Long-term capital
Grupo Cerne is owned by the two partners who run it.
The company has no defined life, and we do not buy companies in order to sell them. We give investors liquidity through a route designed not to depend on selling the companies: as in a listed company, who holds the shares can change over the years, and the group and its companies stay.
The capital behind us comes into the group, not into a single transaction.
How we invest
| Sector | HVAC, electrical and plumbing |
|---|---|
| Revenue | Between €3 million and €20 million a year |
| Where | Portugal |
| Structure | Purchase of the whole share capital. Part of the price may be paid over the following years |
| Situation | An owner deciding what comes next: succession, liquidity, a partner leaving, or heirs who do not want to run it |
A fair price is a price the company can carry once we are already inside it. We start from the accounts of the last few years, separate what belongs to the owner from what belongs to the company, and look at what repeats every year rather than at the best year. If the price only works with an optimistic assumption, it is wrong, and we change the price. We invest our own capital and that of a small group of private investors, alongside Portuguese banks. Bank debt is sized so that the company keeps buying vans and taking on apprentices the following year. We would rather lose a deal than close one on numbers that only work if everything goes well.
We do not buy companies in order to rescue them. We look for companies that already work well and help them grow.
How the two of us decide
Each of us has his own area and settles the day to day without asking the other’s permission. Buying a company, and at what price, is not one of those decisions: no acquisition goes ahead unless both of us are convinced. If one of us is not, we do not go ahead.
Documentation
We are not raising capital through this website, and you will not find projections here. The documentation is not public.