Joint Venture Consulting and Advisory

Small Joint Venture Portfolios, Big Consequences

HUNDREDS OF companies across scores of countries have formed three or more new joint ventures in the last decade (Exhibit 1). The JV portfolios of some of these companies like ExxonMobil, DowDupont, and Vodafone – are enormous, representing a material portion of the company’s assets, revenue, or income. But ...

When a JV Must Do an (Uneven) Deal with its Parent Companies

BECAUSE MANY JVs are closely related to – or even directly connected with – parent company businesses, opportunities often emerge for the JV to create value by working with the parents in new and uneven ways. This might mean developing new products, functionality, or technologies favored by one parent. It ...

Board Ballet: Choreographing the Joint Venture Board Agenda

FOR BETTER OR WORSE, the vast majority of time and attention that JV Board Directors spend thinking about the business or asset happens within the narrow confines of Board and committee meetings. As a result, orchestrating the Board’s annual agenda is a critical tool for JV Chairs and CEOs to engage, energize, ...

Report from the JV CEO Roundtable: The Questions CEOs Ask Their Peers

WATER STREET PARTNERS recently hosted our 8th annual JV CEO Roundtable at our offices in Washington, DC. We are privileged to regularly convene the world’s only network of JV leaders and felt especially so this year because we are celebrating our ten-year anniversary. We count a few of the participating CEOs ...

The Joint Venture Operating Model Blueprint

PERHAPS NO OTHER aspect of joint ventures has caused so much trouble as an ill-defined, outdated, or inappropriate operating model. In a general sense, an operating model is a high-level architecture of the organization – how the various structures, systems, processes, and people within the enterprise relate ...

Lighting the Way with Guiding Principles for Your Joint Venture

IN A PREVIOUS INSIGHT we discussed the challenges of maintaining alignment in joint ventures across multiple levels and topics. In this article we will outline the how and the what. Over the last few years, we have worked with a number of JV Boards and management teams to help develop or revise Guiding ...

Maintaining Alignment in Your Joint Venture: A Full Contact Sport

WHEN A JOINT VENTURE is formed, the strategy, scope, governance, and underlying deal logic can feel overwhelmingly clear. But fast forward a few months or years, and partner differences are likely to emerge. Not necessarily irreconcilable differences about deal rationale, venture economics, or competitive ...

Getting a Grip on Your Joint Venture Committees

IN A PREVIOUS INSIGHT we outlined where Joint Venture Committees go bad. Here we will show how Joint Venture Boards and CEOs must actively manage such groups to ensure they contribute to – rather than undermine – venture performance. JV Boards have a lot to do – and actively managing non-Board committees ...

Are You Tough Enough to Manage Your Committee?

THAT QUESTION MIGHT sound ridiculous. Committees are not known to strike fear into great leaders. Nor are they known for their speed, decisiveness, or command of real power and resources.And that is precisely the problem in joint ventures. Sketch out the governance and organizational structure of a joint ...

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.