Key Takeaways
- • Bill Achtmeyer, founder of The Parthenon Group, has joined Matters Graph as inaugural Chairman of its Advisory Board, alongside co-founders Mark Stein and Jeff Merkle, who founded the firm in 2017.
- • Matters Graph is a buy-side-only commercial due diligence and value creation specialist serving private equity sponsors, private credit, and corporate development teams in North America and Europe, and does no sell-side work.
- • The announcement comes as Bain & Company's 2026 Global Private Equity Report puts the industry's unsold-company backlog at roughly 32,000 buyout-backed companies worth about $3.8 trillion, with holding periods near seven years.
- • Matters Graph argues that much of this backlog and portfolio underperformance traces to weak diligence, and it is pursuing customer-based primary research rather than expert networks.
- • Matters Graph plans to grow its partner base toward a $100 million revenue benchmark and says it is the first strategy consulting firm to adopt a broad-based ownership model for its team.
Summary
Bill Achtmeyer has joined Matters Graph as Chairman of its Advisory Board, according to a Business Wire release. Achtmeyer joined Bain & Company in 1977, founded its mergers and acquisitions practice, and in 1991 founded The Parthenon Group, which he grew from two partners to a firm with nearly $100 million in revenue before its 2014 combination with EY. He then led EY-Parthenon through 2019, when it reached $2 billion in revenue, 500 partners, and 5,000 consultants. In 2021 he co-founded Acropolis Advisors, a CEO advisory firm, with Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter.
Matters Graph, founded in 2017 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., serves private equity sponsors, private credit, and corporate development teams. The firm limits its work to commercial due diligence for buyers and commercial value creation for the businesses its clients own. According to the release, it is one of only two strategy firms serving the largest U.S. sponsors and lenders that work entirely on the buy side, the other being Bain.
The announcement arrives as the private equity industry holds the largest backlog of unsold companies in its history, a condition the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Financial Times have each reported this year. Citing Bain's 2026 Global Private Equity Report, the release puts that backlog at about 32,000 buyout-backed companies worth roughly $3.8 trillion. The release also cites KKR's estimate that private equity assets under management worldwide rose from about $650 billion in 2000 to an estimated $10.5 trillion in 2024, and Bain's finding that the annual EBITDA growth needed to earn a buyout's return has risen from about 5% to 12%.
Matters Graph attributes much of the backlog and underperformance to diligence with a weak mandate, arguing that the return on an acquisition is set at purchase. Stein said the firm writes the investment thesis first and tests it with primary customer research and hard external data. Merkle said the firm interviews current, prospective, and lost customers and refuses to use expert networks or panels.
Achtmeyer, Stein, Merkle, and the management team will work on the firm's next growth stages, including governance, leadership, codified standard work, published research, and sponsor and lender relationships. Stein said the firm's ownership program makes it, as far as the company knows, the first strategy consulting firm to adopt the broad-based ownership model that private equity has increasingly used for portfolio companies.
Matters Graph, founded in 2017 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., serves private equity sponsors, private credit, and corporate development teams. The firm limits its work to commercial due diligence for buyers and commercial value creation for the businesses its clients own. According to the release, it is one of only two strategy firms serving the largest U.S. sponsors and lenders that work entirely on the buy side, the other being Bain.
The announcement arrives as the private equity industry holds the largest backlog of unsold companies in its history, a condition the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Financial Times have each reported this year. Citing Bain's 2026 Global Private Equity Report, the release puts that backlog at about 32,000 buyout-backed companies worth roughly $3.8 trillion. The release also cites KKR's estimate that private equity assets under management worldwide rose from about $650 billion in 2000 to an estimated $10.5 trillion in 2024, and Bain's finding that the annual EBITDA growth needed to earn a buyout's return has risen from about 5% to 12%.
Matters Graph attributes much of the backlog and underperformance to diligence with a weak mandate, arguing that the return on an acquisition is set at purchase. Stein said the firm writes the investment thesis first and tests it with primary customer research and hard external data. Merkle said the firm interviews current, prospective, and lost customers and refuses to use expert networks or panels.
Achtmeyer, Stein, Merkle, and the management team will work on the firm's next growth stages, including governance, leadership, codified standard work, published research, and sponsor and lender relationships. Stein said the firm's ownership program makes it, as far as the company knows, the first strategy consulting firm to adopt the broad-based ownership model that private equity has increasingly used for portfolio companies.
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