sam turner thank you for joining me today on acquiring minds thank you for having me good to uh good to be here being a bit of fan of the show awesome i love that sam you left a successful corporate career to go out and buy small businesses now that is a familiar pattern among my guests so you are in good company here on acquiring minds but still a highly unusual and adventurous path to take so we want to hear your story and what you're up to also your english doing this in england so many non-american listeners and american listeners alike are going to be curious and eager to hear how you finance your acquisition your acquisitions in an environment where you don't have the sba which is this great luxury that we have here in the states so we will spend some time on that uh but start us off sam with your background and what it was that led you to want to go out and buy hvac businesses yes sure thanks uh thanks william thanks again for having me so um i actually started my career when i left school playing professional football um which is uh soccer for you guys but uh professional football here in the uk and i say that because um i did that for a couple of years i i wasn't in the end good enough and uh and that taught me sort of a lesson about um you know i saw my my friends doing well and i wanted to succeed at something and i i think it was a turning point in my life to be driven by something and really wanting to succeed and um i i will say to people it's it's not that i have any more capability than anyone else in terms of the career it's because i probably wanted it more than uh more than others for probably that reason so so i i left that that's and i i had a career within the tourism or travel industry with some some pretty large uh travel providers or travel players uh here in europe um i qualified as an accountant so i have that let's say string to my bow did various finance roles i got to move to to spain so i spent 10 years living in spain which was fantastic a few months living in singapore which was also brilliant and then the the last four years uh living in switzerland uh which was fantastic and i moved back here to the uk only only 10 11 months ago um so i was responsible in the end for through a number of different roles but um fd and cfo roles of what was multi-billion uh dollar or euro as we were based in europe uh businesses that were part of a listed business but then it was sold to private equity um for considerable uh considerable sum we then set about actually acquiring our two largest competitors and integrating three businesses at the same time which is uh which is a challenge and that's that's taught me something about uh what i want to do or what i don't want to do in terms when it comes to the strategy for the the group going forward so i i don't have any intention of integrating these businesses together partly from my experience of of what what uh what happened which was which was which is quite painful but um there is sometimes value to be had but i think that you can also destroy a lot of value anyway so through that process we went from being a three billion euro company uh in terms of sales to about six billion but combining the the three businesses together it's a pretty big business but it was through that integration process really that i i decided that i didn't want to stay i didn't want to spend the rest of my career uh in the in the corporate world and i think that was for probably three reasons one i was on a plane every week so i was living in switzerland i had two young children and being on a plane every week just became um not where i wanted to spend my time away from my my family my wife and uh my my kids so you were you were living in switzerland but traveling out of switzerland or around okay yeah so we had a global business we had offices all over the world uh and i was responsible for the time the sort of global commercial functions and we had close to a couple of thousand people in those functions but located literally in over 100 countries and we had offices in i don't know something like 60 countries or something like that so it was a fairly um not tedious because it's great to travel but when you do it for so long and you have actually young ones at home etc becomes it becomes tedious even though initially it seemed to be uh glamorous so yes i was on a plane from switzerland going to and from different different places one of the other sort of factors are two other factors one was the travel one was the fact that there was actually a lot of politics in the organization so there's a lot of pressure to obviously deliver results we had management consultants all over the place um which added to their sort of tension and discussions with maneuvering and all this kind of kind of stuff so we had effectively the the the mckinsey consultants which are you know one of the large ones for the best part of two years with us um so the politics i didn't i didn't uh enjoy at all and the last one was for me probably probably i didn't agree with with the with the direction of the business in terms of where it was going and i also felt like i didn't i wasn't able to make the decision so i was responsible for or accountable for a large chunk of the p l of the sales and the margin of the p l but i couldn't actually make sort of key decisions with regards to certain things that i wanted to do and i think that sort of culminated in for me a a a period where i really didn't enjoy being in that um corporate culture and i i really sort of reflected hard on that and thought you know i i need to i need to do something else and thankfully i i agreed amicable terms to to leave which was which was great and still you know have a lot of respect for the guys um leading that business and still keeping in contact i then took some time to think reflect which i'd never had in my career because you're always kind of running 100 miles an hour to get to the next leg of the on the corporate ladder so to speak and i really took time probably three to six months to step back and and really think about what it was that i wanted to to do what was my purpose in life i i sort of did a lot of reading reflection speaking to different people um and i got some clarity on what it is that i wanted to do where what did i want to achieve what was my life about and where did i want to spend my my time and and it's through that period of time that i um decided that i wanted to build a group of companies but not just for the sake of the the financial uh implications of of doing that which is obviously part of it but more because i wanted to create a platform for small businesses to prosper and to be actually stronger as being part of that that platform um i like working with small business a lot of my clients effectively were small owner managed business so despite we were a large um corporate we worked closely with with small businesses helping them grow so i love that aspect i love um i love growth and looking for ways to grow uh businesses and i love developing people and and management teams and and these are my probably my two passions so it's developing the growth in the business and the growth in the people involved in the business and i just felt that this ticked all the my boxes in terms of flexibility you know working when i want to kind of work on my on my terms having control being able to make the decisions and spending time uh on where i'm investing my time on things that i actually like like doing when you spent those three or six months um doing the kind of introspection and figuring out how you wanted to spend your life did you just answer this question i wanted to ask you what what the answer to that process was what what was this deep you know what was going to be your why or how you wanted to spend this is the second big chapter of your career was it what you just said or was there some something even more underlying uh that came out of that process yeah i mean what i came up with is is almost a purpose uh and the purpose is around being able to influence inspire and and empower and help other people that's kind of that's the underlying concept but then i have a number of strands to well how how does that look um and and it's the different sort of different areas of my life the most important things and what what does that look like in each of those boxes and this fits within it ticks a lot of those boxes in terms of where the where this fits so for example i have the boxes around health and fitness which is which is i think critical and a fundamental uh aspect of for me being successful and you know if you if you if you're not focused on exercising and whatever which i don't do enough but i i think you know i start to feel less productive et cetera so that that is a kind of a that's one but family and friends in terms of being able to spend the time with with them creating wealth and for me creating wealth is not about buying the next yacht or lamborghini for me i have a very clear ambition to help a number of people with with that wealth um in in in a certain sort of place that's important to me um what do you mean there sam you mean you have a very specific project or or a recipient of this of this future wealth yeah so so i have uh um in in my own mind or not in my mind it's clearly it's clearly written down i have it all documented in terms of a targeted let's say number of people and what i want to do with that in in in certain in a particular country that's a important to me and that i spend a lot of time in um and therefore you know it's kind of almost like the numbers are worked out also in a way that says well i can help this many many people if i've got this amount of wealth built um if that makes sense so yeah so so i guess wealth creation is important but it's not important