Joint Venture Consulting and Advisory

6 Critical Elements to Getting Your Shareholders Aligned on Growth

IT’S A LESSON COWBOYS LEARNED a long time ago: If you don’t want a group of horses to escape, don’t tie them to a tree – simply tie them to each other and they’re incapable of collectively making progress in any direction. So it seems with joint ventures, especially consortia, shared utilities and other ...

Mapping a Joint Venture Value Chain Before It’s Too Late

THE DESIGN AND SUCCESS of many joint ventures is based on the ongoing flow of expertise, technology, services, market relationships, and other contributions from the parent companies. These flows may be provided under formal fee-for-service or other commercial agreements, or on a non-commercial basis as part ...

Royalty Payments in Joint Ventures – Explaining Low Rates and Unconventional Structures

IN STANDARD-FORM royalty arrangements, the intellectual property owner is typically compensated through a set percentage of gross revenue, net sales, gross sales receipts, or some other base metric. But when such licensing happens within a joint venture, with one of the shareholders licensing technology or ...

Seven Reporting Practices of Highly-Effective Joint Venture CEOs

BEING A JV CEO can be one of most rewarding jobs you’ll find. JV CEOs run companies built around the unique capabilities of their owners, which, when harnessed correctly, allow them to quickly pursue new products, new markets, or new or new customer segments/channels. However, few JV CEOs find their jobs to be ...

Contemplating the Inevitable: Structuring Exit Terms in JVs

DEALMAKERS LOVE using simple analogies to explain complex transactions. A favorite we hear is that joint ventures are like marriages. True, a strong marriage has shared decision- making and a common bank account (though we suspect modern marriages lack service agreements). But where this analogy falls flat is ...

Voting Rights and Delegations: Unless Otherwise Agreed...

PSST. WANNA KNOW a seemingly innocuous joint venture deal term that packs a mighty punch? Consider this clause:

Unless otherwise and expressly agreed in a provision of this Agreement, or as otherwise required by applicable law, all decisions and actions shall require Majority Approval of the Shareholders.

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Gender Diversity on JV Boards: Where Are All the Women?

ONE HUNDRED YEARS ago this month, women received the right to vote in the U.K. – a major milestone in the fight for gender equality. In Saudi Arabia later this year, women will be allowed to drive for the first time. And on corporate boards and executive management teams, women are making slow but steady ...

Supplier Alliances: Using Contractual Terms to Increase Reliability

COMPANIES AS DIVERSE as Apple, Boeing, LyondellBasell, and Tesla depend on suppliers for inputs critical to their business (Exhibit 1). Suppliers might possess technological, locational, or infrastructural advantages that make them irreplaceable in the short-term. As such, even temporary disruptions in supply ...

Operationalizing Joint Venture Governance

JOINT VENTURE governance is fractionally defined at deal conception – and rarely recovers from this state of incompleteness. Our research and client work has consistently shown that poor governance is a major cause of JV underperformance, and that JVs with weak governance policies and practices have materially ...

Water Street Partners advises clients on transactions and governance. Our transaction work specializes in joint ventures and other non-M&A partnerships, both in new deal formation and restructuring. On governance, we advise clients on corporate and joint venture governance, working with corporate and joint venture boards, management teams, and individual shareholders. We support clients around the world and across industries.

Slideware of the Month:
Emerging trends and findings from our new JV employee engagement survey.