When I read about Bausch and Lomb being spun off from their parent company to a PE firm today, it made me wonder what happens when a company divests. Not so much from the parent company as they prepare to sever ties with their former business unit, but for the PE firm that would perform the buyout, and either turn this business unit into its own company, or position it to be acquired by someone else.

Given the manufacturing and R&D nature of the business, there will likely be a lot of pre-existing infrastructure: buildings, equipment, people, and IT dedicated just to this business unit.

Some of this will require standing up or replicating pre-existing common infrastructure like payroll, ERP, and typical office productivity suites (think email and the Office suite of programs with their various integrations).

Some parts will need to be created or managed from scratch: any cloud computing resources used for R&D, back-office custom applications, etc.

If they are on-prem, and the facilities (and employees) are being included with the sale, that is one thing. If the data centers are owned by the parent company, or cloud provider, then you’ve got some additional work ahead of you.

Stuff that having a dedicated CIO would know how to handle, but even then, there is still quite a bit to break down and track.

When it comes to preparing for the divesting:

  • Ensure that there will still be some access to the parent organization to facilitate the divestiture (the TSA agreements)
  • Identify the pieces that will need to be duplicated (common infrastructure) or moved (lives on the parent company or the cloud)
  • If there is physical hardware involved, do you have a home for it with the divested company?
  • Who will be available to help with the migration effort, and will they be conveyed to the new company?
  • Do you need new licenses or renegotiate the existing ones?
  • How will you minimize impact/downtime when it comes time to make the cut?
  • Will you be bringing over additional documentation and project backlogs for any efforts underway?
  • As a follow-up to the previous question, will those initiatives still be relevant with the new organization?

cab