I’ve had a few people ask me what specific help I need and whether there are any opportunities to get involved, so I thought it was worth me laying some of this out in a blog post.
What businesses am I looking for right now?
Initially we are looking to acquire businesses from the professional and financial services sector – chartered accountants, law firms, business consultants and recruitment agencies.
We want reasonably stable businesses so they should be:
- profitable;
- be capable of running without the owner;
- have at least 5 year’s trading history; and
- have a turnover of around £500K – £5M
Ideally they will be within an hour’s drive of Birmingham and be limited companies, but we can also look at LLPs and partnerships if they meet the other criteria.
To be clear, these are our start-up criteria and they will change as we move forward. We won’t apply them too rigidly so if you know of something that broadly fits then let me know anyway.
What do you need right now?
Basically, I am looking for connections and leads – people operating in the industry that I should be networking with and businesses that broadly fit with my criteria, that might be for sale. I am also looking to connect with Business Brokers, Insolvency Practitioners and Finance Brokers.
What opportunities will there be?
There will be a number of opportunities as the portfolio starts to grow, either from an investment perspective, or from a resource perspective.
Investments
Very early on there is unlikely to be any 3rd party investment opportunities but in the future there may be opportunities to help fund acquisitions in return for an equivalent share holding in the target company, dividends and exit income. In the long term we are planning to create one or more venture funds which will be open to 3rd party investors but that is a long way off right now.
If you are interested in investing at some point, just let me know and I’ll explain how it would work, the risks involved, and I’ll add you to my list.
Resources
Although we have a deal team in place, there will be times when we need industry experts and other specialist resources to carry out due diligence, improvement projects, implement best practice, coach/mentor leaders and carry out interim roles in the acquired businesses. If you have something to offer and are interested in a future role then let me know. I’ll stay in touch and let you know when something comes up.
Here is a list of some of the resources we are going to need:
- Due Diligence
- Business Improvement
- Sales and Marketing
- HR
- IT and Telecoms
- Quality, Environment and Safety
- Procurement
- Project managers
Are there any other opportunities?
In the future yes! Once we have made the first few acquisitions we intend to build a professional management team in Whateley Capital that can run the business with us, allowing us to scale up and increase the number of deals we can manage at any one time, and also meet the needs of a growing portfolio.
Get in touch if you are interested in any of these opportunities or you have people in your network that I should be connecting with.
Good luck and stay safe!
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