Search Funds
topic on 7 shows · 13 statements across 10 episodes
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13 statements about Search Funds, every show
Jamison targets 30%+ IRR by passively acquiring profitable small businesses
“Started building up a portfolio of these small businesses that I could own passively. You know, targeting like 30% plus IRR.”
Graham Weaver has invested in over 70 search funds during his career
“I've invested in 70 search funds or more.”
Traditional search fund entrepreneurs often struggle to source and close acquisitions
“They usually mess up that first part. Like they, I mean, the investing is a pattern recognition business. They, you know, bankers don't want to sell to them because they're only going to ever do one deal with that banker. They have a clock ticking. So there's …”
Tree and Leaf Partners uses a search fund model to acquire businesses
“The model of kind of entrepreneurship through acquisition or search funds, which is what tree and leaf partners is. And the idea of raising capital to acquire one business that I could then transition into owning and operating for the foreseeable future.”
Hays: Search funds fail when they assume technology can replace owner-operator relationships
“In the trap is that they think that, oh, it's our, it's just a fundamentally a great business and we're going to layer in technology and make it an even better business. And the tough truth is that a company is basically as good as its management.”
Giffon: Top Operators Would Outperform by Starting SMBs Rather Than Acquiring Them
“A lot of these businesses, I think if you just started them, you could really wipe the floor with the existing competition.”
Lundberg: Search Fund Buyers Care More Than Traditional Private Equity
“This is one of the benefits of search, investing in search over investing in kind of traditional private equity is that the searcher really cares, right? Because it's their career. They've only got one shot. If you've got a fund that's going to buy 15, 20 busi…”
Lundberg: UK lower mid-market deals range from £5M to £40M EV
“Really for us, the type of deals that we see are, Between five million at the bottom end EV. And that really would be a, I think more of a bolt on play for one of these PE houses, but you know, a good platform for a search fund, for example for a self-funded s…”
Moore: Search funds allow buying businesses without money or experience
“They mentioned something called a search fund, which is where you essentially can go out and buy some grungy business and become the CEO basically overnight without any money or experience.”
Coogan: Mainstream small-business search funds and roll-ups offer little alpha
“What I do know is that the hottest trend right now in business is like roll ups or search funds and every guy who graduates from HBS is like, I'm going to go roll up laundromats or I'm going to go roll up dentists dentists. It's like everyone has an idea for t…”
Beshore: Adventur.es offers a distinct acquisition product from PE and search funds
“So what we do today is we try to consistently express our opinions about what we're looking for, about how we work, about why we're going after certain segments. We try to make our value proposition incredibly clear in the marketplace of we're offering a diffe…”
Beshore: Search funds are down-market PE with built-in operating partners
“I think that search funds more closely resemble private equity. It seems like sort of combination of down market private equity with operating partner that's already built in is kind of how I think about search funds.”
Zani details search fund carry hurdle: 20% under 30% IRR, 30% over
“Typically we structure it as a profits interest. So what we do is we get everyone their initial capital back. And then we share, you know, a percentage of the proceeds and you hit on it. If we are under a 30% IRR, we get 20% of the proceeds. And if we're over …”