Food Tech Carve-Out: Building a PE Investment POV from Scratch

Kanishk took on this project when a broader agri-tech group decided to divest its food tech business unit to focus on its core agri-tech operations and pivot toward data center infrastructure. The mandate was to prepare a point of view from the perspective of a private equity fund evaluating the asset: why it was a compelling acquisition, what the timing rationale was, and what value creation opportunities existed.

He began with deep company and industry research, working through the business unit's annual reports to understand what was and was not being disclosed. A key early finding was that the company reported adjusted EBITDA rather than EBITDA, and he traced exactly where those adjustments were coming from and why. He mapped the capital structure, identified market drivers and trends, assessed the addressable market, and built a picture of where the business unit sat within the broader food tech and agri-tech landscape.

With that foundation in place, he built a competitor benchmarking model using Capital IQ and publicly available annual reports. The model compared the business unit against its peer set across key financial and operational metrics, identifying where it was above average, at par, or lagging. He also analyzed a prior divestiture the company had completed within the same business unit, examining whether it was value-accretive for the buyer and whether any regulatory or structural issues had surfaced.

Structuring the Investment Thesis

Kanishk then used the benchmarking output to develop a set of value creation hypotheses for a potential buyer. These included a consolidation play, where a buyer could acquire the business unit and bolt on smaller competitors to build a more competitive consolidated entity, as well as market expansion options through targeted acquisitions or joint ventures in markets where the business unit had limited presence.

For each hypothesis, he outlined the strategic rationale, what would need to be validated to confirm the opportunity, and what specific operational levers, such as SG&A optimization, supply chain consolidation, and brand rationalization, a buyer could pull. The final deliverable was a structured report covering business overview, market overview, competitor analysis, trend impact, and a prioritized set of value creation levers.

The full project was delivered end-to-end by Kanishk, from initial research through to the final narrative and slide creation, reviewed by partners before submission.