.

New markets & opportunities

Fairgrove helps clients to assess the business case for entering new markets and launching new products or services. This may be for a mature business that appears to have reached a natural ceiling of market share in its core business, or for a younger company, breaking ground in a sector where market data are thin or non-existent. We use a range of research and modelling techniques to quantify the barriers-to-entry and the available returns on investment. We frequently test the appetite for new products and services among customers and prospective customers.

Business planning

A sound plan is the essential document for all businesses, irrespective of their stage of life. Fairgrove supports Chief Executives and their teams to develop and present their business plans, including those used to help raise investment. We size markets, forecast growth, identify sources of differentiation and competitive advantage and synthesize these in 3-year or 5-year plans for the board.

Channel strategy

Choosing the right route to market, fostering channel loyalty and allocating resources across channels can be an ongoing challenge for businesses operating in dynamic, rapidly-evolving markets. Fairgrove works with clients and their partners to build balanced, efficient and profitable channels, including e-commerce and traditional distribution.

M&A strategy

Mergers and acquisitions can expedite a step-change in growth but are also notorious for destroying shareholder value, if not properly evaluated or executed. Before assessing the merits of individual targets, we help clients establish the rationale and precedent for M&A, analyse the pool of prospective targets and set target selection criteria.

Voice Of The Customer

Frequently businesses do not fully understand why their customers use them, how their customer base segments, and which segments are the most profitable. Through customer interviews, detailed surveys, interrogation of company financial data and advanced analytics, we help businesses to see where they add value to their customers, and recommend ways to retain those that are most profitable.

Voice-of-the-customer

The ‘voice-of-the-customer’ isn’t just synonymous with customer satisfaction. We help clients understand how and why customers buy from them or their competitors, who the key decision-makers are and what their selection criteria are. We identify churn risk and help assess future spend intentions. Above all, we capture the emotion and nuance of customer sentiment in a way that suppliers seldom manage to do through their own engagements. The result is a truly holistic picture of what is really going on in the customer base.

Customer segment and cohort analysis

Not all customers are the same or even equal. Understanding different customer segments and why they are different is key to maximizing their lifetime value. We combine our voice-of-the-customer investigations with forensic analysis of customer data to enable clients to identify, satisfy and retain their most profitable customers.

Value proposition development

Differentiation lies at the heart of any successful strategy but some businesses are unable to communicate their differences to their customers in a plausible, evidence-based way. Others may aspire to a certain position only to find that the market sees them differently. Consequently, these businesses struggle to achieve any competitive advantage, appearing more as a ‘me-too’ versus the market leader. We use a specific framework to help clients to develop and articulate their value proposition based, as-ever, on rigorous quantitative and qualitative investigations and analyses.

Customer acquisition & retention strategies

Acquiring and retaining customers requires a delicate balance of targeted efforts and long-term relationship-building. We help clients design strategies that not only attract new customers but also keep existing ones engaged and loyal. By leveraging insights from customer segments, behaviour patterns, and satisfaction drivers, we develop tailored acquisition strategies that resonate with specific customer profiles. For retention, we focus on identifying key touchpoints and moments that matter in the customer journey, ensuring businesses maintain consistent value delivery and address pain points before they lead to churn.

Mergers & Acquisitions

We work with corporate clients, private equity firms and other institutional investors to expedite mergers, acquisitions and divestments. In addition to assessing the attractiveness of a deal and the achievability of forecasts, our experience as strategy consultants allows us to make value-enhancing recommendations to buyers and sellers.

Target search & screen

From small, complementary bolt-ons, to major step-change acquisitions, Fairgrove is adept at finding and screening potential targets. We work closely with management teams to establish the acquisition criteria, and use our proprietary evaluation methodology to determine the relative attractiveness of targets on the shortlist. Our expertise in commercial due diligence enables us to support further investigation, if required. Where appropriate, we may also be able to facilitate introductions.

