4 Acquisitions, Engineering/Mfg. Firms in the EU & UK. Philip Jepson Top M&A Entrepreneurs

Welcome to the top M&A entrepreneurs today. My guest is Philip Jepson. How are you doing, Philip? Welcome to the show. Yeah, I'm, I'm good, thanks, and it's great to be here. Yeah, and uh I'm calling all the way to where is it? Manchester, UK? Manchester, England, yes, yeah. Are you big football fans? I am a football fan, which is soccer in the United States. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got this other game that you call football, which none of us understand over here, but yeah, we just got big 300 pound guys, 67, you know. Trying to beat each other up. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about you and acquisitions. Uh, I saw that you did, uh, 2 acquisitions last 12 months. You just do engineering firms. How many acquisitions have you done total? OK, in total, uh, we've done 3 so far. 3. And we've got another one which should complete in about maybe a month and a half. Beautiful. And that's under LOI financing is approved, dealer approved. So what? Yeah, it's just going through legals at the moment. Yeah. What size of the acquisitions do you make? I know I saw on your LinkedIn, it's 10 to 250 employees, somewhere around. Yeah, these are small, small companies, um, it's actually focused down a bit since I did the. LinkedIn profile, it's really, I'd say 10 to 50 employees is our, our kind of sweet spot. Um, we're small business people, we like small businesses, we believe in small businesses and what we're trying to do, no, not what we're trying to do, what we are doing is we're building a group of small businesses. Um, and more than that actually, we believe in the importance of businesses that make stuff. Um with your hands and see, yeah, yeah, particularly in countries like the UK, like the US where. The sexy stuff is all services. But services. Yeah being controversial here, services don't really add value, they don't create things. All they do is live off the backs of other people who do create things, um, and the, the kind of businesses we're looking at are in some ways old fashioned, you know, they take bits of metal. They cut them up, they bend them, they paint them, they weld them, and they turn them into something that then becomes part of something else. So, um, it's the bits that we make are not sexy in themselves, but what we do is sexy because it enables other things to happen. Yeah, well, let me ask you about that first acquisition. What were you doing before? Um, I was actually running a recruiting business. The, the story, you know, sort of going back before that, I was a lawyer, that's what I'm trained as. A solicitor, they call it a solicitor, right? That's correct, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's correct. Um, and I used to do insurance defense litigation, that's, that's what I did. Um, and basically I got fed up with it, um, I fell out of love with insurance companies. And was looking around for something, something to do where I could use what I'd learned and the connections I'd made. Uh, but, but not actually practicing law, so I ended up doing recruiting of lawyers. Yeah, that's different. Um, and I did a startup, um, which is what a lot of recruiters do, you know, you start with a desk and a telephone, and I did, I did that whole thing. And at the same time, I also did an MBA, a part-time MBA. So that really exposed me to business. Properly for the first time and business people, and um, I really enjoyed that, it was a great experience but I never got to use a lot of the stuff I learned. Um, and over time. I kind of got, I was getting a bit bored causes recruiting's great, but it's, it's limiting. Um, so I started to look around for, you know, the next thing, and we actually looked at whether we could grow our recruiting business by acquisition. But we didn't know how. I had a partner at the time, we talked about this, we discussed it, but we had no idea how to do it, we had no idea how to raise the money. We didn't know how these things worked, and in the end we sort of gave up. Um, and then in 2019, I met this guy who, who knew how to buy businesses and was actually sort of mentoring other people. Um, in how to buy businesses. And I just went, oh, bloody hell, that's interesting. Yeah, who was that? Um, a chap called Guy Bartlett, in the, he lives in quite close to me in the northern UK. Um, so I, I basically bought Guy's course. Um, to just to learn how to go about buying businesses, um, and set out looking for, you know, what, what the first acquisition was going to be, and really at the time it was a side hustle, cos I was still doing the recruiting. Um, and as I started looking around, I was going and and visiting businesses that were for sale. And Um, realized a couple of things. One, that there was a big market in retirement sales. Um, which I think's a really good source of deals for people like me, for lots of reasons, um, but also I just. I'd only ever worked in services. So I'd never, I never really understood this thing about making stuff. And, and when I went to go and look at businesses, these little businesses that made things, I just, it was like wow, it's incredible what these guys can do and, and I just got more and more interested in, in those kinds of businesses, so. That was the, you know, you, you go with the direction that you're interested in. So the curiosity, where your curiosity. You gotta let your not your head, sometimes your heart and your gut lead you, yeah. So, yeah, so I just got, got into that and I was looking at a few different ones, but the uh it just happened that the first one that actually came off. was a little engineering business, um, just outside Manchester, you know, about a million pounds revenue, 10. Did you go, so how did you find it? You, you actually visited or just uh uh I found it through an accountant, it was networking. Networking, um, I mean I was at the time I was doing different things, I was looking at business broker websites. Um, I was networking with, uh, accountants, lawyers, bankers. Um, wealth managers. You know, trying to find their