IT Due Diligence & PE Portfolio Security

Sector — Private Equity

IT due diligence and PE portfolio security

Pre-deal technology due diligence, post-acquisition security stabilisation, and consistent governance across UK PE portfolio companies.

Where IT and security risk shows up in deals

Most growth-stage businesses arrive at a transaction with technology debt the founders haven't priced. Security gaps, undocumented infrastructure, key-person dependencies, vendor lock-in, and missing audit trails are routine findings — and they show up in the diligence report, the SPA, and the price.

After completion, the picture often gets worse. Integration plans built on optimistic assumptions stall. Security posture across portfolio companies is inconsistent, which makes it impossible for the fund to give partners a credible view of aggregate cyber risk. One incident at one portco can damage the value of the rest.

Most funds I work with don't want to put a permanent CISO into every portfolio business. What they need is consistent technology and security governance applied across the portfolio, with the depth to handle real diligence and the discipline to stand up properly after a deal closes.

IT debt that erodes deal value

Unsupported software, fragile infrastructure, security gaps, and supplier concentration get found in diligence — usually too late for the seller to fix. Buy-side teams use them to chip price; sell-side teams discover them when they're trying to close.

Security inconsistency across portfolio

Each portco does security its own way. The fund can't aggregate exposure, can't assure LPs, and can't move quickly when an incident lands. Consistent governance is the lever; the way to apply it without overhead is fractional.

Post-acquisition stabilisation

The first 90 days after completion are where the real work happens — identity, access, key controls, vendor review, baseline security. Done well, the new entity is defensible quickly. Done badly, the next 18 months are catch-up.

How I help PE firms and portfolio companies

I sit on either side of the transaction — pre-deal diligence work for the fund, then post-deal stabilisation and ongoing governance inside the portco.

Pre-deal IT and security due diligence

Structured technology and security review of the target — infrastructure, identity, controls, vendors, key-person dependencies, patching posture, audit logs. Findings ranked by deal-relevance and remediation effort.

Post-acquisition stabilisation

First-90-days programme: lock down identity and admin rights, baseline the security controls, document the estate, retire the highest-risk findings, set the priorities for the first year.

Portfolio-wide security governance

Consistent security baseline applied across portfolio companies. Standardised reporting back to the fund, common controls, and a shared incident-response posture so the portfolio is defensible as a group.

Pre-exit IT cleanup

Sell-side prep so technology and security findings don't show up in the buyer's diligence. Done early, this work is cheap; done late, it becomes a price chip.

What this typically looks like

Pre-deal work is usually project-scoped: a fixed-fee diligence engagement aligned to the deal timeline, with a written report the deal team can use directly. Portfolio-wide engagements are typically a fund-level retainer covering scheduled portco reviews, incident readiness, and consistent reporting. Individual portcos can also engage directly on a fractional CISO or fractional IT Director basis for stabilisation, transformation, or pre-exit work.

Want to talk through a specific deal or portfolio?

30 minutes, in confidence. I'll tell you what I'd want to see and where the typical gaps tend to sit.

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