Operating strength where the plan needs it.
Sponsors in Edinburgh back Scottish businesses and often run the holding structures from here. The plan is agreed and the operator who has to deliver it is not yet in the business. A permanent search takes longer than the plan allows.
Where a Scottish hold loses time
The same pressures tend to appear:
Months lost to recruitment
A permanent recruitment runs for a quarter or more, while the plan carries on regardless.
Founders new to a sponsor’s reporting
Strong operators who have never produced a monthly pack for a deal team.
A distance between sponsor and business
Assets in the Highlands, the Borders or Fife, a deal team in the city or in London, and nobody between them to read both.
Add-ons that do not fit together
Acquired businesses with their own systems, contracts and employees who transfer under TUPE.
We embed operators in portfolio companies within weeks, under a services agreement that matches the hold period. Sponsors turn to us for a defined workstream, for cover while the permanent hire is found, or to judge what the company needs before they commit.
Who this is for, and who it is not
Best for
- Deploying a senior operator inside a portfolio company
- Executing a 100-day plan the moment the deal closes
- Value creation through the hold, not another advisory report
- Building reporting, systems and management credibility before an exit
- Operational diligence and leadership-gap assessment before you buy
Not for
- A strategy deck or set of recommendations to hand back
- A business that wants an adviser, not an operator inside it
- Pure diligence with no operator deployed afterwards
- A mandate for oversight rather than hands-on execution
What a sponsor gets
Interim and fractional operators are a familiar tool for sponsors backing Scottish businesses. Ours come through a curated search, with governance that runs to the end of the hold.
A review rhythm agreed early
The reporting cadence is agreed with the sponsor and management on day one, and slippage against the plan is raised straight away.
Experience across the collective
An operator facing an add-on or a remote site can ask others in the collective who have managed one.
Continuity through the hold
If an operator steps away mid-hold, we run the replacement search from the brief we keep for the asset.
Matched to founders and sponsors
The operator has to read the deal team and win the founder. We match for both.
Across the PE investment lifecycle
From pre-deal to exit preparation.
Pre-deal: operational due diligence
Embed a Fractional COO or CFO to support your ODD. They identify gaps your model hasn't priced.
Post-acquisition: fill the leadership gaps
Start the search within days of instruction and have the right operator embedded within weeks. No recruitment pipeline, notice periods, or trial risk.
Value creation: operational improvement
Build financial infrastructure, operating cadences, commercial engines, and professional people structures.
Exit preparation: build credibility
A Fractional CFO producing clean board reporting and investor-grade financials is a meaningful credibility signal in any sale process.
The value-creation matrix
Each value-creation lever maps to the operator built to own it. Most plans pull two or three at once.
Portfolio company leadership options
Match the right fractional operator to the specific portfolio company need.
Our operating partners have worked at
