One Firm Across The Entire Portfolio Company Lifecycle
Whether you're a private equity sponsor building a platform, a family office managing a concentrated portfolio, or an independent sponsor executing your first deal, GBQ serves as a dedicated professional services partner to your portfolio companies from acquisition through exit. Our teams deliver due diligence, tax structuring and compliance, assurance services, and technology and cybersecurity advisory. We work directly with your deal teams and operating partners so your portfolio companies have the support they need at every stage of ownership.
Keep scrolling to learn more about our firm and how we can help you. Or, click on the button below to view our full menu of private equity portfolio company services that are designed to empower your success across each phase of your journey.
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Pre-Acquisition Due Diligence
- GBQ's Transaction Advisory Services team performs comprehensive due diligence to help you evaluate targets and add-on acquisitions with confidence. Our scope covers financial due diligence and quality of earnings analysis, federal and state tax diligence, state and local tax exposure assessment, and IT infrastructure and cybersecurity reviews — delivered as a coordinated engagement that gives your deal team a complete view of risk and value before close.
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Deal Structuring & Tax Planning
- Our tax team works alongside your legal counsel and deal team to evaluate the tax implications of different transaction structures and identify the approach that best aligns with the fund's and portfolio company's objectives. This includes entity structuring, asset versus stock analysis, and coordination with the diligence findings to ensure the purchase agreement reflects the full tax picture.
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Financial & Tax Basis Valuation
- GBQ Capital Advisors, the firm's national valuation practice, provides independent financial and tax basis valuations in connection with acquisitions. These valuations support purchase price negotiation, lender requirements, and documentation of the tax basis in the acquired assets. The valuation team performs 300+ assignments annually across virtually every industry, giving sponsors access to experienced professionals who understand the nuances of PE-backed deal structures.
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Employee Benefits Diligence & Integration Planning
Through our strategic alliance with The Siekmann Company, our retirement and benefits consulting partners help uncover risks and opportunities that are often hidden in employee benefit programs before the deal closes. Their team conducts 401(k) and benefits due diligence to identify cost, compliance, and risk exposures, analyzes existing benefit plans, contracts, and workforce demographics for suitability, identifies immediate cost-saving and optimization opportunities, and provides transition guidance and timelines to support clean post-close installations.
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Financial Statement Audits & Reviews
- GBQ's assurance team provides audit, review, and compilation services tailored to the reporting requirements of PE-backed companies. Our engagement teams are staffed with experienced professionals who understand the complexities of PE-owned structures — including management incentive arrangements, related-party transactions, and multi-entity consolidations — and who deliver with the responsiveness and timeline sensitivity that sponsors expect.
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Financial Reporting and Transaction Advisory Valuations
GBQ Capital Advisors, the firm’s national valuation practice, delivers independent financial reporting and transaction advisory valuations for acquisitions and other transactions. Pre-transaction, these valuations can support purchase price discussions, fairness opinions, and solvency opinions. Post-close, the team assists with purchase price allocation, stock-based compensation, and other fair value reporting. The valuation team performs 300+ assignments annually across virtually every industry, giving sponsors access to experienced professionals who understand the nuances of PE-backed deal structures.
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Tax Compliance, Structuring & Planning
- Our tax group provides ongoing federal, state, and local tax compliance services for portfolio companies, including income tax return preparation, estimated payment management, and multi-state filing coordination. Beyond compliance, the team advises on structuring decisions that arise during the hold period — including intercompany transactions, state tax planning, credits and incentives, and entity rationalization — to support value creation throughout ownership.
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Employee Benefit Plan Audits
- For portfolio companies that sponsor retirement plans, GBQ's assurance team performs the required annual benefit plan audits under DOL and ERISA guidelines. Our team has deep experience across 401(k), profit sharing, and defined benefit plans, and works closely with plan sponsors, TPAs, and recordkeepers to deliver timely, compliant engagements.
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Retirement Plan Advisory & Benefits Optimization
Through our strategic alliance with The Siekmann Company, our retirement and benefits consulting partners help uncover risks and opportunities that are often hidden in employee benefit programs before the deal closes. Their team conducts 401(k) and benefits due diligence to identify cost, compliance, and risk exposures, analyzes existing benefit plans, contracts, and workforce demographics for suitability, identifies immediate cost-saving and optimization opportunities, and provides transition guidance and timelines to support clean post-close installations.
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Ongoing Valuation Services
GBQ Capital Advisors provides recurring valuation support for portfolio companies throughout the hold period. This includes annual or quarterly fair value measurements for financial reporting purposes — such as goodwill impairment testing, stock-based compensation valuations, purchase price allocations for bolt-on acquisitions, and other ASC 820 fair value requirements — as well as valuations to support intercompany transactions and lender reporting.
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ERP & Application Selection + Implementation
- As portfolio companies scale — whether organically or through add-on acquisitions — the technology infrastructure often needs to evolve with the business. GBQ's technology team advises on ERP and business application selection, system implementation, and data migration, helping portfolio companies build the operational backbone they need to support growth and meet the reporting demands of their sponsors.
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Cybersecurity Strategy & Risk Management
- GBQ delivers end-to-end cybersecurity programs that protect portfolio company data, systems, and people. Services include risk and maturity assessments, penetration testing, incident response planning, fractional CISO leadership, and ongoing security program management. For sponsors, this means visibility into cybersecurity posture across the portfolio and confidence that each company is positioned to meet customer, regulatory, and insurance requirements.
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Data Analytics, Business Intelligence & AI Readiness
- Our technology team helps portfolio companies turn their data into a strategic asset. Services span business intelligence platform design, reporting automation, advanced analytics, and AI readiness assessments — giving management and sponsors better visibility into operational performance and the ability to make faster, data-driven decisions.
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Employee Benefits Strategy Alignment
As portfolio companies grow through organic expansion or add-on acquisitions, employee benefits need to evolve alongside the business. Our benefits consulting partners at The Siekmann Company design scalable benefits strategies that support expansion and hiring, integrate benefits programs for add-on acquisitions efficiently, support leadership teams during rapid growth or organizational change, and balance cost discipline with competitive benefits offerings that attract and retain talent.
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Sell-Side Readiness & Diligence
- When it's time to take a portfolio company to market, GBQ helps sellers prepare for and navigate the diligence phase of the sale process. Our team coordinates directly with the company's attorneys and investment bankers to ensure consistency across workstreams and reduce the burden on management — helping the leadership team stay focused on running the business while the analytical demands of the transaction are handled behind the scenes.
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Budgeting, Forecasting & Financial Modeling for Exit
- GBQ's valuation and other advisory professionals work with portfolio company management to build and refine the financial models, budgets, and forecasts that underpin the exit narrative. This includes developing management projections that are grounded in historical performance and supportable assumptions, stress-testing key drivers, and preparing the financial story that buyers and their advisors will evaluate during diligence.
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Tax Planning for Exit
- Our tax team works with the sponsor and portfolio company to evaluate the tax implications of the planned exit structure and identify opportunities to optimize after-tax proceeds. This includes analysis of deal structure alternatives, state tax considerations, and coordination with legal counsel to ensure tax provisions are properly reflected in the transaction documents.
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Employee Benefits Exit Preparation
As a portfolio company approaches exit, benefits programs need to be clean, documented, and ready to withstand buyer scrutiny. Our consulting partners at The Siekmann Company prepare benefits programs for buyer due diligence, resolve legacy issues, and document plan structures and costs, organize and communicate required benefits documentation, reduce perceived risk for buyers, minimize unwarranted transition expense, support a smoother transaction and stronger valuation narrative, and manage plan termination, merger, or installation requirements as needed.
