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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This episode of the Rollup of Tomorrow series was recorded in New York City, during our March 2026 Serial Acquirer conference (full writeup here). Alex sat down with Bryan Rand, the founder and CEO of Rand & Co - an Atlanta, Georgia based holding company with 8 businesses and $400M in revenue, to talk about his journey. 

We talked about: 

Prefer the audio format instead? Check out the Bryan’s interview on Spotify!

Bryan is the second US Holdco builder to come onto the series, after Jason Kaspar from Kaspar Companies. The Rollup of Tomorrow Vol 10. Kaspar Companies: Guns, Saddles & Bullion - a uniquely resilient 127-year old Texas HoldCo. 

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This week’s sponsor is TechCredit Partners: a full-service debt advisor. Linus Eriksson and Resat Ozutok have built a name for themselves arranging bespoke credit facilities for serial acquisition strategies.  

Alex: Bryan, you bring 25 years of experience across finance, investment banking, and private equity. Can you talk to us about the origins of Rand & Co? You've got 8 businesses, the portfolio seems quite eclectic. You've got a fuel supply company, a steel furniture company. Are you a Holdco, an Independent Sponsor or something else? 

Bryan: Thank you Alex for inviting me to speak at the conference. I've learned the hard way to not give advice, but I'm happy to share my experience. We are a private Holding Company where we've used our own money and the cash flow of our businesses to grow over time. We really focus on 2 types of deals. 

One, legacy buyouts. We exclusively buy from baby boomers who are retiring, acquiring businesses that have been around 30+ years, with a proven right to exist. They're generally leaders in really small niches. Those are almost always low single digit EBITDA businesses. We bring in new leadership.

Two, growth partnerships. We will partner with top-tier P&L leaders of businesses of the size we would like to grow to. And we will then either buy something small or start from zero.

Now, the two areas where we invest. First, manufacturing and essential services. These are old school businesses where we can buy in very cost effectively. Second, we've had success on the consumer side. 

As far as how I got here, I grew up in the banking and private equity world. During the financial crisis, I partnered with a couple senior folks at Credit Suisse and we bought a private credit business from Credit Suisse. This was years before the private credit boom. At some point I woke up and said, this has been great, but I don't know that I want to make my career selling expensive money. I'd like to be an actual owner, and an owner at scale.

Alex: Listening to your story, you were an accomplished individual already when you set up Rand & Co in 2014. I would’ve thought that with the experience you’d amassed, starting a HoldCo was a walk in the park. However, based on what you've told, this is not the case. What were the things you would have done differently if you were to start from scratch? 

Bryan: The private equity training is rooted in managing risk through models and memos. Many folks who spent years in private equity have never made a decision. They’ve made recommendations, but they haven't had to own the outcome. People's lives didn't matter. They didn't have the final accountability. They did it with curated information. That's not the world I live in. Incomplete information, personal guarantees, the buck actually stops with me. Out “in the wild” so much of success is about judgment. 

I would approach these markets with great humility. The person who owns the 5th largest HVAC in Cleveland deeply knows that market. There's a reason they haven't invested in sales - because it's hard to do. There's an instinct to say oh my gosh, if they would only XYZ… They're not dumb people. They're generally not lazy people. They may be tired. They may be in a different phase of life. 

Alex: Let’s double click on the topic of value creation. In our prep call, we talked about the challenges of delivering shared services across the HoldCo. Can you elaborate on that? 

Bryan: Shared services, you hear that phrase a lot from private equity firms. Very few do it well. What I have concluded is that my core value proposition is not attracting and retaining the world's best accountants. It’s not worth it arguing with the portfolio company CEO why books didn't get closed when there is a service that I can purchase externally. And remember: we're not on the private equity treadmill. The whole “we've taken you from Excel and set up your general ledger, and we've done that a bunch of times” - this is such a small part of my value creation! I can buy Accounting and IT support much more cheaply than I can own that in-house. 

Where we've had some successes we've actually leaned into BD as a service. Most of these businesses we buy don't have a full-throated organic sales effort because they're hard to stand up. Almost none of these businesses do marketing or communications strategically. There’s value in setting up a modern website, a modern SEO. 

But so much of the shared service stuff I’ve seen folks lean into just hasn't worked in our experience. Having said that, a strong caveat: the very best private equity firms create a ton of value that way. 

Alex: You’ve got 8 companies, 8 CEOs. You don't run these businesses day-to-day. Can you talk about operator incentives? Do you offer people equity in the platforms or at the TopCo level? Cash bonuses? What are the main KPIs that you track on a company-by-company level and at the TopCo level? 

Bryan: The answer to almost all those questions is “it depends”. What I have learned is equity only really matters if it is more than theoretical. We're going to hold this forever. We're going to be really thoughtful, and attract and retain hungry, aggressive operators and have a growth culture. I've learned through experience, that spending meaningful resources, communicating the value that's being created, communicating the value of debt pay down, showing how equity value is increasing over time. The deals we do can have a tremendous amount of leverage. And in the first 2-3 years we can create a significant amount of value… But it doesn't show up in people's pockets. De-levering is great, but they don't take that currency at Kroger. You can't pay for your kids’ tuition with that.

Giving people a path to liquidity has been important to attract and retain talent.