Private equity

Framing

The mid-market PE landscape in 2026 is being repriced by three concurrent forces. Tariff regimes are no longer a tail-risk overlay; for a manufacturing add-on with 30 percent of COGS in HS6 lines exposed to Section 301, pass-through math is the deal model. AI capex is reshaping the unit economics of portfolio companies that were not modeled as compute consumers a year ago. Grid interconnection timelines, PPA pricing, and behind-the-meter options now show up in industrial diligence memos that would have ignored them in 2023.

Generalist consulting partners cover these topics with secondary research and narrative slides. The work this consultancy does for PE clients is the math that sits underneath those slides: BACI-driven HS6 exposure mapping, ISO interconnect queue parsing, hyperscaler unit-economics models, and named scenario simulations that survive an LP committee. The product is a defensible number, traced to a primary source, that the deal team can walk into IC with.

Engagement scope ranges from a 10-day diligence sprint on a single target to a rolling retainer that gives a fund a quantitative bench across the portfolio.

Decisions we inform

• Pricing tariff pass-through risk in a manufacturing add-on acquisition.
• Sizing AI capex exposure in a portfolio company that buys cloud GPU hours.
• Mapping interconnection queue position to data center asset valuation.
• Forecasting demand shifts in a portfolio's HS6 import basket under named tariff scenarios.
• Stress testing a fund's macro tail exposure across portfolio cash flow models.
• Building a value-creation lever on energy procurement for an industrial portfolio company.

Named offerings

Sample questions

• We are looking at a metal-stampings add-on with 40 percent of revenue tied to imports from China and Taiwan. What does the tariff pass-through math look like under a 25 percent Section 301 expansion?
• Our textile portfolio company is selling into US retailers. How exposed is the customer base to apparel tariff hikes, and what does the elasticity say about price take?
• We have signed an LOI on a contract manufacturer in Penang. Where does the trade data say their volume actually goes, and how does that change under decoupling?
• An infrastructure target has 800MW of contracted data center capacity but a 2029 interconnection date. What is that worth versus a 2027 alternative?
• Our industrial holdings collectively spend $40M on grid power. Where is the value lever on procurement, demand response, and behind-the-meter generation?