.png)
What's a search fund?
A search fund is a dedicated fund with (in our case) committed capital seeking a transaction that satisfies its criteria. The fund’s principal typically transitions to CEO of the target company and is focused on completing efforts within 24 months or less (from inception to close.)
"If you don't have time to do it right,
when will you have time to do it over?"
- John Wooden
Vert Capital Partners is a Vancouver-based fund seeking a singular business acquisition
Our focus is on profitable companies in light manufacturing, consumer goods, technology or business services that we can acquire and operate.
The Search
Good meets great.
A solid connection will be comprised of the following.
Industries of Focus
01
Vert Capital is focused on Light manufacturing, technology, consumer goods and business services sectors where we can add value post transaction.
Commitment to a Sale
02
Candidates are looking to exit the business now or in the very near future, and have decided its time to look at a plan for the future.
Criteria
03
The target business will have positive earnings of between 2M and 10M EBITDA, with revenues between 10M and 60M. Additional positive criteria include steady growth over the last few years, and solid corporate culture and relationships.
Integrity and Trust
04
Our guiding principles for successful outcomes are clear communication, commitment to objectives and accountability.
“Say what is meant. Do what is said.”
Discovery Call.
Discovery Call. Lets get to know each other over a 30 minute call. Connect with us at the bottom of this page.
Financials
We'll sign a Non Disclosure agreement and start working on the 3 years of financials you've provided. You get to show off what you've built and we begin to understand the business.
LOI
If you like what you are seeing and we do too, then we will make an offer in the form of a Letter of Intent (LOI).
Due Diligence
We can get down to work on dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Looking closer at inventories, chatting with key people and customers, reviewing basic accounting practices and planning the close.
Let's Get Started.
Nice to Meet You.
My name is Brooks Bergreen and I'm the founder and principal at Vert Capital Partners. I'm also the guy who will work on the transaction with our team, and then eventually lead the company post transaction.
I'm both proud and fortunate to have a talented team of advisors and analysts helping me find a great company where I can build on my 20 years of operations experience.
2-10 M
EBITDA
10-50M
Revenue
3 Years
Recent Growth and Cashflow
100%
Of The Company can be Acquired
Questions
We're looking for at least 3 years of your most recent annual financials, and possibly some catchup numbers (sales, or expenses if anything out of the ordinary) for the months in between if were more than 2 months beyond your calendar year.
We work with all kinds of brokers, and typically this can be helpful to the process. Just introduce them to us and we can go from there.
We are looking to acquire 100% or a large majority of the company. In some scenarios, we could look at less, but post transaction we need to be able to grab the reigns and get rolling. In some scenarios we may look for current ownership to maintain a minority interest, or to finance a small amount of the transaction over a period as acts of good faith. In many cases this is something the previous owners want.
We highly recommend that you engage legal representation whose practice is focused on mergers & acquisitions (M&A) work. They will give you the best advice and it will help both sides throughout the transaction process because everyone is familiar with it.
Our firm is Stikeman-Elliot, who is a well respected, Canadian based, but global firm. They have a practice focused on the unique needs of Search Funds, including partnership formation as well as M&A work. We're happy to recommend a firm (unaffiliated with us) that will act for you in a deal if needed.
We also recommend that you have good accounting advice, both for the business and the exiting shareholders. Typically your finance people will have existing outside advice here already, or your lawyer will be able to recommend someone. If not, we can help find you someone that matches your needs and can act for you.
Typically we would look to get through a discovery call, sign an NDA so you can send over financials, and then we'll work on financial modelling within a 2 week period. If we proceed to LOI we would get that over to you within another week or so and hopefully sign soon after. We tend to like to have key aspects spelled out in the LOI so that there are less things to negotiate later, so in some cases this can take longer as we try to get into alignment with each others goals up front. We'll likely want to do a most of our meetings in person with you.
From there we would start due diligence, depending on the deal this can take 30 days or up to 90 days or longer. This is really driven by how quickly we can get information from your team. Expect us to have questions around understanding inventories, accounting practices, your customers, and key employees. We want to get a feel for the company and culture.
Longer than 90 days and everyone might get get a bit antsy, so we would work hard to get this done ASAP. At this point the biggest risks are deal fatigue where everyone starts to get tired and even small things can cause frustration. Part of the reason to use experienced M&A advisors is that they've been through these things before and can help set expectation.
The bottom line is we're motivated to close a transaction and will move quickly to get our work done. We want to get past all the legalese and onto the fun stuff, getting to work with the new team and growing the company.
In Partnership with
