Guide 06 · for owners and deal teams
Reading a portfolio the same way without centralising its systems
An owner wants every company read on one page. Each company wants to keep its own data. Both can be true.
By Cristian Paun · partner, Value Creation and Growth · Makers of New
The short answer
Agree what each company sends each quarter, and leave what it stores where it is. Each company keeps its full record in its own environment and sends a short, signed page of aggregates each quarter: the readings, the euro totals, how sure it is, and its hit rate. The owner reads every company from those pages, the same way, and never sees an answer, a person's view or an evidence line.
Why it matters now
A minority owner cannot install systems in companies it does not control, and a majority owner who centralises everything gets careful answers. Management teams answer honestly when they know what leaves the room.
How to do it
- Define the page once. The same fields for every company, written down, so each knows exactly what crosses.
- Send aggregates only. Totals and readings, never the lines behind them.
- Make it recomputable. The arithmetic behind each figure travels with it, so the owner's adviser can rebuild it.
- Sign and date each page. And number it, so history can only be added to.
- Read the book from the pages. Value today, value if the plans land, and which company needs the owner this week.
- Ask, never demand. An owner can ask a company a question. The company decides what it answers.
What good looks like
SIMULATION, an invented house with eight companies.
| Reading | The book |
|---|---|
| Equity value today | €141M on €92M invested |
| If every priced move lands | €159M |
| Companies where a move waits on the owner | 5 of 8 |
Where it goes wrong
- The owner asks for everything. The answers to all of it come back careful.
- Each company counts its own way. Eight packs, eight definitions, a week lost reconciling them.
- The page changes every quarter. A standard that moves is no standard.
The instrument
The MakersOS certificate is that page, with its fields written down and its verifier inside. The owner's book seats each certificate and reads the whole portfolio on one face.