KLS is a leader in supporting an activist approach to ownership. We often find that the work we do immediately post-close has the biggest impact, and our numbers tell the story: The mean return of all investments during the first year where KLS has been retained is 3.7 times invested capital, well over the industry average of 1.9 times. We assist in post-close activity in three time-tested ways:

• Business Model - Defines the company's full potential and creates a plan to capture it, complete with specific initiatives, detailed action plans, assignment of accountability for results and a dashboard of metrics to track operational and financial performance.
• Detailed Pro-Forma - Identify highest priorities first, such as new product introductions, sales force productivity and integration of add-on acquisitions.
• Administrative workshop - Provide a detailed, interactive forum for sponsors and managers to develop a value creation model.

KLS draws on a full range of industry and functional expertise acquired over more than 30 years as advisers to large and small companies around the world. We bring those capabilities to bear helping activist owners and their portfolio company management teams conduct a rigorous assessment of where their business has the best opportunities to increase its value. This effort identifies the most promising near-term initiatives and longer-term strategic opportunities, establishes time lines with milestones and calibrates the resources needed to meet them.

Throughout, it is our objective to help owner-activists accomplish one overarching goal: To help strong management teams increase the company's value under their ownership more than they could have achieved if bought by the next highest bidder.