Craig Boddington is a highly successful entrepreneur who has bought and sold lots of companies during his career.
He sold some businesses and retired and then decided to move to Florida where he has set up Blackhouse Private Equity, which is a private equity group investing into global mergers and acquisitions.
Craig is a 5th generation entrepreneur and he took over his fathers construction business, which had to be closed down after a few years. Craig also joined the army and then started to get involved in IT project management and training, moving into change and transformation management.
Craig talks about how he has evolved his business acquisition strategy, first buying a HVAC (air conditioning business). Craig is now focusing on specific sectors seeking to buy portfolios of companies that are complimentary.
Craig dissects how he built up a portfolio of companies and some of the challenges which he has faced during that journey.
- Deeply understanding the founders motivations and story can enable a more sympathetic approach which meets their criteria.
- Deal pie - understanding the needs, worried about personal guarantees for example, or personal debt hanging over their shoulders, bringing forward solutions to their issues can help the business owner to achieve their objectives.
- You will need to find access to capital.
- Create capital events throughout the process, this ensures that you are getting paid on the way through.
- Be congruent in your approach to business acquisitions.
- Only work with people that you mutually like, respect, trust and admire.
- Go to the broker network - these will provide you with live leads. Own marketing is a lot more difficult.
- Ask the broker the following questions: How long have you been a broker? How many deals have you completed in the past 24 months? What structures have you implemented for the acquisitions that you have brokered?
- Don’t get deal heat - there will always be another opportunity.
- Trust your guy feeling.
To contact Craig email: craig.boddington@blackhousepe.com
https://blackhousepe.com/