Disclaimer: Unless noted otherwise, views and analysis expressed here are the author's own and based on public sources. The article is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional for investment decisions.

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On Tuesday, 25 November in London we gathered nearly 200 serial acquirers, investors and advisors. The venue this time was the Institute of Mechanical Engineering - a stately mansion that backs directly onto St James’s Park, steps away from Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street.

Many thanks to everyone who came - we had people flying in from all over Europe and as far afield as Brazil - and of course to our longtime supporters Grata (private markets intelligence), Pavleta from PPH Financial (Fractional CFO), Linus from TechCredit Partners, and Reef Pass (long-term investors in serial acquirers).      

Despite the Summit’s location at the nexus of the British imperial power, the topics of centralisation and synergies received scant mention in the first 2 out of 3 sessions: 

My key takeaway from the Summit was that for anyone aggregating with a 3-5 year exit horizon, success ultimately comes down to two things: choosing the right industry and executing M&A well. Not necessarily investing a ton of money and effort into a “platform”.

Depending on who you talk to, the magic number that unlocks buy-side interest, and therefore multiple arbitrage, sits between €10M and €25M in EBITDA. 

Please note that this writeup is a mashup of the live transcript and the speakers’ preparatory notes. Obviously, nothing beats being in the audience!

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We kicked off the Summit with the panel titled “From founders to investors: insights from Simago and Arsipa”, headlined by Charles-Henry Beglin and Felix Jander.

Charles-Henry and Felix are two of the most successful rollup founders in Europe, having led their respective aggregators Simago (radiology / France - read our deep-dive) and Arsipa (occupational safety / Germany) to 9-figure exits. 

They are far from being done! Charles-Henry has a rollup fund called Builders Associés and Felix is raising one, under the Aven brand.    

Charles-Henry's career (he’s still only 35) is a textbook case of high-conviction risk-taking. After only a year in investment banking, he moved across to PE (Permira). After 4 years in PE, he founded Simago. Another 3 years later, Simago was sold to Ardian and is now #2 player in Europe with €110M in EBITDA… That’s 40 acquisitions in 5 years. Charles-Henry remains involved with Simago while actively investing out of his own fund branded Builders Associés.  

Felix co-founded Arsipa with Stefan Schmidt in Berlin in 2021. Arsipa went on to roll up 35 practices, growing from 0 to €100M+ revenue and €25M+ in EBITDA. Today, Arsipa is #2 player in the German occupational health & safety market. Warburg Pincus acquired a majority stake in 2024.   

Q: Why radiology and occupational safety and not something more mainstream like installation or software? 

The speakers talked about their motivations and the first steps to building a serial acquirer.

Charles-Henry put it, “It's much harder to start a “real” company from the ground up - compared to a rollup. We were not going to start a new Facebook because we didn't have the skills. We knew how to analyse sectors and how to acquire companies. Worst case scenario, 2 years down the road, we have to go into consulting and Private Equity [...] We had a shortlist with industries like funeral homes and vet practices - before these were “hot” - and we keep that list close to our chest”.    

Back in 2019, Simago was 1 of only 2 radiology rollups in France. Why? “A lot of people had tried radiology rollups in France by copycatting lab services rollups. All of them came to the conclusion that they couldn't do it”. Why? Because of the restrictions on ownership by non medical professionals. Simago wouldn't take no for an answer, and subsequently developed 3 workarounds which we list in our deep-dive.       

The Arsipa founders followed a similar playbook: “being consultants, we worked in sprints…we had a list of 60-100 niche segments - including vets, logopedics, tax advisers. It was a very iterative process. We ran 5-hour workshops with friends from Private Equity who’d give us feedback”. 

After 4-5 weeks of running these sprints, Felix and Stefan settled on occupational safety and began to send out offer letters (100-150 in total) whilst fundraising in parallel. Arsipa closed the inaugural €10M round simultaneously with signing Acquisition #1 and having a further two targets under exclusivity. 

Q: What does it take to be backed by Charles-Henry or Felix? 

From Charles-Henry’s point of view, the founding team (he doesn't believe in solo founders) must include at least one person with a transactional background, whether from Private Equity or Corporate Development. 

Why? Two reasons. 

One, building a rollup means executing lots of M&A. “In the beginning, it’s as much as you can do”. 

Two, “achieving a multiple re-rating is ensuring you've got lots of investors 3-4 years down the line. For that, you need to understand what investment criteria they apply. If you don't have a PE or Corporate Development background, you may not have that knowledge”. 

Felix presented a different angle: “Imagine who you're buying a business from. In Germany, it's a 65-70 year old owner. You’re sitting down with them, drinking schnapps in the evening [building rapport]. It’s a different skill set compared to having been in M&A or Private Equity for 10 years”. When it comes down to the thesis itself, Felix prefers steadily growing markets populated by companies with >15% EBITDA margins. Important to have 500-600 companies in target range, which he defines as having upwards of €300-400K EBITDA. Synergies are secondary.     

Up next was Daniel Jung, the CEO of Techminers interviewing Marc Maurer, the COO of Chapters Group. For those not familiar with Chapters, check out our writeup: Chapters Group: how to build a billion-dollar search fund investor. 

Chapters’ most recent iteration comprises 7 platforms that acquire predominantly Vertical Market Software, plus a fintech business called fintiba. Quite a change from a few years ago, when, in addition to software, Chapters owned a chain of language schools and a facilities management business!

What prompted the pivot? According to Marc, “It made sense to focus on VMS because the businesses share so many similarities. These similarities have allowed us to move away from a HoldCo model that provides money and limited central services, like Search Engine Optimisation”. VMS businesses may be resilient, but they are living businesses after all! Cue the “Manuscript Method” that Marc developed to help them continuously improve. 