for me in the sense of having the latest staff uh or even for a legacy for my family or in terms of handing it down which i'm i'm i'm not clear about you know what's the right thing there or not in terms of kids but more about you know for me it's very clear about you know can i can i influence and can i can i add and can i contribute significantly in the in the world and that's that's effectively what what i want to do yeah you know it's it's funny because you're you're um i assume you you had a great salary while you were running these divisions within a multi-billion multi-billion pound company um excuse me euro company i guess it was a european company um but um uh but your the this wealth creation that you're talking about is is i guess tied to your latest endeavor which we still haven't started yet we're going to get into um but you see you're just talking about it very confidently like you you just know you're gonna you you just kind of know you're gonna build wealth yeah i i i think so and i think uh i even challenged myself to say am i thinking big enough um and i think you know that that's part of um sort of a key aspect is spending time obviously in the right circles with the right people and getting inspired and continually challenging yourself to think to think big and it's almost like that for me there's risk in in what we do and we'll talk about that in terms of you know some of the challenges in involved in doing it but i think my honest opinion is what i want to do and the wealth that will should come along with that is i don't see as terribly complex um i i don't see as i mean for me it's relatively it doesn't mean to say it's it's it's easy to do it's it's hard work but it's not complicated to do so i i can understand very clearly abcdefg and actually that gets delivered and i i'm very clear on well let's deliver a let's deliver b let's deliver c so yeah i'm not saying it's going to be a foregone conclusion but yeah i feel i feel like that will happen though and that's my my strong belief yeah and and that belief or that or that um playbook uh in that kind of it's gonna be hard but it's simple simple to follow as long as you stick to the plan um is that specifically this this um this entrepreneurial venture that we're talking about that basically the plan you're talking about the playbook you're talking about is buying hvac business one in two and three and four that yeah they're one in the same yeah yeah exactly exactly so so so what i have in terms of well i think it's important that that people don't talk about money very much uh especially here in the uk maybe i think it's different in the us i think you're a bit more more open with that and i think people are a bit prudish here to talk about like i have a target to create a net worth of x by y date and and i have a very clear and i don't mind to to explain to people because for me it's not it's not about being boastful it's about almost creating accountability because if i tell my my wife and my friends or my family or whatever this is what i want to do because that enables me to do this then then you know if i don't deliver that then i've already i've already communicated that to people so rather than just well let's hope for the best and see see where we get so for me that's just the way um the way i work i think this those numbers are then worked back to what do we need to deliver from a from a business case perspective in terms of this and this will would get us pretty much to those numbers in in in that kind of five-year kind of time scale that we're that we're talking about and are these these numbers these very specific numbers both your goal and how you get there um is that something you can share uh not in this moment but in a few minutes yeah i'm happy to uh happen to kind of give the high level um around that i mean there's no sensitivity it's my it's my view of the world and it's what what we want to to do and you know i've shared that with with investors clearly um because i wanted them to come on board with the journey um i've shared it with lenders and maybe i shouldn't have shared that with lenders maybe i should share more conservative view with lenders but uh you know i'll learn from those mistakes but uh but yeah i'm happy to go into some details right well and it's it's going to be a you know largely american audience here so nobody's gonna blush uh when we start talking big numbers um but uh so the okay so um the actual you so you talked about the those three or six months uh the process that you went through to arrive at er to arrive at this plan how this this plan and this idea of acquiring businesses was going to really um hit in that sweet spot of where your skill set lies um uh yeah but the the the very concept of buying small businesses is is um you know it's not in the air here and i and i think it's probably even less in the air in the uk at least according to what you told me in our pre-call so so that is an as a concept was that um where did you get the idea i mean you're probably evaluating other things too like maybe starting a business from scratch i don't know so so the actual specific idea of buying small businesses was that your idea was it somebody else's did you read a book talk to me about that yeah so it's a good point i think you're right it's it's even less so in the uk i was in switzerland at the time but clearly my most of my network right so most of my network i have network around the world but most of my friends and and people i talked to would be in the uk so that would be most familiar and it's not that common i would say you're right and lesser in the uk so i i spent a lot of time researching around things um and i was quite big into at one point wanting to do property investing we have some some some property uh investments and it was through the process of looking and researching in the property space that i uncovered some content around buying businesses and there was several people that were providing content so i actually consumed a lot of content um from uh you know for free content and then i signed up for a few courses uh as well um not just the one i signed up for two or three and i think it was three different programs and and so invested in those programs to build my knowledge as as much as possible um so it's through there and it was through one of those programs that i got to meet other people as well and we sort of created a bit of a group together that met every week a bit like an accountability group um the i bizarrely i'm also facilitating uh one of those now uh as a facilitator and i have my first kickoff call today so that was interesting uh good timing but um so we had this kind of accountability group on the back of doing this uh training program three or four days of training in terms of the more the technical aspects around um how to how to acquire businesses and uh and therefore a small number of us actually continued to meet together every week talk about deals and actually then created uh the view that we we would go into some sort of partnership together by helping and supporting each other so so that's what we did we set up a um i would call it a loose partnership and i'll describe exactly how how it works but we set up a partnership we have a a brand a website that is advantas equity partners um and what that what that is effectively is is there's five of us two in the uk one in one in germany one in sweden and one in norway so kind of european we're also looking for a u.s based partner to come on board and what we do is we bring deals and opportunities respectively into that kind of forum and we agree together whether we will go forward individually whether other people want to invest in that and come aboard to do joint ventures et cetera so that's the kind of loose partnership framework that still means so for example in the uk hvac piece i said well this is what i now want to do um thankfully you know three of the other guys wanted to invest something into that so they're involved from an investment point of view and one of the others is a non-executive director on the on the on the board effectively in terms of my group so they're all quite involved in in that and likewise the guys are doing some other deals in in mostly mostly software and technology based businesses to be honest because that's more their backgrounds so we have kind of reciprocal investments in in each other's businesses as well as you know we we share ideas around you know raising capital or deal structures or or whatever so that's that's that sort of that that's effectively how i sourced the kind of information about uh about that and where where the idea came from and that's how i how i pursued it um and at the time go ahead no the time i was i was still in switzerland so um and at this point we weren't 100 clear where we were going to live because you know if things have gone the other way we would have sold my former business maybe maybe i wouldn't have needed to do anything um because we had investments in the in the company as well as part of the management team but um so we weren't sure where we're going to live so i didn't really act on that for some time until we knew that we were going to come back to the uk and then i started really um doing the search in the uk but uh but initially also i wasn't clear on 100 clear on on the sector that i wanted to to focus on um so i was a little bit scattergun uh initially yeah um well i want i want to get into how you how you chose the industry that you did but first i'm just curious about courses um and i because i'm sure a lot of the audience will be as well uh because they're probably looking at the buffet of course is out there and wondering what they should take can you share which courses you took and you know what you what you