You are Roberto Martínez, chief executive of Grupo Empresarial Catracho in Tegucigalpa. Two very different proposals for your telecom division are on your desk, and on Friday the family council wants to know how much you will invest in preparing your team and what tone you will take at the first meetings, before you have chosen a partner.
The situation
It is Monday, 2 March 2026. GEC is a family-owned Honduran conglomerate with US$450 million of revenue across agriculture, finance, construction and telecoms. GEC-Telecom bills US$120 million a year, and for two years you have been telling the council it is how you will take the group "regional".
The first folder is from Kumoshiro Tech, a Japanese conglomerate with 26 times the revenue of all of GEC. It proposes a fifty-fifty joint venture, valued at about US$180 million, after six to twelve months of relationship-building. Its chairman, Taka Yamamoto, 70, runs the company formally, and an adviser has warned you that Kumoshiro would prefer a 60-40 split in its favour. The second folder is from Marrowfield Technology, a US private-equity firm: US$250 million in cash for 100% of GEC-Telecom, after three months of standard due diligence.
You are 55. You prepare your numbers well, speak plainly and usually close a deal in one or two meetings. You have never negotiated in Asia. The consultancy you hired rates your team's cultural intelligence at 20 out of 100; trust stands at 50 with Marrowfield and 30 with Kumoshiro. The whole process has a budget of US$500,000, and your lawyers have already drafted a 50-page contract for the joint venture.