Commercial due diligence

We work with corporate clients and private equity firms to assess the commercial attractiveness of acquisition targets. Invariably this means reviewing the target company’s competitive position within its market(s), and analysing the assumptions behind the revenue, gross profit and EBITDA projections in order to comment on their achievability. We also assess the target company’s strategy, making recommendations where appropriate. Our action list for management and investors can be an integral part of the company’s 100-day plan.

Vendor commercial due diligence

Sell-side due diligence can significantly improve valuations and transaction completion times. While working for the seller, we assess the business as would-be buyers, subjecting the Information Memorandum and its financial projections to the highest levels of scrutiny. Fairgrove’s presentations are renowned for being incisive, coherent, impartial and attractive – critical attributes in expediting the sale of a business.

Vendor assist

Presenting a business for sale too early can have damaging long-term consequences. We work with sellers to ensure that their companies are ready for sale when market conditions are at their most favourable. This involves reviewing and revising the business plan and the assumptions behind the financial projections until they are sufficiently comprehensive and robust to stand up to rigorous due diligence. Where appropriate, our report can subsequently form part of the sellers’ information to prospective buyers.

Refinancing support

Our approach to commercial due diligence can also be used to help businesses raise additional funds (in the form of equity, mezzanine or senior debt) to accelerate growth. We assist clients in quantifying the returns available to potential investors and lenders by analysing the key drivers of profitability and cash flow.

"Our whole team were very impressed with your understanding of our business. Rarely does an external person or organisation understand the complexities of what we do like you guys did. Very impressive!"
CEO, Sports Nutrition & Wellness Company
"I just wanted to say thank you to the whole team for the incredible work that has been put into this strategy project. It is of the highest quality and literally game-changing for the business. Our team is blown away!"
Operating Partner, Private Equity Firm
"I was impressed with Fairgrove’s speed of mobilization, responsiveness and agility of approach as well as their ability to work well under some extreme time constraints."
Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer, Technology Services Provider
"The level of analytical detail and the depth of customer insight in Fairgrove’s report was phenomenal. Their findings will prove truly valuable as we go through the next stage of our development."
CEO, Marine Services Group
"You were quick to understand our business. Throughout the process the communication and your project management skills were both excellent."
CEO, Global Life Sciences Recruitment Firm
"This is the best CDD report I have seen in a long time. What you have produced here is excellent."
Big 4 Corporate Finance Partner
"Fairgrove provided us with a well-structured framework in which to review our competitive position. In addition to the insightful research and analysis, we particularly valued their ability to 'storyboard' our strategy in the context of what was happening in the market."
CEO, Electronic Component Manufacturer
"Fairgrove’s detailed analysis of our markets enabled us to quickly validate our strategy and align the organisation with the best prospects for growth. The report balanced quantitative and qualitative insight, and recommended a number of initiatives which we are now implementing."
CEO, Wine Wholesaler
"Fairgrove’s commercial report became a very powerful component of our vendor materials and ultimately played an important role in helping us to secure the valuation we wanted. I found them easy to work with and was impressed with their forensic approach to demonstrating why we were winning in a complex market, as well as evidencing the headroom for growth still available to the new shareholders."
CEO, Vehicle Electrical and Safety Products Distributor
"Fairgrove provided us with an excellent basis for our strategy. We thought their ability to piece together the story from so many sources was exemplary. The resulting value chain analysis provided us with a coherent picture of our clients’ business, and has shown us, quantitatively, where to focus our resources. The balance between analytical rigour and a focus on commercial application was tremendous."
Chairman, Tier 1 Automotive Supplier
"This was a complex deal in a niche market, characterized by little publicly-available information to support the investment case. Fairgrove demonstrated tenacity and rigour in getting under the skin of the business, and validating the opportunity. In summary: a tough assignment, which Fairgrove really delivered on."
Partner, Mid-market Private Equity Firm
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