thought of them even yes so um i'll sort of i won't talk individually about what i think of each of them because probably that's maybe not uh not not fair to sort of play one off versus the other but i i think i did um a course uh which is like a like a membership group as well afterwards called the harbour club yeah jeremy harbour i did the carl allen uh course which is more into the details around leveraged buyouts and how to do lbos um and there's also a guy in the uk which probably maybe on the on the on the smaller business side um a guy called jonathan j um so i did i did some content and courses with those three i think on the whole in hindsight i probably didn't need to do all three but i think what what what is useful as part of that is the contacts and the network that you get as part of that um i mean in the sense i've got you know partners effectively that i can i meet with every week we discuss stuff i've got someone to talk to about deals they're investing in my deals you know so you build a network i think that's invaluable because it can be a bit of a lonely a lonely task yeah so that's that's great and obviously some of the content i mean for me a lot of the content when it comes to looking at how to structure what for me then became quite natural i'd done i've done um acquisitions in the past as part of my corporate role so with with acquired businesses so i knew how the process was i knew how to look at numbers and evaluate whether deals make sense or not and those sorts of things so a lot of the content maybe is less relevant for for me but it depends on what where everyone's at but overall i think that there is there is value if not just because of becoming part of a network and and having access to people and contacts and and skill sets and expertise that you didn't have before yeah yeah and so even though your m a experience from the corporate life i s corporate world i assume the size of those deals was something else altogether the things that you learned through those those deals carried through to these relatively tiny acquisitions that you were yeah yeah i mean i i i think the basic process um the basic process in terms of the stages you know the the the heads of terms or loi you you guys uh would say you know the the dd phase and and the um the different aspects of components of that in terms of financial legal uh tax commercial almost people as well if you want to you should do should do that so they've got a various stages of the process the the share purchase agreements and you know all the that mean and that's the same really interesting broader process and then how to how to look at whether deals make sense or not from a valuation perspective and from a structured perspective um again there's a lot of learnings that you could say the principles are the same obviously what's very very different is the way you source deals it's completely different the negotiation process and the the importance of actually building relationship i think is completely different um because you're typically dealing with with people that have never gone through the process before if you're dealing directly with uh with a business owner that wants to sell or is prepared to sell and through through the conversation ends up doing that it's a very different kettle for a very different um i would say kettle of fish but that's maybe an english term a very different scenario very different scenario obviously than a big corporate transaction where it's 90 about the numbers and the the technical aspects yeah um the courses that you named so so you learn about buying first you look at property real estate as as your path to build wealth and then you learn about buying businesses and that just kind of intrigues you more and that's also got the people aspect exactly i think it it i kind of had the the two side by side and you know i like to do some of the analysis in a fairly structured way so i've probably i've probably had some kind of scoring mechanism as to what what what makes spreadsheets based on yeah what sort of criteria but i think the people aspect you know the people aspect is less relevant in property i mean properties is great but it's it's less um less dynamic isn't it i mean it's probably less interesting let's be honest and i think the upside potential is less right also probably the risk is less that's to be frank i think the the risk and return in a small business acquisition perspective is much higher yeah and then it's okay so what do you do you back yourself or don't you and do you have the skills and do you have the belief in what you can do um together with it with a team and and the team that you build to make that a success and i think there's a certain amount you've got to back yourself it's not just going to happen um but i think yeah the people component was probably the the biggest element and being able to work and develop with people is was super important to me and then so you take these you learn about these courses you take them i hadn't heard of the i've heard of harper um sorry the gentleman's name is jeremy harper yes jeremy yeah jeremy harper and in the in the overall brand it's called harbor or what a club harbor club yeah um yeah that was early in my own uh foray into this world um that that came up a lot i haven't heard much about it later um probably because that's kind of um probably has more of an international clientele and and orientation jeremy harbor is himself british but lives in singapore or something like that do i have that right yeah he does he's just moved to dubai actually but uh but yeah yeah yeah it does it is a very international um uh audience and community so yeah yeah um and so here in the states as as often happens we just have a kind of a more insular we have you know the the common names that are at an american audience and and the americans do those um okay so how do you arrive at uh the the specific plan why hvac and um yeah so tell us why the hva is hvac industry and then also tell us about the um the structure of what you're building and and how that plan came together sure so um i think there's two strands to wire landed there so for the first strand is you know i talked to a number of businesses i said initially it was quite a scattergun approach so i i got to speak with businesses in in in very different sectors so you then get quickly to learn that you know the environments the sectors a little bit in a bit more detail the numbers in a bit more detail the profiles in a bit more detail so actually where you think you can add more value in more detail so i i think typically what i found was there was there was an opportunity i think to um to potentially add more value in these types of uh industries that i think typically are run by um by the engineers that have come up sort of through the ranks that you know they were on on the tools and now they've come through and they've kind of reached a plateau and you see that time and time again and i heard that in a lot of conversations and i think then having the skills to kind of see how how we can grow the business i think in that context these types of businesses was was really interesting the second point was the criteria that i had so i had criteria around and i wanted to build a group so it needed to be really a large industry a fragmented industry um a fairly robust industry so i didn't want to be in a space where you know google or amazon could come along tomorrow and and completely take your business away um obviously i'm not at the same time i'm not particularly tech savvy so whilst i love what technology can do i'm not very interested in being in the detail of a technology company and i think to be at the forefront of that you constantly need to be on the forefront of that because things change so rapidly so i think that was i wanted to steer clear of um i wanted to have uh businesses that were had some interesting i would say macro trends and i think this the hvac if you think about what's happening with uh the climate the whole climate agenda uh the need to be efficient with energy use the energy prices all of that i think is a there's a strong underlying trend to having to have more efficient systems in place um and therefore for me i see that as a kind of an overarching macro opportunity or tailwind if you like in terms of that that space you've got to be you've got to do it right and you've got to put the jigsaw together correctly but i think there's an opportunity there as well and that's because you perceive that hvac technology will be evolving rather rapidly to keep up with more energy efficiency and therefore there will be more spend on new systems new equipment by consumers absolutely i i think the actual spend in the marketplace will be will be growing over time so it might not be a 20 uh year growth but it will be a growing industry because of that macro trend which is important i also think there's going to be certain areas of the of the or the industry that will will benefit more from for example government funding or incentives because governments have a mandate to be you know whatever the the carbon footprint impacts are and for example for example here in the uk you know 95 of homes are fitted with a gas boiler so to heat your homes is gas but for new homes that needs to be the government have already said no new homes from 2025 can have a gas boiler that's a fundamental shift for example yeah yeah now that that's that's one thing but then what about the next thing will be we need to retrofit all existing homes with some more efficient energy because obviously new homes is only a porsche so there was going to be a lot of money that's coming in to sort of incentivize those things to happen so how you put the piece of the jigsaw together to be at the forefront of that