Post-Acquisition Cash Plan: Building a 90-Day Cash Flow Forecast You Can Execute

⚡ Quick Summary

• In the first 90 days post-close, your number-one job is simple: turn the deal model into an executable 13-week cash plan for your unlisted assets.
• Build a weekly, driver-based forecast that shows every inflow and outflow, with special attention to customer concentration risk and vendor dependencies.
• Start from opening bank balances, not just the P&L, and reconcile to a realistic weekly net cash position you can run the business on.
• Separate non-negotiable outflows (payroll, debt, taxes) from discretionary spend so you can protect runway and fund early value-creation moves.
• Use a tight “plan-do-review” rhythm: weekly cash huddles, rolling updates, and a simple variance view against your budget vs actuals in cash.
• Treat this 90-day plan as the on-ramp into a broader unlisted asset management framework for the life of the asset.
• If you’re short on time, remember this: a clean 13-week cash plan is the fastest way to de-risk post-acquisition and prove you’re in control of unlisted infrastructure cash.

💡 Introduction: Why This Topic Matters

After an acquisition closes, everyone talks about synergies and strategy, but cash pays the bills. For unlisted assets, you don’t get daily market feedback. The only way to know if the asset is performing is to see cash behaviour clearly, week by week. A 90-day, execution-ready cash plan converts deal assumptions into operational reality, fast. It helps sponsors, CFOs and operators move beyond abstract understanding unlisted assets into a practical “here’s what hits the bank and when” view. It also exposes hidden fragilities like high customer concentration or stretched vendors early, before they become board issues. Combined with foundational work on cash vs profit, your 90-day plan becomes the bridge between the investment memo and day-to-day control.

🧩 A Simple Framework You Can Use

Use a three-phase framework: Baseline → Execute → Optimise.

First, Baseline: lock in starting cash, major inflows/outflows, and critical obligations. This is where you translate the deal model into a short, sharp 13-week view, anchored around the realities of unlisted infrastructure operations.

Second, Execute: turn that view into a living model. Run weekly cash meetings, update actuals, and track variances against your budget vs actuals in cash.

Third, Optimise: use the insights to refine terms, adjust collections, and sequence early value-creation moves. This is where working capital improvements and customer-level strategies emerge, setting you up for deeper plays on vendor terms, capex timing, and customer concentration management.

🛠️ Step-by-Step Implementation

Step 1: Define the Foundation – Cash Scope, Horizon, and Guardrails

Start by setting scope and guardrails. Decide whether your 90-day plan covers the standalone asset, a specific SPV, or the wider group. Pull opening bank balances, undrawn debt facilities, and any ring-fenced cash. Segment cash into operating, restricted, and strategic reserves. Import historical bank data and basic budget vs actuals P&L views to understand typical run-rate patterns. Identify non-negotiable outflows-payroll, rent, debt service, tax-and mark them as locked. At the same time, highlight early indicators of customer concentration risk: top 10 customers by revenue and margin, overdue balances, and any dependence typical of unlisted assets. Document your minimum cash threshold and escalation rules with your financial adviser and sponsor. When Step 1 is done, you have a clearly defined cash perimeter and a 13-week canvas to model on.

Step 2: Build a 13-Week Driver-Based Cash Grid

Now translate that foundation into a 13-week grid. Lay out weeks across the top, and the main cash drivers down the side: customer receipts, other income, payables, payroll, tax, debt service, and capex. Use invoice-level data wherever possible, mapping due dates to collection expectations. This helps you join the dots later with the capex program modelling. For receipts, build from open AR and expected billings, adjusting for customer concentration and historical payment behaviour. For payables, map AP aging and approved POs, then layer on rules for early-payment discounts or planned stretches. Avoid over-engineering formulas-your goal is a fast, reliable view, not a perfect model. Keep unlisted asset management principles front of mind: transparency, repeatability, and a clear audit trail for assumptions.

