Private Equity & Investors
An owner wants the same monthly numbers from every portfolio company, on time and defined the same way, and many of those companies were not built to produce them. We work inside portfolio companies on reporting packs, commercial diagnostics and the systems behind them. THEFOCUS does not give investment advice, recommend deals or value businesses, and it is not authorized by the FCA.
Discuss this with usMarket context
Total private capital investment in UK businesses reached £25.0bn in 2025, and private capital investors supported more than 1,400 UK businesses that year.
Source: UK Private Capital (formerly BVCA), Report on Investment Activity 2025 (5 May 2026)
9 in 10 UK companies receiving private investment in 2025 were small or medium sized, employing 250 or fewer people.
Source: UK Private Capital (formerly BVCA), Report on Investment Activity 2025 (5 May 2026)
Buyout investments in Europe reached €90 billion in 2025, and exit value was €45 billion.
Source: Invest Europe, Investing in Europe: Private Equity Activity 2025 (7 May 2026)
Business challenges
01
The monthly pack is built by hand
Many portfolio companies produce the owner's pack by exporting from the accounting system into spreadsheets. The pack arrives late, definitions drift from month to month and the board cannot see the working.
02
KPIs defined differently in each company
Gross margin, recurring revenue and customer churn can be calculated differently in each portfolio company, so a portfolio view compares figures that do not measure the same thing.
03
A value creation plan with no measures
The plan agreed at acquisition names pricing, product mix or cost initiatives, but the company's systems cannot show their effect month by month, so progress is reported as narrative.
04
Records that slow down an exit
Unreconciled revenue data, manual month-end steps and undocumented spreadsheets lengthen buyer due diligence and raise questions the management team cannot answer quickly.
Where the opportunity sits
A standard pack fed from source
Agreed KPI definitions, a data model built from the accounting and operating systems and an automated monthly pack give the owner comparable figures across companies and the board the working behind each one.
Commercial diagnostics from transaction data
Price, mix, customer and channel analysis built from invoice and order lines shows where margin is made and lost, so management can rank value creation initiatives by measured size.
Records a buyer's advisers can test
Reconciled revenue and margin data, written definitions and controlled reporting processes give diligence advisers evidence they can test, and give management answers that do not depend on one spreadsheet.
How we approach it
We usually work with the management team of a portfolio company at the owner's request, with a scope that both agree. We start with the accounting, ERP, CRM and operating systems and the current owner reporting, map each KPI to its source and agree definitions before building anything. The first deliverable is normally the monthly pack, automated from source. Commercial diagnostics and systems work follow in the order the value creation plan needs them. Access is read-only until the findings are agreed. We do not advise on buying, selling or holding a business, value companies, recommend deals or give regulated investment advice, and our work is not an audit or a due diligence report. Those decisions and opinions stay with the investor and its regulated advisers.
How our experience is evidenced
No anonymised engagement for a private equity firm or portfolio company is published. This page describes our approach and capabilities in reporting, commercial diagnostics and systems. THEFOCUS is not FCA-authorized and does not provide investment advice, deal recommendations, audit, actuarial or legal services. FINMETRA, our financial-data intelligence product, is in design and is not offered today.
Questions executives ask
Do you advise on investments or deals?
No. THEFOCUS does not recommend acquisitions, disposals or investments, does not value businesses and does not give regulated investment advice. We work inside portfolio companies on reporting, commercial analysis, data and systems.
Do you work for the investor or the portfolio company?
Usually for the portfolio company, with a scope the owner and the management team both agree. The reporting we build serves both, and we state at the outset who receives which outputs.
Can you carry out financial due diligence?
No. We do not produce financial or vendor due diligence reports. We can help a management team put its data, definitions and reporting into a state that the diligence advisers appointed by the parties can test.
Is FINMETRA available?
No. FINMETRA is in design. It is intended to turn accounting and management data into decision-ready reporting, and it is not offered as a product today.
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