um is is part of the equation in part of the overall plan in terms of how how we do that so there's some criteria there i think the other criteria financially is valuations because there is so much of fragmentation you've got this p you've got this real pyramid that the the long tail of this pyramid is super super long there's like 38 000 businesses just in the uk hvac industry um wow and obviously many of those are very small so therefore you've got this whole huge long tail of businesses which means the valuations at that level in the long tail is super low and you've got then then it sort of goes up like that so there is a natural arbitrage because of that long tail in terms of the pyramids there is a natural multiple arbitrage opportunity by just putting companies together not even together but as part of the same group because you know multiple multiples increase as risk reduces and if you've got 10 businesses in a group even though they're not one business the risk is obviously less than buying one one business so actually let me let me um dig into that a little bit sam because this was in our pre-call we talked about this and it was something that as i was reviewing our notes my notes of our call caught my attention so yeah my and maybe it's just um my lack of sophistication but my understanding of multiple arbitrage is that the reason that that arbitrage exists is because the entrepreneur or has um assembled these fragmented pieces into something that is is now more holistic and integrated um so i i thought the whole the whole reason for multiple arbitrage or the key you know one of the key reasons was that in fact these 10 tiny companies are now one integrated entity earning 10 times the revenue um and so you've got you know and with that comes economies of scale and yes less risk as you said but just um you know kind of synergies and economies of scale um but you clearly you know for from your from from your your bad experiences in corporate are you know our kind of anti-integration i don't know i don't want to overstate it but clearly like you've made this decision you've now referred to it a couple times that you're you're not huge on integration it almost you know it was it was a really bad experience for you in corporate and then now in your own in your own endeavor here you're not trying to integrate so anyway square that circle for me why i you you don't need to integrate these companies to get to get to optimize your multiple arbitrage sure so there's a couple of things firstly i think um and just to be clear for anyone listening for my former employer it's not that i'm saying it was the wrong decision to integrate it was a painful experience for sure but the value proposition of those companies was almost identical and therefore actually integrating probably made sense in that in their context what i'm trying to do is buy businesses that are complementary that have slightly different value propositions and therefore it doesn't make sense to you know combine those into one hot spot of a company providing 100 different services there's no focus there's no accountability there's no you know that just for me that just wouldn't work not just because of the experience that i've gone through but to answer your point around valuation i think it's an interesting discussion for me i i would put the valuation the multiple are multiple um when we talk about valuation down to a number of things the first the first um is risk yeah so when risk is reduced multiples increase which is why obviously people love the recurring revenues they love the you know very predictable numbers and and where there's a tailwind and there's all left there's a management team in place and etc etc so risk is one factor and i think if you have a number of businesses in slightly different um with a slightly different value proposition servicing slightly different customer bases etc that's diversification so number one you definitely reduce risk by adding businesses despite you're not integrating so you reduce the risk multiple increases number two is demand so on the demand side if you look at the number of people that are operating in that in that pyramid you've not got you know that down in that long tail you've not probably got enough buyers for sellers because there's just so many thousands and thousands of businesses that probably most of them too small won't sell will will end up closing obviously when you get north of probably uh one two two million pounds uh ebitda you then start to get interest from uh institutional players from small niche private equity et cetera so that increases the demand for for those business so those two factors you you will increase the the multiple as a result of those two things alone the third the third point i think that impacts is clearly the growth potential in the business so if you're buying a business that has been flat and has always been flat and will always be flat you know the multiple would be one thing if you're buying a business that's growing 10 a year and has done that for five years in a row then the multiple is different because the payback is much quicker so i think that's where your question around well does that make sense to actually have more integration because then you can scale more quickly you can do whatever i don't know i think the answer so i think i think what we want to do is we want to focus and the platform the concept is you take businesses you put them on a platform you give them the ability to actually enhance their margins so that their ebitda margins by a number of benefits that we will look for as part of the acquisition so we will look for is there cross-selling opportunities which naturally then can cross-sell into each other's customer base that's a good that's a growth potential yeah so that's getting the growth without actually putting together yeah are there father are there buying opportunities because you're using some of the same suppliers and actually we'll as a group we can then look at how do we coordinate some of those activities yes um is there expertise that can be leveraged across the group so we've got i just mentioned about the more sustainable technologies and and that sort of thing so my idea is we would have an expert or one or two expert companies in the group on different things that then could transfer that knowledge internally in into the businesses in order to increase and enhance their ability to to raise their their performance so further so enhanced value we will create now valuation as you know is two principal things is the multiple and that's the profit so what i'm saying is well the multiple will actually increase because of risk and risk and demand um the growth is i guess arguable as to whether it's better to integrate or not but certainly what we can do is influence the ebitda number as well by enhancing the margins of the the businesses in the group on top of that i think i think um i would say two things one is we're not saying that we will not take cost opportunities where it makes sense so it may make sense over time to have one function that performs a service for other businesses in in certain things is not to say that everything has to be individual it's just not the priority and it will only happen if actually each business agrees that that makes sense to do because they can get it for cheaper they're incentivized by their p l and therefore it makes sense everyone kind of wins that's the philosophy that that i have um and and and and the other thing is um from uh from a value perspective it's not like it's not like i have a definitive view that i would ne you know i want to exit the business by by by then so yes the wealth creation aspect is part of it but it may be that we continue to build this over time we hold it for longer we create something i'm as much interested in creating a platform that is collaborative in nature so people and the businesses can collaborate together we create a framework to do that and actually for me that's that's that's i would love to stand back in five years time and say we've got a group that's actually working like that um and and we've created value for each of those businesses each of the customers that they serve and each of the suppliers that they serve as well and the stakeholders around them because of the platform that we put in place it's not all about the numbers but for me obviously they're not the numbers are part of it but i think there's enough value in in what i've described yeah but what what a vision that's great now sam in the states hvac is um it's almost i mean it's really hot right now there's a lot of activity there there are a lot of searchers looking to buy hvac businesses there's a lot of private equity looking to we're already active in hvac so it's it's it's quite competitive um it's it's of of the kind of of its cohort of kind of blue collar businesses uh electrical um plumbing that that's kind of it's it's kind of often in that same basket um it appears it appears to be the hottest uh by far actually um so anyway is it not or you know was it is it not super competitive to buy an hvac business in the uk are there other people out there like you doing this or or bigger bigger outfits private equity outfits doing this so i think um i i think it's not as hot as the uh as the us one just and i say that because you know of all the content that i listen to consumed people talk to etc i hear that a lot in the us i don't hear it so much it's not that there aren't people because part of my network i know that there are people other people in that space but i come back to well it depends where you're looking doesn't it so if you're looking at maybe this the kind of sweet spot which is here before you get into here in terms of where the pyramid is um i think