The Clients: a pioneer startup in trendy food and a leading snacks company in a primary developing market.

The Challenge: to understand the opportunity size in the salty snacks category and (if) how the client's capabilities could be strategically assembled to capture that opportunity.

The Evaluation: our advisors dissected the category. They concluded that the current competitive landscape propitiates a unique opportunity window (2 to 3 years duration) for the clients to join forces and assume the second position in the marketplace in 5 years. The category incumbent faces an unprecedentedly weak performance, and business model fragility while other contenders do not own the capabilities to leverage the situation.

The Solution: our final recommendation was to form a JV to co-create and capture the significant value available by synergizing complementary and distinctive capabilities of the clients. The synergies value in play would be significant and originate from the top line. The opportunity size is significantly larger as the solution strategy was evaluated only in the exploration of the modern trade channels within developed areas of the country (less than 50% of the potential).

In 2021, we were hired to advise and conduct M&A negotiations for the client with a leading player in the food industry. By the end of the same year, the deal was closed delivering record multiples to our client.