There is no single right time to bring in a partner.
We have been on your side of the table. We are not right for every business, and we will tell you early if we are not right for yours.
Almost everything follows from one question: what do you want your own role to be in three years? These are the three answers we hear, and each one leads somewhere different.
You built it. Now you want it in good hands.
You have run this business for most of your working life, and you expect to be paid properly for it. What a process will not tell you is whether the people who showed up for you every day are going to be alright afterwards, or whether the name over the door still means what it meant. Those are the parts worth asking us about.
What we would do
Buy the business outright. A majority transition, structured so you are not left carrying risk after you have handed over the keys.
What happens to your team
Your people are the reason the business works, and we are buying it because it works. We have no interest in stripping out the team that makes it run, and we are not bringing in a new management layer to prove a point.
How long you stay
As long or as little as suits you. Some owners want six months to hand over relationships properly. Some are ready in weeks. We will not pretend a long earn-out is for your benefit.
How we get to a number
We tell you how we are valuing it and why, early, before anyone has spent money on advisers. If our number is not going to work for you, the kindest thing we can do is say so quickly.
It works. You just need more behind you.
You have proved the thing works. You have customers who stay, technicians who are good at their jobs, and a clear sense of how much bigger this could get. What you need is the capital to fund that growth and the expertise of people who have built at that size before.
What we would do
Take a minority position. You keep control and you keep the upside. We come in behind you with money and with people who have solved these problems before.
What changes
The back office stops being the thing that limits you. Dispatch, scheduling, invoicing and the reporting you have never had time to build get modernised on our side of the table, not yours.
What does not change
You still run it. We are not going to install a chief executive over you or take your name off the trucks. If we wanted to run it ourselves, we would have offered to buy it.
What the first conversation is
Mostly us asking what is actually getting in your way. If the honest answer is that you only need money, we will tell you there are cheaper places to get it.
You still care about it. You would rather not carry it alone.
The business is solid and you are not looking for the door. What has changed is the job at the top. Getting to the next size means real systems, more markets, maybe buying somebody else, and plenty of owners would rather hand that leg to someone who has run it before than spend five years learning it.
What we would do
Buy the business, with you staying on in whatever role suits you. This is the one case where we are genuinely taking the wheel rather than backing you to keep hold of it.
Where the growth comes from
New markets, adjacent services your customers already ask for, and in some cases buying a smaller operator in a territory you want. We have playbooks for all three that go beyond adding trucks.
What gets fixed first
Usually the things you cannot see. Most businesses at this size cannot report on first-time fix rate or revenue per truck in real time, and you cannot manage a plateau you cannot measure.
How fast this moves
Slower than you would like at the start and faster than you expect afterwards. Getting the operating discipline right first is what makes the rest of it hold.
People who were treated well
We can tell within a day or two on site. Low turnover in a labour market this tight is not luck, it is a signal about how the place is run.
An owner who kept their word
Including the times it cost them something. The businesses worth buying are usually the ones that ate a bad job rather than argue about it.
Someone who knows their operation cold
Not the paperwork, the actual work. Owners who can tell you why a particular job went wrong two months ago are the ones whose numbers we end up trusting.
The numbers have to work. So does everything above.
There are a few situations where somebody else would serve you better, and we would rather say so early than three months in.
If funding is really all you need
We add the most where experience and modern technology change what a business is able to do. If the need is genuinely just capital, there are quicker and cheaper places to find it, and we are happy to point you toward them.
If the business is losing money
We are at our best taking a business that already works and making it work better. A real turnaround is a different discipline, and there are people who do it well for a living. You would be better off with them.
If you want to run a full process
We tend to suit owners who would rather negotiate directly with one buyer they have got to know than put the business and the team through a months-long process.
Ready to talk about what this looks like for your business?
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