Sponsor looking at a pool co platform acquisition
February 19, 2025
by an investor from University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School in New York, NY, USA
I'm a 2nd time sponsor looking at a pool company platform acquisition. I exited a buy-and-build strategy in another industry recently and looking to do it again.
Would love to connect with potential investors and service providers (law firms, financial DD, etc.). Please reach out if interested in chatting further.
from Columbia University in Las Vegas, NV, USA
We are one acquisition done & two closing in the next 2-3 weeks (gets us to about ~1,200 pools), and it's been a 'crap show.' Non-payment by customers is a huge issue during the transition. About 1/3 of people have decided to not pay us, which has absolutely nuked the profits we thought we were buying. There are a lot of things we are doing different on deal #2 & 3 to ensure that we don't get crushed. 1) Make sure they bill on a forward looking basis 2) look at the payment history with a more critical eye. The sellers say "people can forget to pay when they travel" but they always pay. I guarantee you that 'slow payment' will turn into a lot more 'non-payment' even if you do everything right in the transition communications. Also ensure that you make it so that the seller note is tied to the transition & payment of pools over to you. We dropped those balls & it has cost me north of $100K in A/R that's possibly not recoverable & then we are chopping about 10% of our customers. Also make sure that they bill for service call outs or diagnostic visits - that's a loss maker.
Also - avoid property managers & ABNB's like the plague. The visitors are always looking to complain ('hot tub won't turn on') and the property managers set up an Asian based virtual assistant business who calls you every hour until you get out there. Ties up your phone lines & creates chaos - they are also often slow pay. I would only take ABNB pools if they are at 2x the normal rate.
from Eastern Illinois University in 900 E Diehl Rd, Naperville, IL 60563, USA