Exhibit A: ratios. Chapters uses a playbook that sounds similar to Constellation Software’s (which we described in detail here). What it does differently is ensuring the buy-in from the management. As Marc put it, “you’re not going to hit that ratio…but here are ways in which you can improve”.

Exhibit B: pricing. “Value-based pricing normalisation is not something you can do in 5 minutes [...] Most Managing Directors have prior experience of price increases in the 5-7% range. This is not what we call value-based pricing normalisation. We start at 30% and go up to 50%, 60%, 70%. If you just tell people to run the analysis [to justify those sorts of increases], you won't find a lot of examples”.

Instead, Chapters runs so-called “Pricing Mindset Sessions” designed to overcome the management’s concerns about price increases and to convey price increases to the customers in the best possible manner. A low-hanging fruit is eliminating inconsistencies: “just be fair to everyone”.   

Next, Daniel asked Marc about the threat of AI to Vertical Market Software.

Most decentralised HoldCos “leave it to the edge” - in the sense of using conferences to disseminate best practices. Mark’s opinion is that with AI this approach doesn't work “as you need to be much more descriptive”.

How does one filter out targets with the highest M&A description risk? Marc talked about a whitepaper by Daniel Ek (an investor in Chapters) that featured a 2x2 matrix comparing frequency of engagement to quality of engagement. The implication being that a VMS with a high Professional Services component that's used daily is less prone to disruption. In addition to this, Chapters uses “AI guardrails” - a checklist that includes criteria such as the investment required to make the tech stack AI ready; whether the product is an end-to-end or a point solution etc.   

We concluded the Summit with a panel on accountancy rollups. Barely a week goes by without someone ringing up RollUpEurope with yet another idea in this space. Is it too late to jump on the bandwagon? How complex are professional services rollups, anyway?

Caroline Urban from MBM Commercial, a law firm, purported to answer this question by interviewing Sylvie Coudene and David Alonso Martinez. Two words about each of the speakers. 

Sylvie is the Group Head of M&A People at Azets, a PE-backed top-10 accounting firm in Europe. Sylvie is as experienced as it gets, having previously spent 20+ years at Accenture, where she led the European M&A Talent Integration function. There, she managed a portfolio of 30+ acquisitions / year, overseeing the people and cultural integration of c.10,000 employees and c.250 acquired Managing Directors annually. 

David has a radically different background, having worked for 4 years at the rapid delivery company GoPuff and before that, in VC. Zinco AI was founded earlier this year to consolidate the long tail of the Spanish accountancy market. Zinco AI is backed by the venture investor s16vc. 

It might not be apparent, but Azets and Zinco have a lot in common. Both firms are obsessed by synergies and operational excellence! 

Q: What's your pitch to the targets?

Sylvie: Of course price matters, but that alone rarely differentiates you in a competitive market. Azets wants to be the acquirer of choice. We meet every seller and every shareholder personally, as early as possible. Never assume you know best just because you’re bigger. Smaller firms are often far more creative and efficient because they’ve had to achieve more with less, and we respect that deeply. 

David: In a pitch, 4 things matter: 

Q: Both Zinco AI and Azets take an integration approach - as opposed to a decentralized HoldCo model. David, you mentioned that smaller acquirers have an advantage when it comes to integration. Can you explain why that is? 

David: When you’re small, every acquisition matters disproportionately, which means you can afford to integrate with a level of intensity and precision that large platforms simply can’t. Larger platforms try to integrate from a distance. Through playbooks, templates, and layers of middle management. The nuance gets lost, and nuance is everything in services businesses. By contrast, all of our acquisitions sit in our offices within 30-45 days. They’re part of the culture from week 2. WE have changed brands within 2 weeks.

And second point is speed: We’re integrating systems, support people, offices - everything - within 60 days of acquistion.

Q: Sylvie, can you talk to us about how you DD culture and then set a transition plan?

Sylvie: As part of due diligence, I conduct a full leadership and cultural assessment of the target. This includes interviewing equity and salaried partners to understand their culture, decision-making norms. Also how they handle conflict and their readiness for a KPI-driven environment. This gives us a clear gap analysis. From there, I design the partner-to-corporate transition model that helps legacy LLP partners succeed in a merit-based, KPI-driven organisation. Since many traditional firms operate on a “born equal” partnership model, this shift isn't easy. So what I do to help, for example, is leadership coaching (one-to-one or group coaching; in some cases on a weekly basis).

In terms of efficiency metrics, we track KPIs that drive behavioural change and operational discipline. Think utilisation, revenue per partner, profitability by service line, client portfolio and retention. 

Q: Can each of you tell us about some common integration mistakes you've seen?

Sylvie: First thing I’d say, never tell anyone that there will be no change. If you do, and then there is change, the trust gets broken, and it is very hard to come back from that. Another big mistake you can make is integrating without a plan. At Azets, we will not acquire a business if the culture is fundamentally misaligned or if the leadership team is not the right fit. Beyond that, successful serial acquirers must get 3 things right. One, set and manage expectations early on. Integration is hard work! Two, get the Target Operating Model right. Who makes decisions? How does governance work? How do we realise the value case? If the Target Operating Model isn’t clear, integration becomes confusion rather than progress. Three, lead the human transition, not just the operational one.

David: I agree with Sylvie. To add to what she said, in my experience, one of the biggest mistakes is not integrating the day-to-day workflows. Invoicing, client comms, reporting, onboarding, payroll cycles, task management. Also, M&A is an emotional process. You need to understand how people feel when they are being acquired. Don't be afraid to over-communicate. The acquired teams are anxious: ‘Will I still matter?’ ‘Will I be replaced?’ ‘Will my clients complain?’ Tell people the plan, the why, the benefits to them. Be very upfront!