From Post-Acquisition Turnaround to Profitable Operations
The engagement concluded with a complete corporate turnaround — new leadership in place, standardized estimating and preconstruction processes, and a clear path back to profitability for a PE-backed energy storage contractor that had been operating without consistent leadership or operational discipline.
CLIENT
SunGrid Solutions is a multi-national engineering, procurement, integration, and construction (EPiC) company focused on battery energy storage solutions, headquartered in Houston, TX with operations in Ontario, Canada. SunGrid is a portfolio company of Hull Street Energy, a private equity firm in the energy sector.
CHALLENGE
Following its acquisition, SunGrid faced leadership turnover, underdeveloped operational procedures, and a lack of consistent estimating and preconstruction processes — leaving the company unprofitable and without a clear operational direction.
RESULTS
Ascent facilitated a full corporate turnaround: delivering new standard operating procedures, supporting the hiring and onboarding of new executive leadership, and establishing foundational estimating and stage-gate processes that returned SunGrid to profitability.
Does your company need operational discipline and a clear path to profitability?
The Ascent Difference
We guided a PE-backed energy contractor through a complete corporate turnaround — from leadership vacuum and operational chaos to profitability, stable executive leadership, and repeatable processes.
When Hull Street Energy acquired SunGrid Solutions, they saw a company with deep technical capability in a rapidly growing market. But the acquisition triggered significant leadership turnover, and the employees who remained were working without the documented processes and consistent direction needed to execute projects efficiently.
Hull Street had invested in the business’s potential — but realizing that potential required more than new capital. It required operational architecture. The existing team was talented but underserved by systems that hadn’t kept pace with the company’s complexity. Profitability had eroded, and without intervention, the trajectory was unsustainable.
Hull Street turned to Ascent specifically because of our track record with PE-backed construction and services companies. They needed a partner who could simultaneously stabilize current operations and build the foundation for new leadership to inherit.
Ascent began with a comprehensive Operational Assessment, then moved into hands-on turnaround execution. Our phased engagement included:
- Comprehensive Operational Assessment of SunGrid’s multi-national operations
- Estimating & Preconstruction process redesign with stage-gate FEL methodology
- Executive search support — CEO, and other key leadership hires
- Leadership onboarding, coaching, and transition support
- Standard operating procedures development across project lifecycle
- Deliverable: A stabilized, profitable operating model with new executive leadership in place
“Thanks to you and your team for all the efforts on this engagement. You all have certainly helped our team to turn the ship around.”
David Meeker
Hull Street Energy
Ascent’s work produced tangible, measurable results. New foundational processes steered the company positively while the leadership search was underway. Once SunGrid’s new CEO and executive team were in place, Ascent worked closely with them to ensure a seamless transition — conducting workshops and training sessions that enabled the new leaders to take ownership of the strategies and drive them forward.
SunGrid returned to profitability. The new leadership team inherited not a set of suggestions on paper, but a living operational system already producing results. Hull Street’s investment thesis was validated — and the portfolio company was positioned for the next phase of growth.
For private equity firms investing in construction and energy services, the post-acquisition period is where value is either created or destroyed. The companies that turn around fastest are the ones that treat operational design not as a cost center, but as the engine of EBITDA improvement. Leadership matters — but leadership without systems is just personality.
Need to turn a portfolio company around?
If you’re a PE firm or portfolio company leadership team facing operational challenges after an acquisition, let’s talk about how Ascent delivers structured, measurable turnarounds that protect and grow your investment.