Tackling Larger Deals: Using Creative Financing Beyond SBA Loans

This Week in ETA:

• Searchers: SBA loans are great... until they aren't big enough for the deal you want. Here's how a searcher we work with is approaching a larger deal:

  1) Work with SBICs, traditional bank loans, or small private credit funds for your debt financing

  2) Model your economic terms on Independent Sponsor deals

  3) Use more equity and less debt than in self-funded search

  There are lots of benefits to deals like this, and we love investing in them (as well as in SBA deals).

• Investors: I joined the HoldCo Builders podcast and shared what I look for in self-funded searchers. Operator experience matters—having lived through wins and failures gives a searcher sharper judgment. Skin in the game is powerful—when they invest their own capital, incentives are deeply aligned. And for investors, diversification matters—across industries and geographies. Not every search will succeed, but the right structure lets us capture outsized returns from the few who do.

Featured Off-Market Deals

Brought to you by Deal Prospectors

Plus:

• Missed our webinar with Peter Lang on how he executed 22 off-market deals? Check out the recording + slides here.

• Searching for a business to buy can be brutal - but so can running the business after you close! Planning ahead for how you want to operate and integrate is key, as is forming an honest relationship with the seller during the acquisition process. When my wife and I acquired a business, we flew to meet the founder prior to purchase. This showed we were serious about buying, and earned trust with the seller, which helped us throughout the acquisition and post-close. Once we were in the operator seat, having a positive rapport with the seller helped us with integration challenges and assimilation with the team.

Question:

Hit reply and tell us - How do you earn trust with the seller of a business you have/ plan to acquire?