Jacoline Loewen on the three steps to create value

As financial advisors, our focus is on companies in the lower middle market. This typically means companies with annual revenue between $15 million and $75 million. Since the smaller revenues, mean less room to do financial engineering, our strategy for value creation is different.

We, by contrast, base our value-creation strategy on three elements:

1.      leadership development,

2.      enterprise improvement and

3.      growth. 

From our experience, we know that if we accomplish the first two, growth usually results. Even if it doesn’t, such as during the recent recession, significant value can still be created.

Good leaders make good companies. It is not required that our leaders have a long track record of success. We can support them in accomplishing that. What is required is that the leaders possess the personality traits and capabilities that are required to realize the vision of the company. The leadership for the Post Office is different from Apple. For a less extreme example, if the success of a company hinges on continually developing creative, new products, then the leader of that company must possess a personality and leadership style that fosters ideation and creativity. By contrast, such a leader likely would not be effective if they needed to streamline manufacturing processes. Good “fit” of leadership is paramount.

Be sure you have the right team in place. Do a critical and honest analysis of your senior leadership relative to the company’s needs, and adjust accordingly.

If you are the owner and at the center of most activities, this may mean firing yourself.

YIKES!

Owners who realize they are the biggest block to growth and have the ego to hire a CEO will be far more likely to find greater wealth within the next five years.

One of the elements we look for in an investment is the ability to evolve the enterprise. If accomplished, this also will create value without the need for growth. However, when coupled with growth, the value creation is multiplied. Enterprise evolution, typically, is accomplished by harvesting one or more of the following:

Strategic planning. For us, the strategic plan is the cornerstone of enterprise improvement. It is not a just a budget. It sets the management team’s vision.

Sales and marketing. This is an area that often can be improved. In our experience, a majority of lower middle-market companies have not invested sufficiently in this area.

Systems. Often there is an opportunity to evolve an enterprise by improving or replacing systems, including accounting, ERP, oversight, reporting and accountability.

Asset utilization and balance sheet. In lower middle-market companies, there almost always is the ability to improve and create value through better asset utilization and balance sheet focus. This may include using a return on investment framework for capital budgeting, as well as basic items such as improving accounts receivable, accounts payable and inventory turns through focus and technology.

If you are able to accomplish some or all of the leadership development and enterprise improvement initiatives described in this article, you will create value irrespective of business cycles. Even better, you are likely to also create growth.

Jacoline Loewen is a Director of Loewen & Partners Inc., an Exempt Market Dealer, specializing in finance for owner operators and family businesses, specifically acquisitions, restructurings, sales, successions, strategy and private equity financing.

Jacoline began her career with Granduc Mines, Northern BC, and then Deloitte in their strategy unit. She developed a strategic planning model and published it in a book called "The Power of Strategy”. She also wrote "Business e-Volution" and “Money Magnet: How to Attract Investors to Your Business” (Wiley), which has been used by Ivey as a text book.

She is a Director on the Board of the Exempt Market Dealers Association (EMDA) responsible for brand and communications. She is on the advisory board of DCL International, Bilingo China and Flint Business Acceleration. She has been a Director for other Boards such as the Strategic Leadership Forum.

She is a regular panellist on BNN: The Pitch, a contributor to the Globe & Mail and National Post, serves as a judge for the UBC and the Richard Ivey School of Business’ Business Plan Competitions and is a guest lecturer at Ivey and Rotman Universities. Jacoline holds an arts degree in Industrial Relations from McGill University and a MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand.  Her MBA thesis was selected by Cambridge University and published by Cambridge’s Engineering faculty.