Issue No. 04 | May 2026

TGVR The Global Ventures Review TGVR Executive Intelligence  ·  Market Perspective  ·  Operational Insight Issue No. 04  ·  May 2026 Luciano Global Ventures Inc. Editor's Note The moment PE money hits your account, the clock starts. Not the 90-day clock everyone talks about. The exit clock. You are no longer building a company. You are building a sale. And everything that happens from close forward either adds to that terminal value or quietly destroys it. Most people on the operating side do not fully absorb that on day one. They know it intellectually. But they still think they are running the business they built. They are not. They are running it toward a collective outcome. A smaller piece of something significantly larger. That is the deal they signed. The PE group's job is to help them get there. The operator's job is to move at the speed required to make it happen. The post-close period is the first real test of whether that partnership actually works. Not whether both sides like each other. Whether they can move at the same speed, make decisions with incomplete information, and build trust fast enough to get somewhere worth going. The ones who figure that out early leave value on the table for no one. The ones who do not discover, usually around month four, that the conversation they should have had on day one is now a much harder conversation to have. That is what this issue is about. Mark Luciano Ainsworth  ·  Managing Partner Feature Seats on the Bus The Post-Close Reckoning What no one tells you about the org chart sitting on your desk. There is a moment, usually somewhere in the first weeks after a deal closes, when you find yourself sitting across from a list. The list exists because people decisions were made during diligence. Names were assessed, roles were evaluated, conclusions were drawn about who fits the next chapter and who does not. That work happened before you ever saw anyone operate. Before the pressure was real. Before the stakes were on the table. Now the deal is closed. And you are about to find out how much of what you decided was right. I have sat at that table many times. After over a decade of doing this work, I can tell you what all of that preparation cannot tell you: how someone actually calls it when the game is live and getting it wrong has consequences. Due diligence is watching batting practice. The swing looks good. But batting practice does not have a scoreboard. Nobody's job is on the line. The conditions that reveal who someone actually is under pressure are absent by design. The game is different. Post-close, you are watching people operate live for the first time, in a building where everyone knows things are changing. That is a different instrument than an interview. It surfaces different information. And it frequently produces different conclusions about who actually belongs on the bus. Before those conclusions get acted on, there is a conversation that almost never happens. Not the diligence debrief. Not the integration kickoff. The real one. The one where both sides say what they actually know and what they do not. That conversation is where the reckoning either starts well or starts badly. And most of the time, nobody has it. Due diligence gives you the best possible preparation for a decision you cannot fully make until you make it. The conversation that happens before the bricks come out determines how much of the wall you have left when the reckoning arrives. Continue Reading → In Brief 01 On the Calendar Q1 Deals Are Now 60 to 90 Days Post-Close If your deal closed in Q1, you are now inside the window this issue is about. Not the planning window. The reckoning window. The decisions made in diligence are meeting reality. Some of them are holding. Some are not. The ones that are not do not announce themselves loudly. They show up as small frictions that compound quietly until a Tuesday morning when something breaks and all the answers lead back to the same place. 02 Worth Noting 67% of Value Creation Initiative Failures Come from Controllable Causes. Not tariffs. Not macro headwinds. Not geopolitical risk. Poor implementation, unrealistic business cases, and portfolio company resistance. That last one is the most preventable. When the people inside the building are not bought in, the plan stalls regardless of how good the thesis was. That is not a talent problem. It is a conversation that did not happen early enough. (Simon-Kucher PE Value Creation Study, 2025) 03 What I'm Reading Fired to Founder  ·  Merril Gilbert Written through a government jobs lens but built for anyone in transition, this is a fast read that does one thing well: it forces the gut-check most people skip. Before you decide entrepreneurship is your next move, you need to know whether you actually want to run a business or whether you just want out of the one you are in. Those are different answers with very different outcomes. Timely reading for anyone watching institutional knowledge walk out the door and wondering what those people do next. Get the Book → “That conversation almost