SBA Deal Structuring to Manage Risk in a Cyclical Industry

Frustrated by the poor performance of his email outreach, today's guest finally decided to just pick up the phone and to his surprise, it worked. Andrew Kurzrok bought a ductwork fabricator a little over an hour from his home in Northern Virginia. After awkwardly calling the receptionist back a few times when she didn't put him through correctly, he was finally able to leave a message on the…

Thanks to the owner's wife, we learn in addition to the story of how he acquired this 22 employee ductwork business, Andrew and I discuss how he structured the deal. Ductwork demand is tied to construction, which as you know, is notoriously cyclical. So Andrew was careful to give himself room to weather those inevitable periods of soft demand.

You'll hear us talk about over equitization, using less SBA debt and more of his own cash to buy the business. This is an important consideration as you structure your deal. More equity means a lower rate of return, yes, but it also means less risk.

So if you're not optimizing for irr, Andrew is not. But instead for cash flow or a long term hold, or just becoming an owner without living on the razor's edge, consider bringing more equity to your acquisition if you can. It's easy to be wowed by how little of their own capital a business buyer put into a deal.

Guilty. But it is not always the best approach to put in as little equity as possible. Listen for this segment in today's conversation with Andrew and here he is, Andrew Kurzrok, owner of Hopewell Sheet Metal Manufacturing. Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses.

My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs and on this. Podcast I talk to the people who do it.

If you ask owners in the ETA and search community which insurance broker provides highest quality work, great outcomes and has a practice dedicated to searchers and acquisition entrepreneurs, one name comes up again and again. Oberle.

Oberle Risk Strategies has worked with hundreds of searchers over nearly a decade and is in fact led by a two time successful searcher, August Felker, which makes Oberle a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers by a former searcher. And if you've got a business under loi, Oberle will provide complimentary due diligence on that business's insurance and benefits program. An easy no risk way to…

To take advantage. Check out oberle-risk.com that's o b e r l e-risk.com link in the notes. Andrew Kurzrok, welcome to Acquiring Minds.

Thank you, Will. It's an honor to be here.

Here we are on January 2, making you the first interview of 2026, Andrew. You bought a ductwork fabricator in my neck of the woods, actually, the D.C. area. We are neighbors and there was a lot of thought in your selection of this path, obviously the business itself, but ETA broadly.

Let's dig into that. Give us a little of your background to start, please, Andrew.