Case Study: Divestment of two manufacturing companies- GWA

Client: GWA

Dates: Nov 2014- Aug 2015

Project Type: Divestments and Acquisitions

Background

The GWA Group is a leading Australian buildings supplier, specialising in household and commercial fixtures and fittings. Upon re-evaluation of their business strategy, GWA decided that two of their business units no longer aligned with their goals. They were looking to focus on supplying materials for bathrooms and kitchens, so their units in air-conditioning and hot water heating manufacturing were no longer part of their core offering.

As a result of this decision in their strategy, GWA decided to concurrently divest the two air-conditioning and hot water heating manufacturing business units to two separate Japanese manufacturing organisations.

This was a period of volatile change and a tricky balancing act in people resourcing- within GWA, the two buying organisations, and the employees within the business units.

GWA had to be careful not to leave a gaping hole in their business, as the units were being extracted.

Within the buying organisations, the awareness was to not overload them with extra work.

On top of all that, the two business units being divested needed to operate business as usual whilst the sale was being transacted.

Approach

PMLogic were engaged as Program Directors to help GWA divest their two business units. This included:

• Providing dataroom to potentials (info on company itself, profit/loss, products, divestment plan) in roadshows.

• Assessing what it would take to extract the two business units.

• Dealing with and selecting potential buyers.

• Initial divestment (including sale) and set up plan to reduce services from GWA's support.

• As a PMO: work with the two acquiring companies to extract parts from GWA (staff, suppliers, employers).

• Set up transition agreement (GWA provided ~3-6 months support to acquiring companies).

Outcome

Apart from the financial benefits of the Divestment, the People in the new teams benefitted from being a core part of their new organisations, meaning they were invested in and nurtured.