The era of buying at 5x and selling at 8x through financial engineering alone is over.
I sat in on a diligence call recently for a $90M target where the entire “value creation plan” was banking on multiple expansion. This playbook was the go-to strategy merely a few years ago – for a decade. But we’re in a different macro stage today.
Entry multiples hit a median of 11.8x EBITDA last year. Cheap debt is gone. LPs are demanding real operational alpha, not accounting creativity.
So what actually works now?
Building, not just buying.
The firms winning today are embedding operational expertise early, upgrading GTM infrastructure, investing in RevOps leadership, and using tech to drive measurable EBITDA impact, not waiting for market tailwinds to do the heavy lifting.
One portfolio company I advised cut marketing spend by 20% while growing MQLs by 15% through RevOps integration.
➡️ A mix of ABM and remarketing spread across inefficient channels without bid caps, with leaking funnels and irrelevant landing pages, and faulty attribution tracking – causing obvious leaks in conversion campaigns across the board.
That’s value creation. Not financial engineering.
The operating partners who thrive in this cycle are the ones who show up with domain expertise and a playbook, not just a board seat.
This week’s Growth Shuttle Insider breaks it all down: why the traditional arbitrage model is structurally broken, what the new PE playbook looks like in practice, and two real-world case studies showing what the “build and scale” approach actually produces.
Growth Shuttle InsiderGrowth Shuttle Insider
The Shift From Traditional PE Arbitrage to Strategic Growth is Now Complete
Mario Peshev
