Capital reviews that ask what the money is actually returning.

In an asset-intensive business, the capital program is one of the largest decisions made each year, and often the least examined. This review answers the questions a board should be able to answer: where is the capital going, what is it returning, and which projects deserve to be deferred, killed or accelerated.

The pattern

Capital programs tend to grow by accumulation. Projects enter the plan with a business case, then roll forward year after year without one. Sustaining capital gets set by last year plus escalation. Look-backs rarely happen, so overruns and slippage never change how the next project gets sanctioned.

The result is a program nobody would design from scratch: too many projects moving slowly, the genuinely valuable ones starved alongside the marginal ones, and a board approving the total without a clear view of the parts.

The work

A structured review of the program, the projects and the governance:

Program mapping: where the capital is going, against what the assets and the strategy actually require
Project ranking on value, risk and necessity, with a clear defer, kill or accelerate position on each
Sustaining capital adequacy: whether the asset base is being maintained or quietly run down
Look-back analysis: what sanctioned projects actually delivered against their business cases
Investment governance: sanction discipline, stage gates and the accountability that makes them real

The outcome

A capital plan the board can defend project by project, not just in total
Capital released from marginal projects and redirected to the ones that earn it
Sanction and review discipline that improves every program after this one

When to engage

Ahead of the annual planning cycle, when the ranking can still shape the plan. Also valuable when cash is tightening and the program needs to shrink without damaging the asset base.

A capital program that has grown by accumulation?

A review of the project register and the last few look-backs will show quickly where the program is building value and where it is burning it.

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