Give us two or three bullet points on. On how you did that. I guess one of them was you brought financial transparency.
Acquiring Minds
Good Bones: Saving a $3m Business in Decline
Deal story
Himmat Singh, a self-identified hands-on operator, bought a $3M large-format printing business (EPI Color Space) in DC for a $500K 100% seller note, expecting it to be semi-passive. After his top salesperson defected and tried to poach clients, he went all-in, bought out his investor partner to become 100% owner, and brought on a sweat-equity partner. The episode also explores his prior run as a non-owner CEO at home-care company Circle of Life, where a 3% stake yielded a life-changing exit.
Deal facts
Industry
Large-format printing and signage
Business
Signage, wall murals, trade show booths, wayfinding/ADA signage
Location
Washington, DC area
Revenue
~$3M historic average, ~$2.4M recent years
SDE / EBITDA
$650K-$700K historic, ~$400K at acquisition
Multiple
~1x-1.25x stated, ~2x including working capital injection
Deal size
$500K (100% seller note, 0% interest over 5 years)
Acquisition model
Partnered
Outcome
Survived top-salesperson defection; Himmat bought out partner to become 100% owner; brought on sweat-equity partner Kevin Durbin; ~$2.1M sales / ~$300K EBITDA at end of 2024, building toward growth/exit
People
Will Smithhost
Host of Acquiring Minds podcast about buying businesses
Himmat Singhguest
Wharton MBA, career operator; owner/operator of EPI Color Space, former CEO of Circle of Life
Kevin Durbinother
Himmat's sweat-equity partner; ex-Goldman Sachs, ex-Exer VP, Georgetown grad
Pat Yeagerother
Founder of Circle of Life home care who hired Himmat as CEO; passed away during his tenure
Josh Greenbergother
Alpine/team home care lead, former searcher who acquired Circle of Life from Himmat
Bill Eganother
Original search fund investor (Asurion); father of Himmat's friend Mark Egan
Topics
Excerpts · 418 segments · ~1:48:41 long
Short excerpts only — hear the full conversation on the publisher's site.
04:30 Himmat's operator-focused background07:05 Failed search fund, 11 LOIs16:46 Running Circle of Life as CEO26:56 Operational fixes that doubled EBITDA48:26 Acquiring EPI Color Space deal terms1:01:42 Investor conflict-of-interest concern1:07:16 Large-format printing industry1:27:27 Sales crisis, partner buyout, Kevin
You fixed the controller issue. That was lever number one.
That was level one. Number one. Also tied to lever number two and three. Because not only was there no transparency, we were doing a terrible job on our billing, and we are losing probably 20 cents to every dollar that we were billing. So denials and rejections is a huge aspect of any healthcare services company.
So I basically rebuilt from scratch the entire billing and finance side of it, including. We implemented this software called CareVoyant. And that was a great software.
It took a little while to implement that, but effectively by doing this, we brought in about 1.5 million of cash flows to the bottom line. So that was huge. It was not like.
So making an operational fix. Doubled EBITDA effectively. Right. From 1.3, another 1.5 without. Without net new revenue, without new sales.
Yeah. And there might have been a little bit of net new revenue. And I'm trying to make it a little more simplistic because, like, you know, as Warren System was getting rolled, Pat died and unfortunately. So, like, you know, so there was so, like, I was not so.
But like, you know, Josh Greenberg from who was. Who was the top person for team their vertical and just a phenomenal person. He and I had built an amazing relationship and he sort of believed what I was trying to me and my thing that look, it's not showing right now, but by the end of the year.
And that's the time I sold Circle of Life to Alpine at a 7X valuation, a $21 million deal. But we were not really a 3 million EBITDA. So. So, like a year and a half into my time, I took it from 1.3 to sort of on paper 3 million EBITDA.
But simultaneously to that was like, you know, a lot of the family members which were involved in the business, I took them out in. I sort of forced them out of the business and I retired them because they were impediments to the business model. And Pat could not do this on our own.
We could never be in the same room together, but at the same time they would not sell the business to me. So I did not have that chance of buying a business that I really loved. And I basically cleaned up.
So 2018 is when we did that deal. It is going to be a 3 million EBITDA. And it was so like, you know, because all those changes of getting carevoyant and getting it fully baked and making sure there was working that was the biggest driver.
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