---
name: divestiture-candidate-screener
description: "Scores business units and assets against five divestiture candidacy dimensions — strategic fit, standalone profitability, growth trajectory, synergy value to potential acquirers, and separation complexity — then produces a ranked shortlist with weighted scores and divest/hold/monitor recommendations. Use when evaluating which parts of a portfolio to exit, building a divestiture pipeline, prepping for a portfolio review, or pressure-testing a separation thesis."
argument-hint: "[portfolio-units] [strategic-priorities]"
allowed-tools: ["Read"]
---

# Divestiture Candidate Screener

## Purpose
Score a defined set of business units or assets against the criteria that actually drive divestiture decisions — and return a ranked shortlist with weighted scores, a recommendation per unit, and the rationale a CEO and board will challenge. Replaces gut-feel "we should probably sell that" conversations with a defensible screen.

## When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Identify which business units or assets to divest or exit
- Build a divestiture pipeline or candidate shortlist
- Prepare unit-level scoring for an upcoming portfolio review
- Pressure-test a divestiture thesis before taking it to the board
- Compare the strategic logic of selling vs. holding a non-core asset
- Prioritize separation candidates by attractiveness and ease of carve-out

## Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- **Units to screen**: Names and 1–2 line descriptions of each business unit or asset (2–15 units works best)
- **Corporate strategy**: The company's stated strategic direction or core thesis the portfolio should serve
- **Financial snapshot per unit**: Revenue, margin or EBITDA, and growth rate where available
- **Strategic priorities**: 3–5 themes defining what "core" means (e.g., target markets, capabilities, customer segments)
- **Separation context**: Any known entanglements — shared services, shared customers, shared IP, integrated tech stacks
- **Acquirer landscape (optional)**: Likely buyer types — strategics, PE, competitors — if known
- **Scoring weight preference (optional)**: Whether to prioritize strategic fit, financial drag, or ease of separation

If financial data is incomplete, score on directional qualitative inputs and flag each estimated figure as an assumption.

## Instructions

### Step 1: Establish the Scoring Model
Score each unit on five dimensions, 1–5 (1 = strong reason to keep, 5 = strong reason to divest). Apply default weights unless the user specified otherwise:

- **Strategic Fit (weight 30%)** — How central is this unit to the stated corporate strategy?
- **Standalone Profitability (weight 20%)** — Margin quality and capital intensity relative to the portfolio
- **Growth Trajectory (weight 20%)** — Is this unit accelerating, flat, or declining vs. its market?
- **Synergy Value to Acquirer (weight 20%)** — Would the asset be worth materially more to another owner than to us?
- **Separation Complexity (weight 10%, inverted)** — How clean is the carve-out? (Score 5 = easy to separate, 1 = deeply entangled)

Compute a weighted divestiture score (0–5) per unit. State the weights used at the top of the output.

### Step 2: Score Each Dimension With Rationale

**Strategic Fit**
- Map each unit to the 3–5 strategic priorities provided
- Score high (4–5) when the unit serves none of the priorities or competes for resources with core bets
- Score low (1–2) when the unit is a platform, a moat, or a required capability for the core
- Cite the specific priority the unit does or doesn't serve

**Standalone Profitability**
- Compare unit margin to the portfolio average and to its sector benchmark
- Score high when the unit is structurally low-margin, capital-hungry, or a persistent cash drag
- Score low when it's a profit engine funding the rest of the portfolio
- Note if profitability is masked by shared-cost allocation

**Growth Trajectory**
- Assess unit growth against its addressable market — losing share in a growing market is worse than flat in a flat market
- Score high for declining or sub-market growth with no credible reinvestment case
- Score low for above-market growth or a clear path to acceleration

**Synergy Value to Acquirer**
- Identify who would pay a premium and why — channel access, customer base, product fit, scale economics
- Score high when a strategic or PE buyer would realize synergies the current owner cannot (i.e., the asset is "worth more sold")
- Score low when no acquirer has an obvious value-creation thesis beyond what we already capture

**Separation Complexity (inverted)**
- Inventory entanglements: shared services, shared customers/contracts, integrated tech, shared IP, brand overlap, stranded costs
- Score high (5 = easy) for clean, self-contained units; score low (1–2) for deeply integrated units with significant stranded cost or TSA dependency
- Flag the single largest separation obstacle per unit

### Step 3: Rank and Classify
Sort units by weighted divestiture score, highest first. Assign each a recommendation band:
- **Divest (score ≥ 3.5)**: Active candidate — pursue a sale or separation process
- **Monitor (score 2.5–3.4)**: Watch-list — revisit at next portfolio review or if a trigger event occurs
- **Hold (score < 2.5)**: Core or near-core — retain and reinvest

### Step 4: Build the Shortlist Narrative
For the top 3–5 divestiture candidates, write a 3–4 sentence rationale each that connects the scores to a decision: why it's a candidate, what the likely buyer profile is, the key separation risk, and the value-creation logic for both seller and buyer.

### Step 5: Flag Decision Watch-Outs
Surface anything that would change the ranking: data gaps, units where separation complexity outweighs strategic logic, and any "monitor" unit that a single trigger event (loss of an anchor customer, regulatory shift, a strong inbound offer) would push into "divest."

## Output Format
- **Structure**: Weighting statement → scoring table (all units, five dimensions + weighted score + recommendation) → ranked shortlist narrative → decision watch-outs
- **Length**: 800–1,200 words
- **Format**: One scoring table covering all units, followed by prose rationale for the shortlist
- **Sections**: Scoring Model & Weights → Unit Scoring Table → Ranked Shortlist (top 3–5 with rationale) → Decision Watch-Outs
- **Tone**: Corporate development principal — analytical, decisive, board-ready. States a position and defends it; does not hedge every score.

## Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] Every unit is scored on all five dimensions with a number, not just narrative
- [ ] Weights are stated explicitly and the weighted score math is consistent across units
- [ ] Each recommendation band (Divest / Monitor / Hold) maps to the score threshold defined
- [ ] Separation Complexity is scored inverted (high score = easy to separate) and applied correctly
- [ ] Top shortlist rationale names a likely buyer profile and the single largest separation risk per unit
- [ ] Any estimated or missing financial input is explicitly flagged as an assumption

## Notes
- The most common scoring error is conflating "low-profit" with "divest" — a low-margin unit that anchors a core customer relationship or capability often scores low on Strategic Fit divestiture pressure despite weak financials. Score the dimensions independently before weighting.
- Separation Complexity rarely changes whether something *should* be sold, but it heavily affects *when* and at *what cost* — a high-fit-to-divest asset that's deeply entangled may need a carve-out runway before it's marketable.
- If the acquirer landscape is unknown, score Synergy Value on the inherent transferability of the asset's value rather than a named buyer, and note that buyer discovery would sharpen the estimate.

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## How to use this skill

This file is a Claude Code skill in [Anthropic's standard format](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills) — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.

**Installing in Claude Code:**
- `~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md` — auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)
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Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.

**Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:**

1. Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
2. Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits

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