Step 3: Integrate Working Capital and Revenue-to-Receipts Dynamics

With the grid in place, connect it to working capital dynamics. Build simple drivers for DSO, DPO and inventory days, even if inventory is minimal. For service-heavy unlisted infrastructure, focus on the lag from revenue to receipts and from cost to payment, informed by historical behaviour and contractual terms. Flag where high customer concentration means one late payment can move the entire curve. Create scenario toggles: base case (historic terms), tightened collections, and stressed collections. Reflect expected changes in vendor terms, credit policies and billing cadence. This step turns a static forecast into a living working capital model, ready to feed future improvement playbooks.

Step 4: Run Weekly Cash Huddles and Variance Reviews

A 90-day plan only works if it’s used. Instil a weekly “cash huddle” with finance, operations and the deal team. Start from last week’s closing cash, then walk forward: what came in, what went out, and why. Variance against the plan should be explained in plain language: timing vs amount, structural vs one-off. Pay particular attention to variances linked to customer concentration, late milestone payments, or delayed vendor approvals-these are common sources of noise in unlisted assets. Use a simple, visual cash bridge instead of raw tables; it’s much easier for boards and lenders to digest. Capture decisions (e.g., slow a capex draw, accelerate a collection push) directly in the forecast so the model becomes the single source of truth.

Step 5: Link the 90-Day Plan into Your Broader Planning Stack

Finally, connect your 90-day plan to the rest of your planning stack. Feed insights into your ongoing budget vs actuals analysis in cash and your longer-horizon asset forecasts. Use the patterns emerging from the 13-week view to prioritize working capital initiatives and unlock near-term cash, especially for capital-intensive unlisted infrastructure. Tie the major variances back to deal assumptions to keep sponsors honest about thesis vs reality. Where appropriate, lift proven structures (drivers, schedules, seasonality) into your broader capex and project evaluation models so the post-acquisition cash picture informs future investment choices. At this point, the 90-day plan stops being a one-off exercise and becomes the operational heartbeat of your unlisted asset management lifecycle.

📌 Real-World Examples

Imagine a newly acquired toll road SPV with a few key government and corporate customers. In Week 2, your 13-week plan flags a dip in week 7 cash due to a large maintenance bill plus interest payments. By pulling historical receipt patterns, you see that one government counterparty consistently pays 30 days late. You adjust the forecast, revealing that if that single debtor slips again, you temporarily breach your minimum cash threshold. The team responds by negotiating earlier invoicing and confirming contingency funding. At the same time, you reschedule a discretionary consulting project by four weeks. Combining these small actions keeps the bank balance inside guardrails and gives you a clear story for your financial adviser and board about how cash risk is being actively managed across your unlisted assets.

⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid

One common mistake is treating the 90-day plan as a static spreadsheet, built once and never updated. Another is focusing only on P&L drivers instead of true cash impact, which hides timing risks in unlisted infrastructure where project payments are lumpy. Teams also underestimate customer concentration risk, failing to model what happens if one or two major payers slip. Overcomplicating the first version is another trap: too much detail slows adoption and makes it hard for operators to engage. Finally, some sponsors keep the model “in the deal team” instead of bringing operating leaders into the weekly rhythm. The fix is simple: keep structure light but consistent, centre everything on bank cash, and make the model a shared operational tool, not a private spreadsheet artifact.

❓ FAQs

🚀 Next Steps

With an initial 90-day plan in place, your next move is to deepen the insight.

First, embed a recurring variance review rhythm and tighten your budget vs actuals analysis in cash, not just profit.

Second, prioritise two or three working capital levers you can realistically move in the next quarter-collections, vendor terms, or billing cadence-and design plays to unlock cash.

Third, connect these improvements back into your broader investment and capex models so future decisions are informed by real post-acquisition cash behaviour.

Over time, each new deal inherits a proven 90-day playbook, making your approach to unlisted asset management repeatable, scalable and easier to communicate to boards and investors.