A Level Alliances · Project Polaris Index
Strictly private & confidential · Prepared for Paul Chapuis · References documents subject to the OnQ non-disclosure agreement

Eighteen Months On

What we forecast in March 2025, what we offered in March 2026, and where the market landed in October 2026 · Value Masters Academy for A Level Alliances · 19 October 2026

Paul — this is not an argument. It is four dated documents and one market outcome, set side by side. Three of the documents are ours and carry dates that precede the result. The fourth is the result. I am putting them together because the comparison explains why our offer has not moved, and why we think it should not.

$40.5M What the March 2026 formula produces when applied to the bids your own process has now returned — against the $50M deferred structure presently under discussion. The arithmetic is in Part 4. The formula was market-anchored; the $50M is asserted.

Part 1

The record, in order

DateDocument or eventWhat it established
2025OnQ: The Reverse Entry Strategy — simulation reportOnQ priced as a retail operator: $18M–$42M. Priced as a phygital platform operator with exclusive agreements: $120M–$280M. Recommendation: do not open an investor process in the first form.
Mar 2025 – Jun 2026ALA US sector field scan — retail fixtures, trade show booth, street furnitureNo competitor found in phygital elements. Manufacturers near-identical, each differentiated by one narrow capability. OnQ the only one positioned to blend physical with digital.
Mar 2026VMM Capital — Independent Valuation Assessment (VMM-ONQ-VA-2026-001)Pessimistic $12–16M · Realistic $18–24M · Optimistic $26–32M · probability-weighted central $18–22M. Predicted buyers would haircut addbacks by 25–50%.
Mar 2026ALA Non-Binding Letter of Intent (ALA-ONQ-LOI-2026-001)A formula, not a number: Base = (highest bid + lowest bid) ÷ 2, then × 1.35. Floor base of $16M. Silent committed buyer, no exclusivity requested during your process.
1 Sep 2026LOI offer expiryThe binding commitment to the formula lapsed. We did not withdraw it before that date and we have not replaced it with a lower one.
Oct 2026Northern Edge process outcomeThree indications of interest, $25M–$35M.

Part 2

What we did instead of reading the sector from a textbook

Between March 2025 and June 2026 we scanned the US market across three manufacturer categories — retail fixtures, trade show booth, and street furniture — because we were looking for a supplier, not for a target. Two findings came out of it.

Finding one: there was no competitor in phygital

Across all three categories we did not encounter a single manufacturer positioned to do what Phygital Elements requires. Not one.

Finding two: the manufacturers are copies of one another, each with one narrow edge

On the surface the field is interchangeable. The differences sit in a single capability per firm, and that capability is what each one defends:

ManufacturerThe one thing that distinguishes itWhat it lacks
Graphic TrendsDigital poster printing — the others do not have itNo integration beyond print
Wisconsin BuiltWood capacityLow metal capacity
Triad ManufacturingBoth metal and wood capacitySustains its standing through price policy rather than capability
RCS InnovationsTwo divisions: commercial interiors and retail displayNo digital layer
OnQThe only firm with the potential to blend physical and digital in one contractHas not yet been priced for it

That last row is the whole reason we are at this table. We did not approach you because OnQ was for sale. We approached you because an eighteen-month scan of the American market produced exactly one name in the category we needed, and it was yours.

Finding three: what happened to two of the firms on that list

While the scan was running, two of the companies on it changed hands, and the manner of each is instructive.

The pattern both transactions describe

The market paid for what repeats and declined what is built once. A capacity-only manufacturer was worth its debts. A fixture business with a recurring service book was worth acquiring; the same company's project-bid display division was worth its machines, sold individually. Neither outcome is a judgement on competence. Both are statements about which revenue model the market will underwrite — and the same line runs through the middle of OnQ.

This is where our reading and the Adviser's reading diverge. We spent fifteen months mapping this sector for our own purposes and arrived with a thesis about which half of a fixture business carries value. A generalist sell-side process applies the standard method: trailing earnings, sector comparables, a domestic buyer list. That method is not wrong. It is simply not informed by what the last two years of this particular sector have demonstrated, and it priced OnQ accordingly.

Part 3

Scorecard: what we said in 2025 and 2026, against what happened

We should be judged on this honestly, including where we were wrong or where we remain unproven.