that that is not um is not it's not a seller's market still um and therefore the buyer still has some strong leverage in in that scope because there is just isn't you know i think if you go past for me if you go past a million um a million of ebits or ebitda uh it's probably where the demand is a little bit more and maybe the the the the value is is it starts to starts to creep up and therefore it starts to become you know a little bit more expensive but then hence the multiple arbitrage piece that uh yeah we talked about before so the three businesses that um let's assume that we close the the one next next week um fingers crossed um the three businesses will will be uh will be about 15 um 15 million pounds in in revenue and about one point uh about 1.4 1.5 million um pounds in in ebitda now so that's an average of just just under half a million uh pounds each in terms of ebitda for the business so from a from a typical i guess searcher point of view that's probably on the small side in terms of the individual um business and therefore maybe you know maybe at that one million plus is you get you you're going to get more of that but i think that's at that level there's not a huge amount of uh demands given the number of businesses there are at that level i'm sorry at the smaller level at the smaller level yeah yeah okay um yeah i think basically i i think this the sweet spot i think is is between half a million and a million of ebitda i think is the is the sweet spot for for me and what what we would look at i mean i would look bigger i typically won't look smaller now because um i i think it's it's just it's just perhaps not worth the um what not worth the effort and because the process is largely the same it's actually more difficult to finance smaller deals um as as you'll probably know and therefore i think sub half a million i think is becomes less less interesting um but if you went sub half a million i mean probably the value is is even is even is even cheaper but in fact your first acquisition was sub half a million it was yeah and we're just about to get into that the audience is saying come on get to the can we hear the story for for pete's sake um but but uh uh you just want to comment that on your the sweet spot that you just described half a million to a million in ebitda that's that's exactly what we what we say here maybe a little bit more than half a million six seven hundred to a million is kind of it's kind of the sweet spot um that people talk about here for a self-funded searcher um uh okay i thought there was something else on hvac that i wanted to ask you about um all right maybe not it may or may not come to me so let's get into your first acquisition so you started actually if you don't mind sam tell people how old you are uh 44 44 okay and you set out on your acquisition like started searching like officially seriously in december no that was when you made it yeah that's when we made the acquisition it took about four and a half months and it was probably uh you know four months or so prior to that in terms of searching for five months so um yeah so what is that six four four uh yeah about uh 15 months or so in 15 16 months ago that you started okay yeah um and so so about eight months of searching yeah searched plus the plus the deal process before before closing yeah and about seven months um post completion yeah great and so you acquired this first business in in december 2021 um and so okay so now let's get into it if you would share um share the size of the business the the ebitda of the business um the terms of the deal if you would and then um yeah and and well i'll just say at the outset here so so i know that the ebitda was about 350. and you yeah we we just heard you say that you wouldn't buy less than half a million um now uh in ebitda but but you know just looking ahead to our conversation what i would say on that is like it did get you in the game and i think that there's value a lot of value in that because now you've got two other acquisitions that have happened in short order and now you're looking at if assuming this third deal closes you're looking at one you're at ebitda 1.4 million so in in the content that you may have consumed and here in the states there's often this debate for searchers about you know by big or by small despite what i just said about the sweet spot being 750 to a million or 600 to a million there are still those who say just just don't um over play that it in some some people would argue it's more important to just get in the game um because if nothing else that that that really unlocks steel flow often so if you find a business doing four 400 ebitda consider it um there's value in just getting in the game so with all that plea please tell us about your first acquisition yeah so um and i'll i'd like to respond to that so if i if i don't respond then remind me on the post about those points so i actually i actually found so i was looking in in different places talking to brokers contacting businesses directly this this this um this lead actually came through a contact uh on search funder actually the on that on the platform so so that's um that was interesting because i was kind of registered there um it wasn't registered with a broker but with an accountant who was the the company's accountant um the process uh so the business is is is actually does all the heating and plumbing uh elements of new build residential homes so when you get like large developments of 100 homes 200 homes etc so they're fairly large-scale contracts that's the kind of core of what the business does it's kind of it's not a consumer-based business it's um working for big large developers effectively yeah um and uh the the the conversation was um you know quite reasonable i think in terms of expectations there was a little bit of back and forth around around where we ended up the business was about five million pounds turnover business about 350 in terms of ebitda so it's probably average margins if not maybe a bit on the low side for for the industry but not far from average um we we agreed in the end uh we had a couple of goes at the structure because the numbers changed halfway through we renegotiated a little bit the deal where i agreed to pay a little bit less if i paid a little bit more out front so in the end we we settled on a a multiple of uh i think it was three exactly um three x of the uh the underlying uh ebitda that we sort of went through a process of understanding what the underlying ebitda was so we we we we structured that in in a um i think it was two-thirds up front and one-third that was then deferred uh over a three three-year period and that's typically the kind of structure three or four years uh that we would look look to um sort of annual equal installments in terms of those those numbers the way the way we financed that is we had as i said i had some people i was working with that were also investing a little bit i also had some other contacts that were um that i approached in terms of investment who who are willing to pledge also um some capital for the next sort of two or three deals which they have done in terms of where we've got to uh for these three um and so we put down um you know an equity element i can't remember the exact numbers but it was probably close to 20 of the of the uh of the value in inequity obviously then there's some deferred and the rest we we uh we we got a cash flow lend from an alternative lender here in the uk um and you you touched on it early it's quite complicated to do that you can typically have the asset based lenders but in these types of businesses there's not a lot of assets um the only assets they have really is is the debtor book i didn't really want to go down that path because you start messing around with with impacting customers and who the customers pay and actually it's quite expensive when you work it through it's a little bit more complex and so i i opted for i had a couple of options but uh i opted for for a lender that was was willing to give a cash flow lend but the the term of those is nothing like what you get in there in the in the us uh we dream about those uh those terms and those there's deals so you know you could you're paying considerably more from an interest perspective and the term is is is over five years and it's amortized it's typically um one year capital repayment free so interest only for one year um which gives you a little bit of breathing space and to build the cut the cash number and then the rest amortized over the over the four years um so that's that's what we did in the agreement with that lender was also they were they were interested in the the buy and build approach and the the project plan and and actually that particular acquisition was below the minimum threshold for them so they they you know they actually sort of we had a we had a credit approved amount let's say of double what we used for the first business but always with the intention of doing more um going going forward so that's how we uh that's how we finance the um the the first deal and that's what the structure looked like i would say the the the other two deals are not dissimilar to that um in terms of multiples and therefore you know that for me at that kind of level the half per million ish kind of level is you're looking at a probably a 3x um ebitda number and if you you know you'll typically have to put in not in all cases there are more creative structures i understand than people i've done without you know putting it in equity at all i just think it's much much harder to do um and uh and also it's more risky obviously you have more leverage in the business so so that those that kind of that structure is kind of typical for the other two deals that we've got so all on similar structures um