European Chemicals — Strategic Mandates
A European chemicals manufacturer, clarifying the mandates that would guide the next capital cycle.
Context
A European chemicals group entering a capital-heavy decade with multiple competing claims on investment: decarbonisation, product-line consolidation, new market expansion, and the perennial maintenance of existing assets.
Challenge
Investment decisions were being taken candidate-by-candidate, without a shared view of which strategic mandates the capital was serving. Each decision looked defensible in isolation; the portfolio did not add up.
Approach
We worked with the executive team to articulate a small set of mandates — the strategic claims the capital cycle was expected to deliver — and then re-tested every live and proposed investment against those mandates.
Several large candidates failed the test. They were not weak projects; they were unaligned ones. Reassigning that capital to the aligned mandates reshaped the next three years of capex.
What shifted
The portfolio became coherent. Debate inside the executive team moved from "is this a good project" to "does this project serve a mandate we have chosen" — a shorter, better-defined argument.
What shifted: capital allocation stopped being bottom-up and became mandate-first.
Client identity anonymised. Specific metrics available under NDA.