Our positionDatedThe October 2026 outcomeVerdict
Priced as a conventional retail operator, OnQ clears at $18M–$42M on a 5–8× EBITDA basis2025Three bids, $25M–$35M — inside the band, close to its midpointConfirmed
In that form the story reads as "more of the same, more efficiently" and will not attract a premium multiple2025No bidder paid a platform multiple; the range is a fixture-sector rangeConfirmed
Realistic value $18M–$24M; probability-weighted central $18M–$22MMar 2026Market cleared above it, at $25M–$35MWe were conservative
Buyers will apply a 25–50% haircut to management addbacksMar 2026Bids imply 4.2×–5.9× the revised FY2026 projected adjusted EBITDA of $5.9M, below any multiple a buyer would pay for accepted earningsConfirmed
The FY2024 revenue contraction of 23.2% is the single largest constraint on valueMar 2026Bids anchored on trailing rather than projected earningsConfirmed
Asset replacement cost supports a floor of $12M–$15MMar 2026RCS's display division realised its plant one auction lot at a timeConfirmed, harshly
With exclusive phygital agreements in place, the category changes and the valuation becomes $120M–$280M2025Never tested. The agreements were not signed; the process ran in the first form.Untested

Where we were wrong, stated plainly

Our March 2026 central estimate of $18M–$22M was below what your process produced. The market was more generous than our own adviser forecast, and we will not pretend otherwise. What held was the framework — the band, the addback discipline, the trailing-earnings anchor — not the point estimate. And note the direction of that error: it means our formula, which pays 35% above whatever the market establishes, was designed to protect you from exactly this, from our own conservatism.

One number that moved between March and now, and should be explained

The CIM we were given in March 2026 projected FY2026 revenue of $55.0M and adjusted EBITDA of $4.099M. The Q3 2026 memorandum projects $60.0M and $5.934M — revenue up 9%, adjusted EBITDA up 45% in six months on the same year. Bidders appear to have discounted that revision rather than paid for it: at $25M–$35M they are paying 7.1×–9.9× FY2025 actual adjusted EBITDA, but only 4.2×–5.9× the revised FY2026 projection. Buyers paid for what was proven and discounted what was projected. We have not verified the cause of the revision and are not implying one; it is a question for the data room, not an allegation.

Part 4

The March 2026 formula, applied to your own result

The offer we made in March was not a number. It was a mechanism that pays you 35% above whatever price your own process establishes — precisely so that neither of us would have to argue about value. Your process has now established it. Here is the arithmetic.

StepCalculationResult
Highest qualifying bidPer bid verification, §2.4$35.0M
Lowest qualifying bidPer bid verification, §2.4$25.0M
Step 1 — Base Price($35.0M + $25.0M) ÷ 2$30.0M
Step 2 — ALA Committed Offer$30.0M × 1.35 (35% strategic premium)$40.5M
Cash at closing65% of committed offer$26.3M
Earn-out35% of committed offer, three tranches over 24 months$14.2M
Step 3 — Total ConsiderationCommitted offer + earn-out, per §2.1 Step 3$54.7M

A drafting defect in our own LOI that you are entitled to know about

Sections 2.1 and 2.2 of the March LOI do not agree, and the gap between them is $14.2M. Section 2.1 Step 3 makes Total Consideration equal the Committed Offer plus a further 35% — $54.7M on today's numbers — and the floor provision at §2.3 confirms that reading arithmetically ($16M base → $21.6M committed → $29.16M total, which is 21.6 × 1.35). Section 2.2, however, states that the 65% closing payment and the 35% earn-out "together equal the ALA Committed Offer", which would make the total $40.5M. Both readings give cash at closing of $26.3M. We drafted this and the ambiguity is ours; we are flagging it rather than letting you discover it, and we will accept whichever reading legal counsel determines the document actually supports.

Against the structure now under discussion

StructureCash at closeHeadlinePresent value at 10%Anchored on
$50M over five years, $10M p.a.$10.0M$50.0M≈ $37.9MNegotiation
$10M at close, $40M over four years$10.0M$50.0M≈ $41.7MNegotiation
March 2026 formula, applied today$26.3M$40.5M / $54.7M≈ $38–50MYour own process

Three observations, none of them rhetorical. The formula puts two and a half times more cash in your hands at closing than either deferred structure. Its headline, on the Step 3 reading, exceeds the $50M presently under discussion. And unlike $50M, it is a number your own market produced rather than one either of us asserted — which means it survives contact with a lender, a valuer and a tax authority in a way an asserted figure does not.

Present value ranges above use a 10% discount rate, which is our assumption and not a market observation; the correct rate depends on security and interest terms that have not been fixed. The earn-out is performance-contingent on revenue, EBITDA and gross margin conditions set out in §2.5, and $54.7M assumes full achievement. And the formula is operative only once bid verification under §2.4 confirms that $25M and $35M are the actual high and low of qualifying arms-length bids.

Part 5

Why our offer has not moved

You could reasonably ask why, with the market at $25M–$35M, we are not revising downward. Three reasons.

