Worksheet: Test the group as the owner of each business

A business belongs in the group only if the group makes it worth more than another owner would. This sheet asks that question one business at a time. It builds the Competent step of the check:

For each business the group has written down what it adds that a standalone owner or a rival parent could not (shared customers, skills, assets or capital), with a number where one exists.

Step 1. What the group adds

Business	What the group adds (shared customers, skills, assets, capital, the centre's skills)	Number where one exists	The sentence
e.g. Regional distribution	Shares warehouses and trucks with the building-products business	Freight cost per tonne lower than it could get alone	"The group gives it a shared network no standalone distributor could afford."

Step 2. Who else could own it

Business	Other possible owners (standalone, rival group, private equity)	Would they do more with it? Why?	Verdict

Verdicts:

Natural owner: the group adds more than anyone else could.
One of the pack: others could do as well.
Better elsewhere: another owner would do more with it.

Step 3. The sale list

A business the sentence cannot be written for goes on a list for the board. Being on the list does not mean it is sold. It means the board has to say why it stays.

Business	Verdict	Date the board saw it	Board decision

Done when: every business has a sentence on what the group adds, and the board has seen the list of those without one.

Adapted from our own frameworks overview (PJP, 2015).