The Client: a US capital asset manager focused exclusively on renowned companies.

The Challenge: to increase shareholder value creation accessing alternative investment strategy - the potential bargain acquisition of assets in the chocolate category to be restructured and divest with significant profit.

The Evaluation: our advisors performed an in-depth immersion in the target asset and the category concluding that: (i) the asset attractiveness was gradually depreciating due to the lack of focus of its parent company, (ii) strategic issues addressing would be a heavy burden to a new comer to tackle due to the lack of necessary capabilities and infrastructure, and (iii) the asset survival would be highly dependent of transition service agreements or complex strategic alliances.

The Solution: after evaluating multiple alternatives to solve the strategic issues, we concluded that the acquisition value of the asset to allow value creation to our client would be significantly lower than the asset parent company expectations.

The acquisition was not realized by our client or any other interested company, and the asset remains for sale.