The work begins after the close.

The M&A team is responsible for business development and sourcing. It looks for established companies with real market share and mission-critical products or services — and, specifically, for those underperforming against what the business is capable of. The firm is industry agnostic by design, preferring a diversified portfolio to a thesis about a single sector.

• Business development and origination
• Industry agnostic screening
• Underperformance as the opportunity, not the disqualifier

Drawing on more than fifteen years evaluating hundreds of opportunities, the M&A team moves quickly through diligence. The Operations team is engaged early rather than after signing, so the people who will run the transition are the people who tested the assumptions. The Investment Committee coordinates both teams and holds the decision.

• Operations engaged during diligence
• Investment Committee decision
• Speed without loosening the standard

The Operations team supports management in executing a transition plan built to capture the operational, extraction, and strategic needs of the business — extraction being the work of separating from a former parent where the deal is a carve-out. Note where the verb sits: management executes the plan and Operations supports it, which is the same division of authority the firm applies everywhere else.

• Structured 120-day plan
• Carve-out and extraction support
• Ongoing oversight established from day one

Pinnacle believes autonomous and empowered management is critical to the long-term success of any business. Management teams keep full decision-making authority over their companies while being held accountable for operations and for executing the strategic plan. The firm’s involvement is support and oversight, and it continues for as long as the business is held. Pinnacle sets no fixed hold period; realizations are an M&A responsibility alongside sourcing and execution.

• Full decision-making authority retained by management
• Accountability for operations and strategy
• Realizations sit with the M&A team, not with a fixed hold period