A mid-market private equity firm identified software cost reduction as a 100-day value creation opportunity across its portfolio. They engaged NoSaveNoPay to run simultaneous renegotiations across 7 portfolio companies β covering Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft, ServiceNow, and AWS. The result: $9.4M in verified annual savings, with zero upfront cost to the fund or portfolio companies.
7 portfolio companies. $9.4M saved. 90 days.Private equity has long optimised real estate, headcount, procurement, and supply chains. Software contracts have historically been left largely untouched β partly because the expertise required to challenge Oracle's EA structure or SAP's FUE model simply didn't exist in most PE ops teams, and partly because the perceived risk of disrupting operational systems outweighed the perceived savings opportunity.
That calculus has shifted. As enterprise software costs have grown 15-25% annually at many portfolio companies β driven by vendor pricing escalations, acquisition-related contract gaps, and unchallenged auto-renewals β software now represents 12-18% of total operating expenditure at most mid-market companies. It's no longer background noise. It's a material EBITDA lever.
The PE firm that engaged us had a $2.4B fund with 11 portfolio companies. After an internal spend analysis, their operating partners identified that software contracts across 7 of those companies were at or approaching renewal in the next 4 months β and that aggregate software spend across those 7 companies was $31M annually. Initial benchmarks suggested significant overpayment, but the ops team lacked the vendor-specific expertise to execute renegotiations without external support.
The gainshare model was the decisive factor in their decision to proceed. Zero upfront cost to the fund meant no capital deployed until savings were verified and contractually locked. At 25% gainshare, the ROI calculation was immediate and unambiguous.
Our gainshare model is purpose-built for PE. No upfront cost, no capital at risk, no disruption to portfolio company operations. Our multi-vendor negotiation service delivers savings in 60-90 days. Talk to our PE advisory team β
Each engagement was run simultaneously, with a dedicated negotiation team per portfolio company. Savings are verified annual figures, locked into amended contracts.
Speed matters in PE. Every month of delay is EBITDA left on the table. Our PE portfolio programme is structured to deliver maximum savings in minimum time β without disrupting portfolio company operations.
We conduct simultaneous spend audits across all portfolio companies in scope. Each audit covers contract terms, licence consumption, benchmark positioning, and renewal timelines. We identify the top 3 savings opportunities per company and prioritise by value and time sensitivity.
Dedicated negotiation teams engage vendor account teams for each portfolio company simultaneously. We run coordinated information strategies across companies where vendors serve multiple portfolio entities β preventing vendors from using aggregate relationship leverage to resist individual concessions.
We drive each negotiation to signed contract amendment, with savings verified against prior-period billing data and certified for gainshare calculation. The PE ops team receives a consolidated savings report with per-company EBITDA impact and a 3-year savings projection for hold-period planning.
Traditional advisory engagements require retainer or project fee commitments before a single dollar is saved. In a PE hold period, deploying capital on advisory fees that may or may not deliver is a significant risk β particularly in a market where advisory firms routinely produce reports full of recommendations that never get implemented.
Our 25% gainshare means the fund pays nothing until savings are verified and locked. The ROI is guaranteed by design.
Fixed-fee advisors have an incentive to recommend the work that fills their hours, not the work that generates the most savings. Gainshare advisors have a single incentive: maximise verified savings. Every negotiation tactic we deploy, every concession we push for, every deal structure we engineer is optimised for one outcome β your savings.
That alignment is why gainshare consistently outperforms fixed-fee advisory by 2-4x on actual savings delivered.
Unlike capex reductions or headcount actions, software contract savings flow directly to the P&L from the first invoice cycle after contract amendment. For a company with $5M in annual software spend, a 30% reduction is $1.5M in annual EBITDA improvement β materialising in the same quarter the deal closes.
At a 10x EBITDA multiple, $1.5M in annual savings creates $15M in enterprise value. That's the actual return on a gainshare engagement.
PE portfolio companies are typically resource-constrained. Their procurement and IT teams are running at capacity β they don't have the bandwidth to run complex multi-vendor negotiations against Oracle's or SAP's full negotiation machinery.
We operate as an extension of the team, handling all vendor-facing negotiation work. Portfolio company IT and finance teams provide data access and approval authority. Day-to-day operations are unaffected.
"Software spend optimisation wasn't on our value creation checklist until we saw the numbers. NoSaveNoPay made it a no-brainer β the gainshare model meant we had zero downside, and the 90-day timeline fit exactly within our 100-day operating model post-acquisition. $9.4M across seven companies is a transformative EBITDA improvement, delivered at zero upfront cost. This is now standard practice for every new investment we make."β Operating Partner, Mid-Market Private Equity Firm (name withheld per NDA)
Software contract savings are pure EBITDA. Unlike operational changes that require investment or headcount reductions that trigger restructuring costs, a renegotiated software contract delivers its savings from the first invoice. There is no implementation cost, no transition risk, no change management programme.
For this PE fund, the maths are direct: $9.4M in annual savings across 7 portfolio companies, retained at 75% after gainshare = $7.05M net annual EBITDA improvement. At the fund's target exit multiple of 9-11x EBITDA, that represents $63-77M in incremental enterprise value β delivered in 90 days with zero capital at risk.
The cost of the engagement: $2.35M in gainshare fees (25% of $9.4M), payable only upon verified savings, distributed across 7 portfolio companies in proportion to their individual savings outcomes. No retainer, no project fee, no invoice before savings were in the bank.
If your portfolio companies have more than $3M in combined annual software spend, there is almost certainly material overpayment to recover. Our multi-vendor negotiation service delivers verified savings in 60-90 days at zero upfront cost. We work on a 25% gainshare. No savings = no fee.
42-hospital network saves $7.2M across Oracle, Microsoft, and Workday in a single coordinated engagement.
$4.2M in verified savings on Oracle Database and Microsoft EA renewals in 90 days.
Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce, AWS, ServiceNow, Broadcom/VMware and more.