working with the with the same the same lender although that's been a bit painful the process is a bit painful um but uh and yeah hopefully we'll get the third one across the line next week sam so a couple differences with what my audience my american audience might be used to hearing on the in terms of the deal the on the terms of the deal the seller note one thing so you said about a third so a 33 percent seller note um yeah where whereas in the states it's typically gonna be five ten fifteen percent uh as more um is more common maybe maybe twenty percent um and so the and then yeah of course of course as you said the amortization so with that shorter amortization schedule than your debt burden is going to be much heavier on the other on the other hand you're financing much less um it's much less leverage so if there was if it was 20 equity 33 to your seller notes that's 53 so roughly 47 of the deals is coming from the bank so that's a it's a smaller sum um so i guess that kind of cancels out the fact that you have a more aggressive amortization schedule and you end up with a debt burden that maybe is kind of similar to what a us searcher would experience would you say um well well you still got the challenge that you've got debt either way so you've got debt either from a from a seller note to perspective or from a bank perspective so in reality what it does do is it makes the numbers tighter obviously with it with a with a 10-year amortization and an interest that's uh you know four or five percent or whatever it is that you uh you guys will have access to that makes it far easier to meet the the debt service cover ratios which effectively is the key ratios that the lenders will look at it makes it far easier not only it makes it far easier it gives you more flexibility about the price that you pay i'm not saying that you want to pay more but for example it just simply doesn't work to pay more than so even if we had a great business that was a million ebitda that had everything right with it um and it was clearly worth more than you know 3x you probably couldn't pay more than you know 4x because the numbers just simply wouldn't wouldn't work from a from a debt coverage perspective um that clearly that's when you know the private equity guys and and and and trade buyers et cetera are more interested in that and they can afford to pay a bit more and therefore maybe you get a bit priced out at that level because it just simply doesn't work so um so yeah i mean it is it's a tighter it's a tighter uh remit to to work with to make those uh to make those numbers work and and there are you know the the lenders in the uk so really i think it's a disappointing um set of alternatives and options for for people uh in the uk and i think you know the government should here should look at look at that because i think as a result of that i think we'll end up having a lot of businesses that just have got nowhere to go um because that's just not enough options to do and one of the reasons and coming back to one of the points you said about by big or small yeah i i think it's a great it's a yeah and it's a great point it's a great question is yeah actually i don't mind buying a slightly smaller for the first one because it's the first one i'll actually i want to do two three four five six seven ten etc so really it doesn't doesn't matter so much and you're absolutely right it gets you in the door gets you in the game and things become infinitely easier as a result both lending conversations investor conversations conversations with sellers because you're credible you've got a business in this space just changes the dynamic so you're absolutely right on the flip side if you were if this was going to be your only business then maybe i would hold out for a bit for for a bigger business if that if that makes sense because the process is still the the same and it's obviously going to take you longer to grow and the other thing is it typically is more difficult to finance so actually i'm surprised in the end that i managed to get that one through um because and i now i see that the debt market's tightening a little bit given where inflation is going and everything else and the risk appetite is reducing i i think getting anything done that sub sort of four hundred thousand ebitda is is is more challenging um from a lender perspective they just don't want to know sam give us um just for other english british listeners um and maybe your european listeners who again non-sba buyers um is a bit a bit of the lay of the land so as i as i recall there weren't many lenders like you that you could find that understood the buy then build model um in the uk so just finding finding somebody yes you found a bank to do it but like it was hard first of all do you want to give your your um that bank a shout out just because maybe save some people say seriously save some people some time like if it took you looking under a lot of rocks well let's let what i would say is um contact people people contact me because ordinarily i would say yes but uh the experience over the recent weeks has not been uh been what i what i would have expected and hoped and therefore i don't want to plug something that for me the moment is not not perfect i was very happy with the first process i think i think that the challenge now as i said is in recent weeks the inflation's gone through the roof our first business has had some imp some implications of that because the nature of the business model had a lot of fixed price contracts with its customers therefore margins have been squeezed it's still profitable but it's not profitable where we wanted it to be so you know we've explained all of that and it's kind of understood but that's put some more uh concern let's say behind them future deals even though we're changing the the focus on the business model a little bit to be less risky from that perspective i think the risk appetite is reduced we were all also moving between one fund and another fund in terms of where the money was coming from that gave some complications so there's a whole host of um external uh circumstances that meant actually the process has been far more painful this time um but i i would say yeah if anyone wants to contact me i'm happy to kind of then talk them through that and uh but but i i think it's probably not appropriate for me at the moment to kind of plug something that i'm still waiting for uh the final uh the final outcome of yep fair enough okay um the one of the other things that struck strikes me about this this first business that you acquired is that um it's new construction versus maintenance so one of the things here that is often talked about in these types of business home services businesses um or business like with deal with the hardware of the home is is it constructure uh and and obviously maintenance is what you kind of what you want because there's it might not be recurring but it's reoccurring and so on so um is you have you're not in your head obviously you under you understood that dichotomy but you still went for a new construction like more of the revenue comes from new construction was there any did you need to get comfortable with that did you need to get your lender comfortable with that was that a question did you tell yourself well you know this is only my first acquisition so subsequent acquisitions i'll be more focused on getting a maintenance uh yeah a maintenance heavy business sort of thing what what was your thought there yeah no it's a great great question i think um a couple of things firstly i knew that this was my first and it wasn't going to be my only so when it comes to looking at the entire portfolio you're going to have a a bigger more sort of recurring um contractual mate or maintenance component um secondly what this business had um for the good and now actually almost then it's gonna come back to bite me to a certain extent is it had some certainty of revenue because the contracts they had you know most of them spanned the next 12 18 months so you know we could predict quite easily that the next 12 months 18 months revenue we've already got we've got a contract for that so there's very little risk in delivering the next 12 18 months if that makes sense yeah um so so that was that was that got me comfortable um and everyone comfortable that you know you had a good pipeline of business that was already committed and you've got bunch of tenders that are out there as well so you know we feel quite comfortable the issue is the way that it works in new build construction is typically you're looking at you know having to fix the prices that you you give which is fine in a normal environment and over the last 10 years hasn't really been an issue it is literally the last 15 months have seen inflation go through the roof on materials especially which has has meant that we've had to kind of pedal quite quickly to um to renegotiate some of those contracts and and to make sure we're doing everything from a supplier-based point of view and those sorts of things so that's that but that's why i got comfortable because we had predictability of revenue at least for a window in advance and secondly that i knew that yes we could also build out as part of the group the maintenance component what we also want to do with this first business is actually grow the consumer side of the business which is a lot more maintenance driven because it has the infrastructure to build off it's about five six seven percent of the business today and we believe that that can be 25 of the business in in a few years so that again will naturally be risk and the other point is obviously the the price that you pay is dependent if you've got a business that is um you know is 100 maintenance that's got you know recurring or reoccurring revenue