never happens because both sides arrive with something to protect. The capital side has already committed to a thesis and a timeline. The operating side is trying to demonstrate competence while quietly managing fear.” Mark Luciano Ainsworth You Should Be Talking About... Conversations PE, investors, and operators should be having Operations Post-Acquisition Work: The First 100 Days A Simple Model  ·  October 2025 Almost 90% of PE firms formulate a 100-day plan when they acquire a business. This practitioner breakdown of what that plan actually contains and why is one of the cleaner explanations of the post-close operating reality available. The people section is worth the read on its own: the author notes that most executive hiring processes take at least three to four months, which means the leadership gaps you identify on day one will not be filled before you are well into the critical execution window. You are asking the team you have to perform at a level that may require a team you do not yet have. The framing that stays with me: PE firms and portfolio companies will still be getting to know each other in the first 100 days, and establishing trust takes more work than most people on either side realize. The plan is not just operational. It is relational. And most 100-day plans do not account for that at all. Read the Full Article → Finance PE Value Creation as Deal Exits Return BDO  ·  February 2026 BDO's analysis is direct: competition among sellers will intensify as the backlog of portfolio companies hits the market. Investment teams that treat the current period as an active value-creation sprint rather than a passive wait will be better positioned when exit conditions improve. The firms with the best exits in 2026 will not be the ones that moved fastest. They will be the ones that used the holding period to build something a buyer cannot easily find elsewhere. The operational hygiene point is worth the read on its own. Tighten financial reporting, develop compliance frameworks, reduce friction. These are not exit-preparation tactics. They are the evidence of a business that was run well through the hold. Buyers pay for that. Read the Full Article → Leadership Closing the Leadership Gap in Private Equity Heidrick & Struggles  ·  January 2026 Heidrick's data is unambiguous: over 70% of CEOs at PE-backed companies are replaced during the average holding period, and most of that turnover is unplanned. Only about a third of PE-backed company leaders report that succession discussions are expected, encouraged, and pursued on an ongoing basis. That is roughly half the rate of public companies. The gap between the likelihood of needing a new CEO and the readiness to manage that transition cleanly is where value quietly disappears. The stat that stops me: 41% of PE executives say senior portfolio company leadership quality, retention, and continuity will be a significant challenge in the year ahead. Nearly half. They already know it is coming. The question is whether they are planning for it or just watching. Read the Full Article → Perspective Private Equity's Operating Talent Arms Race Intensifies Hunt Scanlon Ventures / ExitUp  ·  March 2026 The 2026 PE Portfolio Operations Compensation Report from Press & Associates makes the structural shift explicit: operational improvements now drive roughly half of PE value creation, up from about 30% in the 1980s, while financial engineering has fallen to around 25%. The operating function is no longer support. It is the moat. Firms that treat it as a competitive capability rather than a cost center are pulling away from the ones that don't. There are now more PE funds in North America than McDonald's franchises. In that environment, operational execution is the only differentiator that compounds. The firms still hiring operating talent as an afterthought are building on a thesis that stopped working a decade ago. Read the Full Article → By the Numbers 50% of PE value creation now comes from operational improvements. In the 1980s it was 30%. Financial engineering has fallen to 25%. Press & Associates via Hunt Scanlon, Mar 2026 70%+ of CEOs at PE-backed companies are replaced during the hold period. Most of that turnover is unplanned. Heidrick & Struggles Jan 2026 41% of PE executives say senior portfolio company leadership quality and continuity will be a significant challenge in the year ahead. Heidrick & Struggles Jan 2026 19,000 PE funds now operate in North America. More than McDonald's franchises. Operational execution is the only differentiator that compounds. Press & Associates via Hunt Scanlon, Mar 2026 If this was worth your time, forward it to someone who should be reading it.  Forward this issue → TGVR The Global Ventures Review marklainsworth.com Archive   |   Subscribe Unsubscribe © 2026 Luciano Global Ventures Inc.  ·  All rights reserved. 455 Market St Ste 1940, PMB 528449  ·  San Francisco, California 94105-2448 US You are receiving this because you opted in at marklainsworth.com or connected with us directly. To update your preferences or unsubscribe, use the link above.