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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I’ve been on the road since Monday morning and I'm in equal measures exhausted and exhilarated - for I'm about to share with you what I’ve learnt. Over four days, I recorded interviews with 3 outstanding serial acquirers; attended a Private Equity powwow in Paris called IPEM; and of course caught up with subscribers. 

In parallel, Helen and I have been interviewing applicants to the next Rollup Bootcamp, which kicks off on 23 September. There won’t be another one until spring 2027, so hurry!

If there’s one message I want to deliver with this article, it’s that there has never been a better time to start your Independent Sponsor (ISP), HoldCo and or rollup journey. There’s abundant capital to fit all tastes and experience levels. As one placement agent put it at the conference, historically the Independent Sponsor LP universe was 2/3 Family Offices and 1/3 institutions. Today, the ratio is closer to 50/50 as institutional capital is flowing into the space unabated. 

My view on capital deployment is similarly upbeat. But don’t just take my word for it. 

Between them, Strada Partners and Builders Associés - the two most prolific Buy & Build investors in the European lower mid-market - have seeded 20+ platforms… in the past 24 months alone! This is just the start however. The rollup fever is now spreading to more nascent markets like Spain and Poland.         

Read on to learn about: 

Shoutout to this week's sponsors RIVR8 (previously PPHF) and PMI Stack: THE finance stack for serial acquirers. Pavleta Pavlova and Dylan Harrocks will be exhibiting at the September Serial Acquirer Summit, which they're sponsoring. Come talk to them about:

✅ Building live consolidated reporting across every entity

✅ Unifying the systems behind acquired companies

✅ Becoming lender-ready

Fancy a preview? Then join their free live workshop “The Finance Mistakes That Destroy Roll-Up Value”. Next Thursday, 17 September, at 5pm CET / 4pm UKT. I’ll be there!

As a warmup before revealing IPEM’s fundraising wisdom, can I share with you 3 examples of why you'd want to embark on this journey in the first place? 

First, Hippocrates Holding: founded in 2018 by Rodolfo Guarino and Davide Tavaniello to take advantage of Italy’s evolving pharmacy market regulation. Hippoctates quickly grew into a leading pharma distribution group with 680 pharmacies, €1.2B sales and 3,000 FTEs. In an exclusive interview, Rodolfo and Davide shared with me the early insights that enabled them to leapfrog competition, for example, solving the succession challenge and developing an M&A playbook for completing an acquisition every 3 days. Interested in retail? Keep an eye out for their interview! 

Secondly, Simago. Our readers will be familiar with Charles-Henry Beglin’s adventures in the radiology space (Simago deep-dive) and his unrelenting passion for Buy & Build. To get to where he is, Charles-Henry had to a) initially overcome multiple rejections from the PE firms that considered him and his co-founder Clément Martin too inexperienced, and to b) subsequently navigate the intricacies of the French healthcare system. Today, with €400M+ in revenue, Simago’s is the second largest radiology group in Europe.  

Charles-Henry and Clément’s latest venture, Builders Associés, is remarkable for setting a high bar for the teams they back: €30M+ EBITDA after 3-5 years. What does it take to raise from Builders - and to deliver on these objectives were among the topics we discussed.   

Last but not least, after the sweltering summer we’ve all endured, how can we not talk about HVAC aggregators? The Paris-born corporate development professional Louis-Clair François-Poncet caught the ETA bug while at Harvard Business School, and proceeded to co-found SATEP upon returning to France.

12 months ago, this career journey might have drawn a chuckle from some quarters. Now, after the hottest summer on record in France, no-one is laughing. The country is poorly equipped for the climate emergency, with only 25% of households equipped with AC. The corresponding numbers are 50% for Southern Europe and 90% for the US and Japan (source). 

SATEP tends to acquire small, family-owned and residentially focused heat pump and plumbing contractors. Fine-tuning the M&A machine took time, but now they’re cranking out a deal a month, with projected year-end revenues of €80M across 20 portfolio companies. 

I was surprised to hear that SEO is a big driver of value creation. Louis-Clair also talked about the tension between preserving operational autonomy and modernising the acquired companies. Again, stay tuned for more detail.

When not furiuosly scribbling notes in a notepad, I spent my time at IPEM navigating rows after rows of tiny, wood-coloured booths housing hundreds of Private Equity firms. Making small talk, keeping an eye out for the people who might be tempted to leave august institutions for more adventurous pursuits. 

But what does it actually take to raise capital on a deal-by-deal basis? To answer this question, I dropped in on IPEM’s Independent Sponsor Summit.  

Let’s start with LP due diligence. Conventional wisdom is that you must a) have a PE background and b) be able to credibly construct MOIC outcomes in the 3-5x range. If you don't have a), you can still raise, but from an Independent Sponsor. If you don't have b)... maybe don't bother with lower mid-market. 

What else? The panel “How to underwrite an ISP deal” offered some clues, presented by industry experts like:

All three panelists expressed strong affinity for proprietary (a euphemism for broken or “hairy”) processes over broad, competitive auctions. Duh! Even though historically, brokers were not exactly falling over themselves to cater to the contingent-financing crowd, as the Makenna rep pointed out, “the day that investment banks start taking ISPs seriously is probably the day that that market dies”. 

Until then, you can get away with “no market study or a handful of slides cobbled together from somewhere else” - apparently 80% of Makenna’s ISP deal flow. OK then! Seriously though, Makenna uses the TSAV acronym to diligence Independent Sponsors: Transaction, Sponsor, Asset, and Value Creation Plan. 

The overall time split is 60% asset and 40% sponsor.  

For an example of an ultra-specialist Independent Sponsor that ticks all of these boxes, see Acathia, a Frankfurt-based investor in insurance and pension assets. All 4 of Acathia’s partners have C-Suite insurance background (e.g. Thomas used to work at AXA and before that, covered insurance at McKinsey). They see +/-15 opportunities a year and diligence 1 or 2. For regulatory reasons, Private Equity firms often aren’t able to participate in auctions. Acathia studiously avoids processes with credible strategic interest. In Thomas’ own words, “we look for value investments which give a very strong downside protection to our LPs” - many of which are insurers themselves. 

Let’s say you meet these stringent criteria. What’s next? 

With the strategy piece out of the way, we heard about fundraising tactics in a placement agent-led session. The accompanying slides are so good we’re sharing them in full. 

Before commencing investor outreach, check that you're in a good place with the 3 non-negotiables: track record, references and DD provider line-up. 

Offer up 3-5 references even before prompted. US LPs are known to go overboard with reference calls; the quid pro quo is somewhat lighter deal diligence compared to their European counterparts. 

Direct quote: “Hey, who's your FDD provider? Awkward pause. Not sure. Don't do that”.