How to Buy a $20m Business as a First-Timer

I mean, it's something I'm definitely open to right now. I'm just focused on running the business I bought and growing it organically. But I am definitely open to more acquisitions, whether it be other businesses in the franchise system or, you know, other home health and hospice businesses that I could acquire and bring under the umbrella.

So I'm definitely open to acquisitions as part of the long term growth strategy and in fact very interested in it. But, you know, so, yeah, it is a benefit of being in the franchise system.

In March.

In March, Yeah. Here we are in May.

Yeah. So it's been about two months.

Okay, well, let's close out with how it's going to first impressions. It's two months.

Yeah. So. Well, one thing we didn't really talk about was how there were a lot of ups and downs in my deal. It was quite a roller coaster and it was a very stressful deal and you know, it almost fell apart multiple times right up until the very end. And to be honest with you, it's been a lot less stressful since I closed than it was before.

Can we have some of the highlights of the, the how the tumultuous things that happened as you went toward close?

Yeah, so there were several things. One was, well, first of all, when we did the Q of E, the results came back that the adjusted EBITDA wasn't as high as they were saying. It wasn't like a lot lower, but it was somewhat lower.

And since you're paying a multiple of ebitda, that required relooking at the price and the structure of the deal. And then on top of that, as I alluded to earlier in the fourth quarter last year, business really softened. And so the combination of those two things really led to some hard discussions about price and structure of the deal.

There was also early in the process, we talked about being part of a franchise system. The franchisor wanted me to sign a new franchise agreement and they wanted higher royalties than what the current sellers were paying, which would have reduced ebitda. Also, it turned out that legally I didn't have to sign a new franchise agreement.