then the price tag is going to be probably a little bit higher yeah sure great thank you for that we are uh we're we're going a little long here sam but i have a few more important questions i want to ask you um one is circling back to your um the overall structure of what you're building um you are not an owner operator you're assembling these businesses and and so are you are the st are the sellers uh who i presume are oftentimes the founders are they staying in the business as general managers and you're yeah so what's that look like no it's a it's a combination but again it's another sort of great point i mean these are these are these are the kind of crux questions right so um in two of the businesses the owner will leave and the number two that's kind of the natural number two in those businesses will will step up and in first case has already stepped up uh to be md in the other case um which is the one we closed last week a couple of weeks ago the owner is staying so he just wants he wanted to be in an environment where it could help him scale the business and grow the business uh going forward as part of that deal obviously part of the future component or the the deferred component we have as as an earn out so performance based in in the in the other two we don't uh if the seller is leaving so there's that kind of difference i guess nuance but yeah what we look for is either one of those two options either there's a very clear number two that actually naturally can step up um or the the the the uh the seller is um is wanting to continue in the business and wants to maybe play a bigger role in the group and in the cases where the number two is going to step up is that negotiated and agreed upon before the transaction occurs i mean do you because because you you you sam have to get comfortable with that number two yourself as part of your due diligence um yeah it's it it's it's it's a trick it's a really tricky one because in the first case obviously from a seller point of view they're in a tricky situation as well because they can't bring other people on board because if the deal doesn't happen then you know that puts them you know jeopardizes their own position and contradicts you know their own sort of um authority if you like because people then understand that they're going to want to wanting to sell so it's a very difficult balance and in that case we left it very late to get that uh contact with the number two um so we took a bit of a risk there to be honest and uh we got obviously we got the cv we've got the background and and but yeah it was two weeks before the deal completed that we actually got to speak to to the to the number two so that was a bit but it turns out for me i think um there's a great opportunity with him to and to develop him as well and uh i think he's doing a great job stepping up so so that's that's worked out well in the other business where the number two is stepping up the the owner brought him on into the picture quite early in the process and therefore we've we've met we've discussed we've kind of talked you know we've been able to have that uh dialogue through the through the process yeah i mean i imagine for these number twos it's really big news i mean a common theme with in this world is that the team that you're acquiring just the change in ownership can feel very disruptive and um and unsettling to the larger team just the change in ownership but for these number twos they're they're they're they're not only getting a new boss they're getting the promotion of their lives all at once and you worry that a number two might say look i don't want to you know they might just say thank you no i just don't want to be i don't want that level of responsibility even though it represents progress in my career yeah and i think it's really a critical one to to navigate carefully that that aspect and i think when we start to build out the group a little bit more so for example i'm in the process now of recruiting a cfo from a group perspective because it just makes sense but now three looking at more to actually have that a part of their role will be to go and spend time with each of the businesses helping them um to improve the way they govern the the business the information they have in the business etc to kind of help help bring up and also going forward we'll have you know maybe one or two other roles at a group level that can really be supporting the businesses but at the moment yeah for me for example big part of my emphasis will be really supporting those people now i'm not an industry expert so they've got the expertise typically when it comes to the industry but actually they're stepping up from a more junior role to a more senior role which has implications right so i think to be really close to them through that process we we we're looking at how we can build a program around um uh developing the the mds and all be them have sort of some external uh development and coaching etc running running the businesses we're also looking to implement um probably an operating system so we'll work on the same basis uh in terms of i don't know if you've heard of the um whether we choose this or not to be seen but the eos system no they're sure so so that that is something that we're looking at closely and probably will go with i think which will be really helpful because we'll probably have some facilitation with that so be helpful for those guys also to give them the framework to to help them to manage because typically you know the frameworks in this business around you know even having a very clear strategy to how you manage performance just isn't really there you know and uh how do we know whether we're doing a good job each week you know it's it's very um through feeling versus any kind of data metrics who's accountable for what all these things that can i think be developed so yeah a lot a lot of careful support and and and development and investment in those people i think is is required um and not not to be underestimated and i think that's probably something i did underestimate um and something that now we're trying to make sure that we're focusing on providing that support well although on the other hand one of the big boxes you wanted to check with this whole this whole pivot in your career was to develop people yeah and so and so i guess since you're insulated from the teams because you're sitting you know at corporate if you will above really really the end of the only individuals that you'll interact with directly on any sort of regular basis will be these will be the um what did you call them the mds or what we would call them here the general managers um and um and so those are the people that sam is going to be developing that's scratching that edge of you wanting to develop people yes but but also i think there's for example the the typically the finance managers uh the people managing that function in the business because i'm naturally that way i spent tend to spend a lot of time with them as well already so helping helping them as well so i would say it was not just the general manager so we'll be a little bit more involved and i'll sit in the management uh management meetings every week with the with with the general manager and his team um so you know i'll i'll be a little bit involved in in in helping them through more through transition as we kind of set set the new kind of structure frameworks and stuff in place and because obviously the first business has had some challenges from a margin erosion perspective it's then being called me to sort of be more more involved i would say week to week uh operationally to support what do we need to do to to to turn the corner and actually uh deliver the right um set of actions to this so um yeah it's it's a bit of a hybrid at the moment i think going forward it will be uh more general manager only but at the moment it it will be a little bit more hands-on so i will be at the moment for example probably one day a week in each business the other three businesses yeah for the for the coming you know a couple of months at least whilst also looking for the next ones so these businesses then are all um geographically close to you uh yeah all within uh an hour and a half hour and 45 minutes something like that and where do you live uh just north of london okay so um one question um then we're going to wrap up here about the culture cultural fit between somebody buying a business and a blue collar business and then and then the team that operates at that business oftentimes it's kind of a a white collar person you know somebody from with a financial or corporate background buying um a blue collar business and there can be there can be you know a difference of culture there to to say the least um you know the uk i mean i've heard i've heard english people themselves say this isn't my american stereotyping um the brits but i've heard english people themselves say that the you know kind of class still plays a a a greater role uh in the uk than than maybe other places so it like that those strata are more felt among people than um than in other places um correct me if that stereotype is totally off uh but um so that would just kind of make more pronounce the difference between white and blue-collar folks anything you to anything you want to say to all that i i think well i i think it's a point to be it's another point in terms of for me the difference between actually somebody and no disrespect to somebody that's that's you know come out of uh business school done their mba um read all got all the theory um got all the powerpoint decks ready to go um the difference between somebody like that and somebody perhaps like me who's had um you know years of experience of of leading managing large teams of actually going to the