Entrepreneurship through acquisition is seeing a surge of interest among MBA school grads.
"Baby boomers retiring in record numbers are fueling a paradigm shift in which long-time business owners are finally putting their beloved Main Street businesses up for sale. That was the case for the Baileys, who are in their 60s and owned the Greenville, Tennessee-based HVAC company Bailey's Heating and Air. Having run the company since 1991, the owners, Robert and Carla Bailey, were ready to retire, however, there was a problem. They didn't have a named successor, a child, or an employee looking to take over.
So they did what many other business owners are forced to do: they put the company they'd built for more than 30 years up for sale. They hired a broker and put up a listing, but the right deal never came through--for several years.
'We had always gotten cold calls from investors and even marketed our business for sale once, but we hadn't sold because we never found anyone that shared our values, could close the deal with fair terms, and wanted to grow the company for the long-term,' said Robert Bailey.
Then, at the end of summer 2022, they got a call from their broker, who insisted the couple meet John Mahony, a Marine Corps veteran who heard about Bailey's Heating and Air through a fellow broker and wanted to explore purchasing options."