Am I Thinking Too Small by Staying U.S.-Focused?

February 17, 2026

by a searcher from The University of Chicago - Booth School of Business in Charlotte, NC, USA

I had a great conversation this week about expanding my acquisition lens beyond the U.S. A colleague suggested tapping into global deal flow through an international broker network. I realized I have been narrowly focused on domestic targets. Now I am rethinking that assumption. For those of you who have explored cross-border acquisitions: • Are deal structures materially different? • How do diligence, financing, and regulatory hurdles compare? • What surprised you most about international transactions? Curious to hear real experiences from operators and searchers who have gone global.

0 Likes

10 Replies

116 Views

Replies

Reply by a searcher
in Raleigh, NC, USA

I love the thought of going overseas and have looked into it a bit myself. In speaking with searchers in Europe and Australia, the general consensus is that the US is lightyears ahead of other countries in terms of ETA. This means that multiple tend to be lower and competition lighter. I can say though, now that we have 3 in our portfolio and another under LOI, I can't see having a business in another country unless it was over $5M EBITDA. We are almost a year into our first acquisition and we are just now coming out of integration. The team is solidified and trained to the point that we can start to disconnect, but between critical hires and training, we had to be heavily involved. Granted that is a plumbing company at 650k EBITDA but management and the seller stayed. The GM has a masters in economics, so its not like we were starting from ground zero, but we had to get new standards established and train on how we wanted those things down, how we want people to be hired, etc. The folks that are there are eyeball deep in the day to day, to ask them to make time to train themselves on hiring or to work out processes that are patched together is just asking for trouble. If they could do it it would have been done before we got there. We are also under LOI on a 2.2M EBITDA manufacturing company and that looks like it will be a similar journey. This is why I can't see doing it for an acquisition below $5M. At that level you are able to hire consultants and afford the travel back and forth as needed without strapping cash flow. Maybe my caution is driven by a little fear, but I also know that there are times that an on-site visit is needed, and sometimes unannounced. This way you get a true temp check of the business and the team and not a polished view over a zoom call

Reply by an investor
from New York University in New York, NY, USA

I would be very careful in acquiring a business outside of your current geography unless you know the other geography extremely well. I’ve worked on transactions either on the sellside or buyside all over the world - the business and cultural norms can vary greatly from one country to the next, and if you are looking at SMEs you will find those differences are amplified even further. There is a reason why global PE giants have offices all over the world - local knowledge is critical. I do agree with the other comments about the ETA ecosystem being far more developed in the US, but I think it goes far beyond that. I lived in the Middle East for 12 years and it took a few years just to understand how things get done. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I think you will ratchet your risk / reward profile up significantly unless you stick to geographies that are very similar to your home turf.

+8 more replies.

Join the discussion