ground being on the ground with people and actually being able to span that difference like vicinity before is yes i understand the corporate stuff and what what needs to happen big picture and you know all of that but i'm also humble enough to actually roll the sleeves up and say right how the hell do we get out of this and actually be on be on the front line and i think you know that for me would be a watch out because i i see even my even my corporate life i see people coming in fresh i think they know everything and it's like you have no effing clue how the reality works i mean you just don't and i think sometimes you have to have the experience to know and have also have the credibility so if people know that you've done x y and z you're so much more credible and i think there is a big watch out i would say for for people and coming in from that you know not a lot of experience going into that blue collar environment or any environment really in terms of managing leading people teams p l's the reality is is is not all you know is not all roses and you know it it's it's it's tough sometimes it's difficult sometimes you know the powerpoint goes out the window it's about actually you're dealing with local emotions uh with people which is very in small businesses it can be quite rife and and it's very different to corporate culture in in that regard and you have to be quite careful about you know what you're saying how you set and all those things and and and and the emphasis on you know just team and and bringing people on the same page is is really really important and that's not i don't think that's taught to you necessarily at business school and and doing that stuff and i i think there's a big watch out and i would be hesitant for somebody to come in that hasn't got real life experience and say there you go drop you into that i mean i'm not saying it can't be done clearly it has been done time and time again but for me i would just imagine it in one of the businesses that we have and the pushback would be enormous yeah so i guess it's a watch out for people and try and be humble try and be on the same page try and understand try not to impose we need to do this from day one at least in my mind you know the first weeks are around learning and understanding and not about right you're doing this wrong and that wrong i mean it's like yeah you probably can see they're doing this wrong and that wrong but you have to bite your tongue yeah you know so is that experience i think is is is really important and i think giving that some some some really intentional thoughts if you are in that camp of not a lot of experience going into owning a business place an emphasis on that and get some support in that i would say yeah yeah yeah i mean at least two of my guests have said six months that they they won't touch anything they won't make any recommendation just six months they're students um and yeah uh and and one of the other points i'll just make here that my guests have made and i'm just repeating is is that often when you see something in the business that you've acquired that you think is wrong you learn maybe two months later oh that's why it was done that way there was a re there was a method to the madness good thing i didn't try to correct it because i would have been wrong to try to correct it because it wasn't correct i was i was my interpretation was incorrect yeah yeah i think that's right i think six months is is depends on the circumstance i mean sometimes maybe you you can do it much quicker than that but give yourself some time i think is the point yeah yeah sam last question i want to circle back all the way back to what you what we talked about in your own plan to build wealth for yourself um and like you you know and you have a certain number you know that you know x number equals helping y people um so can you add some more color to that and and and numbers behind that and we'll close out with this yeah so um so so what what i want to have from this venture is is uh is a 20 million pounds um i love it uh 20 million pounds uh exit and i say exit but more exit that's for me so in terms of you know i have investors involved so i don't have 100 of the equity i have the majority of the equity but the way that plays out is to build the group to about 60 million um in revenue this is pounds 60 million revenue and uh and about 10 percent ebitda margin to 6 million and selling it um just under six is the business case i think we've got um so five 5.7 or something like that in terms of multiple you know we're buying it three three and a half is what the business case suggests so that you know plus the fact that you've got then um the investors obviously to get the return and that would we've promised plus whatever debts left over etc would get you to the 20 in terms of the the exit so that's that's what we're trying to to to aim for and that is within five years i i recognize that maybe it you know that's that's not super specific but is that at least a rough a rough timeline yeah the business plan and the business plan is 26 yeah so it's actually that's four years from from from now effectively so um we were supposed to be at um 22 million for example at the end of this this calendar year december so that means one or two more businesses uh this year so it's very sort of clearly stepped up so the next two years really focus on acquisition and then a year or two 18 months of really sort of bedding down and actually helping you know develop all of those benefits across the group talked about earlier and really i mean you you can you can do such an accelerated um acquisition plan because you're not doing much in these businesses i mean yeah you're trying to improve them uh and many of the things we that we talked about but but you're not um because there's not this big integration process that's happening with all of these like you buy them and you just let them continue on with you know with the improvements that you put in place and the learning and the education all that good stuff but there's not they're not really disruptive they can kind of these acquisition being acquired for these businesses is not really that disruptive they can continue on their merry way it's it's incremental isn't it so it's incremental so yes we're going to do we're going to sort of provide an operating system whether it's a eos or something that helps businesses on the same page create a vision create a clear score card create clear accountability charts create clear governance and frequency and all that kind of stuff that's just good management in terms of a small small business um yes we're going to help in terms of the collaboration across the group and how how how we put that together yes we're going to help in terms of some of the strategic skills financial skills that we'll have at the group level um and yes there might be some savings that we can do along the way in terms of operating things once and on behalf of the group but apart from that the core of the business will be borne out depending on the strategy that we develop together uh with with the mds or the general managers of the business and it will be like you say it will be more a little bit more incremental as opposed to transformative in terms of each individual business yep the 20 million dollar number how did you arrive at that number why is that your goal it's pounds not dollars although there's not sorry all right so not so much uh difference these days yeah um 20 million pounds um i i i it's uh it i mean i've got some calculations behind but i i think it it stemmed from the amounts that the fr the quickness of the amount that i want to deploy into into these vehicles around um philanthropic uh uh elements uh alongside the amount that i would still need to you know create or have some wealth um to live and and whatever whatever else so i've got some calculations around that and and and what i think we can we can do with that now that listen that might that might change right we might we might decide that this is going so well and we we we're we're thinking too small and and we should be looking at bigger and we should be looking at this and and maybe that changes but that for me is is probably a year old now in terms of that that set of numbers great thank you for sharing this i love the transparency and sam do you uh um this is a leading question do you wish you had done started doing this ten years ago uh yes yes i do although i would say probably not before ten years ago so um maybe maybe maybe five years ago would have been optimum and the reason i say that is because the experience for me in traveling around the world in all the different experiences regardless of the fact that i didn't enjoy the last few years the experience and what i learned from from all of that um i think was invaluable and i think the the the just the travelling aspect when you think back about all the places i've managed to be and spend time with and see and is phenomenal and i wouldn't take that back so maybe a few years earlier because i think then we could have you know done even even more um but i but i don't i don't uh i don't disregard the value that i've had and and i'm very thankful for that in terms of career that i've had as well yeah yeah it does sound like a phenomenal experience to have um have had such a global experience for those years yeah sam what uh what a conversation thank you uh this was great uh really cool to hear um from somebody across the pond doing things slightly differently and uh but but many things are the same and um yeah just uh just a really um refreshing and cool uh to hear what you're doing great great to be on and thanks for having me well thank you yeah great well we'll have to have you back and see how the progress is going thanks sam