What owners told me

Over the past months I have sat down with dozens of owners of HVAC, electrical and plumbing companies, almost always at their premises and almost always because we asked. I am writing to say what I heard, because it changed how we work.

Almost nobody is thinking about selling. They are thinking about who comes next: who takes the helm when the owner no longer can, and what happens to the people who have worked with him for twenty years. Price comes up later, and nearly always with a condition about the team.

Many have already received letters like ours, some of them dozens. They have learned to distrust whoever writes, and rightly so, because many of the buyers who approach them want to buy in order to sell again. So in the first meeting they ask whether we have bought a company yet, who funds us and whether we are Portuguese, and they are right to ask. We have put the answers in writing, in our frequently asked questions, so that nobody has to ask them twice.

An owner does not want to disappear overnight, or to find himself with a boss he never had. He wants time to pass on what he knows, and he wants that time to end. That is why we wrote that the owner usually stays with us for two to three years, and that whatever we agree about his role goes into the contract before completion.

More than one owner told me that he named the company himself, and I understand what that means to him. We do not promise that the name stays forever, because a growing group may one day bring its companies under a common brand. We promise that it is not changed lightly, and that the decision is prepared with the people who are there.

Some owners never sold simply because they did not want the company talked about. For many owners, confidentiality is the condition for starting the conversation.

I grew up inside a family business and thought I knew what a handover between generations meant. These conversations showed me how much I still had to learn.

If you own a company and are thinking about what comes next, call me on +351 918 330 399. You do not need to give the name of your company on the first call.

Pedro Teixeira Duarte, President

The other letters are here. To see how a sale unfolds with us, read our process.