After speaking with 40+ Corporate Development and M&A leaders in the Netherlands this quarter, seven themes kept coming up.
1. Divestments are on the radar. Around half of leaders are actively exploring carve-outs, but few have a structured way to assess readiness or inform decision-making.
2. Internal capabilities are rare. Only a handful of large corporates have embedded teams or repeatable processes for carve-outs. Even those that do face bandwidth constraints when the deal calendar picks up.
3. Pre-deal visibility is weak. Around 90% of leaders acknowledge they have underestimated carve-out complexity. Poor visibility on financial, operational, or IT separation risks frequently hurts deal success and value realisation.
4. Non-core assets are known, but poorly understood. Business leaders and Corp Dev teams typically know which businesses are non-strategic. What is often missing is the proximity needed to assess key risks, buyer impact, and optimal timing. That gap tends to surface during execution.
5. Support gaps on mid-sized and complex carve-outs. 67% of leaders flagged bandwidth constraints or a lack of execution support. Traditional advisor setups rarely scale well for mid-sized or internally complex carve-outs.
6. Stranded costs and dis-synergies are underestimated. Post-divestment cost structures, for both the parent and the perimeter, are frequently poorly quantified and may be challenged by buyers.
Loss of scale, shared services, and procurement power often emerge late in the process.
7. Board hesitation does not mean inaction. Boards often agree with the carve-out rationale but face competing priorities. The solution is better pre-deal visibility and in-house support – enabling decisions based on strategy, not risk avoidance.
These themes directly informed the development of our Divestment Readiness Scan (DRS), a tool built to create visibility on carve-out complexity and market readiness, and to support more confident strategic decision-making.
