The Aziell Blog
Field notes for the investor side of Aziell — portfolio monitoring, LP reporting, covenant discipline, value creation, and exit readiness.
Emerging funds running multi-location platforms all hit the same wall: every portco keeps its books differently, every monthly pack looks different, and by the time the data reaches the LP update it is six weeks old. Aziell is the answer.
Most emerging funds don't feel the portco-reporting problem until portco four. Then they feel it every month. Here is why it happens, what it costs, and why building your way out almost always fails.
Your top-quartile portco is the operating benchmark your bottom-quartile portco should be measured against. Here is how to run cross-portfolio benchmarking without falling into the industry-average trap.
Every quarter, some portco is inside a covenant cushion that looked comfortable at close and is now thin. Finding out two weeks after the reporting date is not an operating problem — it is a preventable fund-IRR problem. Here is how to fix it.
Every emerging fund burns one week per quarter assembling LP packs in Excel. Here is how to generate the same artifact — better — directly from your live portfolio data.
Most pre-close models over-invest in top-line growth assumptions and under-invest in branch-level variance, covenant stress-tests, and working-capital rhythm. Here is what to model instead.
Most value creation plans fail because they document aspirations, not drivers. Here is the VCP structure that actually moves EBITDA across a multi-location portfolio — and integrates directly into quarterly board packs.
13-week cash forecasting at a single operator is a standard tool. Rolling it across a portfolio of 8–15 portcos is where most funds fall down. Here is how to make it scale without adding a finance headcount per portco.
The first 90 days as a new search-fund operator are where most finance foundations get laid — or quietly compromised. Here is the day-1 playbook, built for operators who don’t yet have a controller.
The enterprise-value bridge at exit is where 20–50% of fund IRR is made or lost. Most funds assemble it in the six weeks before a sale process. Here is why it should be a continuous artifact maintained from day 1 of the hold.
Also on the blog —
Playbooks for multi-location operators.