These profiles explore what strengthens a business’s ability to keep earning, and what can gradually wear it down.
We use the Meridian framework to connect visible results with the decisions, relationships and organisational conditions behind them. Each profile examines a pattern that helps explain the company’s direction and offers a question you can explore in your own business.
The analysis draws on public sources, including company reports, regulatory findings, research and reporting. Some evidence was available as events unfolded; other material emerged later and helps explain what happened. Looking back can reveal patterns that would have been much harder to establish at the time.
These are independent analyses of public evidence. None of the companies featured is an Adaptiv client, and we have not examined their organisations from within.
How Carillion’s dividend outlived its cash flow
On 9 June 2017, Carillion paid £54.4 million to its shareholders.
Thirty-one days later, it announced an £845 million provision against the value of its contracts, suspended the dividend and lost around seventy per cent of its market value over the announcement and the two days that followed.
The dividend had been proposed on 1 March. It was Carillion’s sixteenth consecutive annual increase.
The rise itself was almost ceremonial: from 18.25p to 18.45p a share, an increase of two-tenths of a penny. The announcement carrying it was headed “Performance in line with expectations”. It pointed to a pipeline of contract opportunities worth £41.6 billion, put revenue visibility for 2017 at 74 per cent and said the group had a good platform from which to develop the business in the year ahead. KPMG’s audit opinion on the 2016 accounts was dated the same day.
How Costco turned higher wages into lower costs
In April 2018, at a chamber of commerce lunch in Issaquah, Washington, Costco's then chief executive Craig Jelinek told a story against himself. He had once gone to the company's co-founder, Jim Sinegal, with a problem. "Jim, we can't sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends." Sinegal's reply, as Jelinek recalled it, was short. "If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out."
What do these patterns bring to mind in your business?
If one of these stories feels familiar, tell us what you are noticing and what you would like to understand. We’ll arrange a 30-minute conversation to discuss whether an analysis would help.
For analyses commissioned by 31 December 2026, the founding client rate is £900 + VAT. This covers one business or named competitor and one agreed commercial question, including a 90-minute fact-find, research and written analysis, and a 90-minute working session. We agree the scope before you commit.