Guide 01 · for owners and deal teams
How to price a value creation plan before the deal closes
A plan of sensible moves with no euro beside them is a wish list. Here is how to turn it into a priced plan in the weeks before close.
By Cristian Paun · partner, Value Creation and Growth · Makers of New
The short answer
Price every move in three units before anybody starts it: the euros it earns, the months it takes and the capital it needs. Then rank the moves by euros per month of work, give each one owner and one date, and treat the total as a ceiling. A priced plan is shorter than the plan you started with, and it is the only kind an investment committee can hold anybody to.
Why it matters now
Holding periods are longer and multiple expansion can no longer be assumed. In BDO's 2025 private equity survey, 63 per cent of fund managers said their average holding period is five years or more. Over five years, the order in which moves land matters as much as what they are.
How to do it
- Write the moves as verbs with objects. "Reset pricing on the top forty accounts", never "pricing excellence".
- Price each move in euros, on the company's own numbers. Margin moves in euros a year. Moves that change what a buyer pays for, a recurring line or a new business model, in enterprise value at exit.
- Put the months beside the euros. A move worth €2M that takes thirty months is a different decision from one worth €600k that takes three.
- Name the capital. People, money and management attention are all capital, and attention is usually the scarcest.
- Grade the evidence behind each figure. Somebody said it, two people said it, a document shows it, or it was measured. A plan resting on testimony is a plan with a wide band.
- Rank by euros per month of work. Put every move in one unit first: a margin move's euros a year times the company's multiple is its value at exit, the figure ranked beside a move priced at exit. Then cut to three moves at a time.
- Write the end state. What done looks like for each move, in one sentence, before it starts.
What good looks like
SIMULATION, an invented company at €50M of revenue and a 20 per cent margin, valued at 8x EBITDA: every move in value at exit, so each row is ranked in one unit.
| Move | Euros | Months | Euros per month | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close discount exceptions | €2.4M at exit (€300k a year at 8x) | 3 | €800k | Commercial lead |
| Automate onboarding | €1.9M at exit (€240k a year at 8x) | 6 | €320k | Operations lead |
| Productise the service line | €1.2M at exit | 18 | €67k | Chief executive |
Where it goes wrong
- The sum is presented as the forecast. A sum of moves is a ceiling. The plan says what lands first.
- Every move has three owners. A move owned by "the team" is owned by nobody.
- The plan is priced once and never again. Each quarter the moves are priced again on what landed.
The instrument
The plan page of a MakersOS room does this on the company's own numbers, ranks the moves with the working shown, and keeps the record of what each move delivered. Before close it runs as The Diligence Read, and its fix list becomes the 100-day plan on day one.
Source: BDO, 2025 Private Equity Survey, published 12 August 2025, 435 fund managers and operating partners.