James Bamford is a Senior Advisor at Ankura based in Washington, DC. He joined Ankura with the firm’s 2020 acquisition of Water Street Partners, which he co-founded in 2008. Water Street Partners has been independently ranked as the number one global advisor on joint ventures since 2017. Prior to Water Street, he was global co-lead of the Joint Venture & Alliance Practice at McKinsey & Company.
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Exercising influence as a non-operating partner – not by the contract alone. Optimizing value and eliminating “partner drag”. This actually makes life better for the JV CEO and Partner.
Detailed process and examples for developing Guiding Principles for a JV.
Tools to assess your JV’s voting rights and whether those should change to reflect evolution in the JV.
Sample matrix covering the most common decisions and authorities in a joint venture.
Introduction to the use of Board involvement grids as a tool to ensure strategic and operational alignment on the role of the JV Board.
A five-part checklist that can be used to structure non-traditional JVs and to pressure-test new deal concepts. We also offer some advice on how to ensure that the JV negotiation process leads to either a “quick no” or a “good yes”.
JVs don’t need more shareholders reviews – but they do need the right reviews. Isn’t it time that the Board took a look at itself, and how the shareholders behave toward the venture? With trillions of dollars invested in JVs, we think so.
Tool to assess different aspects of potential partner compatibility.
