Established companies with a name, a customer base and a turning point ahead.
Brand-led businesses with $5M to $30M in revenue, real customers and a name that means something in their market, where value is unlocked by fixing the cost base, the distribution and the management. Financials do not need to be good. They need to be fixable by someone who has fixed them before.
The numbers.
Specific enough to screen against. Close counts: if a deal is near these parameters and the situation is right, send it and say why.
Where we are the right buyer.
We are most useful where there is real operating work to do, and least useful in a business that is already optimised and simply needs a cheque.
01Succession, on the owner's timetable.
The founder or family wants out, or wants to step back, and there is no one inside ready to own it. We buy control and keep what works. The owner can stay on as CEO or partner for a few years, or leave at closing; both are structures we have used.
02A good name, a tired business.
Decades of brand equity and customer loyalty, but flat or declining sales, a bloated cost base, a distribution model built for another era.
03Distressed and post-distress.
Losses, a strained balance sheet, a lender losing patience, a Chapter 11, a 363 sale, an asset purchase out of a proceeding. The American version of the reprise à la barre we executed at Fogal: we have bought out of bankruptcy, rebuilt from zero and sold. We move at the speed these situations require and we are not frightened by the file.
04Carve-outs and orphans.
A brand or division that no longer fits its parent's strategy and has been starved of attention. Often the cleanest situations, if the buyer can operate on day one.
05Cross-border.
A European brand that needs to be built properly in the United States, or a U.S. business with a European opportunity nobody inside can execute. Our most distinctive edge.
06Platform first, then bolt-ons.
Once the platform is stable we grow it through adjacent acquisitions: capabilities, geographies, customer bases. Owners of smaller companies in the same space are welcome to talk to us early.
So nobody wastes a week.
Minority stakes
We operate what we own. Without an absolute majority we cannot do the work that creates the value. A seller keeping up to 49% is welcome.
Pre-revenue, venture, or "the brand is the plan"
We buy companies with customers and history, not decks.
Software, real estate, restaurants
Not where our operating experience applies. Businesses with a product, a supply chain and a name in their market are where we add value.
Auctions that need a financing-contingent bidder to fill the field
We bid to buy. If we are not the right owner we will say so on the first call.
Businesses that are already optimised
If the only lever left is price, a financial buyer will pay more than we will, and should.
We pay for what exists and structure for what we will build.
A fair multiple of normalised earnings for the business as it is today. Where the seller believes in upside we have not underwritten, we bridge it with structure rather than argue about it: earn-outs tied to agreed metrics, seller notes, rollover equity so the owner keeps a share of the rebuild. Senior, mezzanine or bank debt where the cash flows support it and the existing balance sheet allows it, never so much that the company cannot breathe during the turnaround.
The companies worth owning are the ones most people would walk away from. The difference is knowing which ones can be rebuilt, and being willing to do the work.Founding principle