The premium was never a view about OnQ's standalone earnings. It is the price of a category we could not find anywhere else. Fifteen months of scanning three manufacturer segments produced one firm capable of blending physical and digital in a single contract. The bidders at $25M–$35M are buying a fixture manufacturer with good software. We are buying the only available route into a category that does not yet have a supplier.

5th Wall Phygital Elements is not optional for the US market, and neither is Atmosphere. The two rest on the same observation: American retail has an enormous installed physical estate and no standard way to make it digital. Every manufacturer we scanned builds the physical layer; none of them owns the digital one. That gap closes eventually, with or without us. The question is only who is standing in it when it does, and what the entry price is then.

The sector has shown us what happens to the alternative. Wisconsin Built was worth its founders' debts. RCS's display division was worth its machines, sold one lot at a time, eleven months ago. Those are the outcomes for capacity without category. We are not offering a premium despite that evidence; we are offering it because of it.

What we are not claiming

The $120M–$280M platform valuation in the 2025 simulation is our own work, built on sector comparables and our assessment of what an exclusive agreement changes. It has never been market-tested, and your process tested the other scenario instead. We are not asking you to accept that number. We are asking you to notice that the scenario the market did test came back exactly where we said it would, and to weigh that when considering the one it did not.

Part 6

Where that leaves the conversation

The LOI expired on 1 September 2026. We let it lapse rather than withdraw it, and we have not come back with a lower number — which is the only evidence we can offer that the premium was a position rather than a negotiating posture.

What we would propose now:

  1. Bid verification first. Written certification from Northern Edge of the highest and lowest qualifying bids, the identity and entity type of each bidder, and the date each was received — the mechanic at §2.4 of the March LOI. Without it the formula cannot operate and no reinstated offer can be calculated.
  2. The structure of those bids, not their headlines. Cash at close versus earn-out versus note; financing contingencies; the working capital peg. A $35M headline that is half contingent is not $35M, and it changes the base.
  3. Resolve the §2.1 / §2.2 ambiguity before anything is reinstated, so that the number means the same thing to both of us.
  4. Then the diligence list, which has gone to you separately and which exists for one reason: every figure in it is one a funding partner will ask me for, and I would rather bring answers than questions.

One last thing, and then I will stop making the case. In March 2025 we wrote that OnQ's problem was not its operations but its category — that the same company, described differently and supplied differently, is priced by a different set of buyers at a different multiple. Eighteen months later your own process has priced the category we said it would price, at the number we said it would reach. That does not make us right about everything. It does mean the thing we have been asking you to consider is not a sales pitch; it is the one reading of this business that has so far survived a test.

Positioning

What stands behind the offer

The reason this particular gap was visible to us at all is the Narin family network. The family's twenty-five years of accumulated knowledge and relationships across three continents — Asia, Europe and America — together with the selectivity of its Turkish roots and the Panayır tradition, is a manifestation of those roots: the merchant's reflex that looks at a sector, finds the weak link, and turns it into an opportunity by producing the solution for it. Here the weak link was specific. A fixture manufacturer condemned to one-time revenue on one side; a European manufacturer with no shelf position in America on the other; and in between, no supplier in the category. That network is what A Level Alliances brings to every alliance it assembles, and it is the part of this transaction that cannot be purchased with the consideration.

Documents relied upon

DocumentReference
OnQ: The Reverse Entry Strategy — Comparative Valuation Simulation & Risk AnalysisStage Builder Consortium, 2025
VMM Capital — Independent Valuation Assessment of OnQVMM-ONQ-VA-2026-001, March 2026
A Level Alliances — Non-Binding Letter of Intent, Proposed Acquisition of OnQALA-ONQ-LOI-2026-001, March 2026; offer expiry 1 September 2026
ALA US sector field scan — retail fixtures, trade show booth, street furnitureMarch 2025 – June 2026
OnQ Confidential Information Memorandum, Q3 2026 (Project Polaris)Northern Edge Advisors
Milwaukee-based display fixture maker liquidating assetsWoodworking Network, 25 November 2025
MachineryMax shop closure auction, RCS InnovationsBidding closed 4 December 2025
JL Business Interiors grows after RCS Commercial Interiors buyoutGM Today

Historical OnQ figures are as stated in the respective memoranda and are subject to OnQ's non-disclosure agreement; figures described as projected are management projections and are identified as such. The Wisconsin Built transaction terms are as recorded in ALA's field scan and have not been independently verified against a public filing. Discount rates, present values and multiple calculations in Part 4 and Part 3 are Value Masters Academy's own working estimates, not independently verified, and are offered to frame the comparison rather than as assertions of fact. This document is advisory material prepared by Value Masters Academy for A Level Alliances; it is not an offer of securities, not a reinstatement of the expired LOI, and not a binding agreement.