November 5, 2026 - by Eric Codorniz
Executive Summary
- Missed returns rarely trace to one team’s mistake. The deal team priced what it could see, and the integration team executed what it was handed.
- The failure sits in the handoffs. The group that could have caught the problem arrived after the price was set.
- Investors are asking harder questions about where returns come from, and Bain puts 71 percent of value creation on revenue and EBITDA growth, not multiple expansion.
- Technology is the clearest example: it joins late, then is asked to deliver against a plan it did not shape.
- The fix is to treat each handoff as a deliverable with a named owner, so findings travel from diligence to Day 1 to the hold period to exit.
When a deal misses its thesis, the instinct is to find out who got it wrong. In most cases, nobody did. The deal team priced what it could see. The integration team executed against what it was handed. Each did its job. The miss lives in the space between them.
I framed it this way at the start of Synoptek’s recent session, hosted by ACG, and the rest of the conversation kept coming back to it. The mistakes were not made inside any one team. They were made in what moved, or failed to move, from one team to the next.
Everyone Did Their Job
Walk through a typical deal, and the logic holds at every step.
The deal team priced the transaction on the information in front of it. That is its job. The integration team took the plan it received and executed it. That is its job. The portfolio company ran the business it inherited. That is its job too.
The one group that could have caught the gap, in this case technology, arrived after the price was already set. Nobody skipped a step. The step simply happened in the wrong order.
Miguel Sanchez made the same point from the execution side. The thesis made sense to everyone in the room at the time. What was missing was the plan and the execution to deliver it. That is not a failure of any one person. It is a failure of continuity.
Three Handoffs Where Value Goes Missing
- From the deal team to the integration team. What was priced is not always what gets handed over. Miguel described what happens when diligence findings are not costed and sequenced: they become hard to act on the Monday after close, when everything suddenly becomes unplanned. A finding that does not travel in a usable form might as well not have been found.
- From the integration team to the operating company. The integration plan only creates value when the operating company can carry it forward. What begins as a centrally managed initiative must become part of day-to-day operations, with clear ownership, decision rights, and a fixed cadence for tracking progress. Without that continuity, decisions scatter across functions, priorities lose momentum, and value-creation initiatives stall when the integration team rolls off.
- From the portfolio company to the next buyer. The last handoff is judged on evidence. A buyer’s team tests what can be verified and discounts what is only asserted. A run rate described as normalized or integration work described as handled turns into a price adjustment if nothing proves it.
Each of these handoffs has a sender and a receiver. Few have an owner.
Why the Handoffs Matter More Now
Entry multiples are what they are, and limited partners are asking much harder questions about where the return actually came from.
Bain’s 2026 Global Private Equity Report, shown in the session, found that 71 percent of value creation now comes from revenue and EBITDA growth, not multiple expansion. When the return comes from operations, an execution gap between teams is a return gap.
In that environment, the sequence I described is the difference between a fund that clears its hurdle and a fund that spends its annual meeting explaining itself.
Treat Each Handoff as a Deliverable
The practical shift is small and specific: stop treating handoffs as moments, and start treating them as deliverables. Something is produced, someone is accountable for it, and someone receives it.
Three questions will show where a firm stands:
- Who is in the room when the price is set, and what do they hand forward? The deals I have seen close fastest are the ones where technology was already at the table when the price got set. It is not a brake on the process. It is conviction.
- Does every finding leave diligence in a form the integration team can act on? A dollar figure, a date, and a named owner turn a finding into a plan. Without them, the finding stays a note.
- When the integration team rolls off, who is accountable the next day? One accountable owner with real authority and a fixed cadence keeps the plan alive after its authors leave.
Unowned Gaps Become Recurring Problems
Nobody failed, which is exactly why this pattern persists. A failure with a name gets fixed. A gap between teams gets repeated, deal after deal, until someone owns it.
The funds that outperform are not asking who made the mistake; they are asking who owns the handoff.
Watch the full session on demand, including the panel discussion behind this piece: Managing IT Value, Risk, and Spend Across the Deal Lifecycle
About the Author
Eric Codorniz is the Co-Founder of Synoptek. He drives PE-led value creation conversation across diligence, integration, and portfolio transformation. As an entrepreneur and leader with over 25 years of Business Technology & Consulting experience, Codorniz has launched multiple businesses and, most recently, had a successful exit from a Global IT Management & Consulting firm headquartered in Southern California.