clients that might be wanting to sell. How was that conversation with them? I mean, most of the times in the United States, they are under a non-disclosure to talk about. Yeah, I mean, yes, and and I mean in this case, he didn't come right out and say, oh it's, you know, this business with this name in this place. He just said, look, we've got a client that's interested in selling his business. This is what it basically this is what it does. It doesn't sound like your kind of thing, but I'm just mentioning it, and I went, that sounds interesting. So let's have a look and, you know, sign the NDA. Um, had initial conversations. And it sounded like a good little business um so went to have a look at it and that was when I went. This could be it. Yeah, what, what did you know about asking for financials, cash flow statements, income statements, balance sheet, did you have that ready to go, or was that? I was learning as I went, I mean I'd had the stuff from Guy. He had like a. There were some like training videos and er and some like specimen documents and he had like a a flow diagram, you know, you do this, then you do that, then you do that, and that gave me something to follow, which. Essentially works, I mean it's, I'm still following pretty much the same process now, um, and it told me what to ask for. It didn't tell me how to read them, right. How to interpret them. You know, and, and that took me a while, that was just. Practice, um, and. You know, you, you, you'd, you'd see numbers in a statement, and then someone would say to you, well, don't you think that's a bit odd? And you go, uh, I don't know, is it? I don't know why, why would it be odd? I don't know what do you think about it and then they'd explain, you know, they, they, they'd explain, well, you know, if this figure is this level, then that number shouldn't be that level. And like, oh right, OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then obviously the next time you look. a set of accounts, you know what's, you know, you, you, if you see the same thing again, red flag, right, you know, like your, your, your head starts going, OK, that's a red flag. Yeah, yeah, so I basically some of the stuff. I've just taught myself through. Through just doing it, looking at probably hundreds of sets of accounts. You learn to read them quickly and you learn what normal looks like and you learn to pick out. You know, as you said, the red flags. So, yeah, so we um. We got into serious discussions with this business like early 2020. And then of course, COVID. Oh, yeah. Everything sort of shut down, so then it's what. You know, what do we do now? um. And I, I, in my life I've I've made some pretty stupid decisions at times, but actually this was one of my better ones because I just thought, well. This is not gonna last forever. 12. It probably gives me an opportunity to negotiate a better deal. Uh-huh. And number 3, there's, there's two things. We, we had Brexit. Which had happened before, obviously before COVID. And then COVID itself, and the effect of both of those things was to disrupt supply chains. So my thinking was, there's gonna be a whole bunch of engineering work. That has gone overseas, but he's gonna come back. Because people can't buy it from overseas at the moment. So actually, this is a really good time to be in this industry, being in, in, to be manufacturing components out of metal. Um, right now it's a really good time to be there because. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity because a lot of the competition just can't function, so I just decided to. Take the risk, go ahead, do the deal. And did you make an offer? How did that process go? Like, you make an offer, they accepted, didn't accept, counter, yeah, they, they, they'd already accepted an offer. So we'd already got a deal. But then, um, well, two things happened actually, 11 was they lost the contract with their biggest customer. Which was not related to COVID, that was just. Something that they that had happened to them, but also then on top of that, COVID, so we, we basically just sat down and said right, you know, this is different now. The world's changed, so we're not gonna do the deal that we said because that would be stupid. Um, so let's, let's look at what we can do. Um, and we just, we basically did a deal that, that was more contingent on. The performance of the business, so it's like, you know, if the business does this, you get that. If the business only does this then you get less than that. And, and in terms of the payments, it's like, well once we've got revenue up to a certain level then. We'll pay you this and then once we got up to that level, we'll pay you that. So it allowed the business to trade at lower levels of trading, but, but at the same time, um, we could make the payments because we were paying, you know, we were paying less. So did you, was it, did you have to borrow any money to purchase part of the business or it was just based on performance 100%. Yeah, we borrowed. We borrowed some money, not a huge amount, but we did borrow some money. Yeah, yeah. And then afterwards, we borrowed some more money to for like working capital. Yeah. Because there were in, I think, I don't know what it was like in the US, but in the UK there were some government backed kind of business assistance loans were available. So we took one of those because that just gave us some investment money. Yeah, it's called PPP here, it it was a similar thing that we had over here. So, so we took advantage of that as well. So actually. For these kind of businesses and actually for buying businesses, COVID's been a good time because we've been able to repurpose this government assistance to use it in acquisitions. Um, and it's just run out now. Yeah, yeah, though the markets, the financing market is is shifting it right now, it's, it's harder getting finance right now because. The next stage hasn't really kicked in yet, no one's figured out. What's going to happen now and now you've got, you know, Russia, Ukraine and all that stuff going on, so it's all a bit, a bit more challenging right now, but yeah, COVID was actually not a bad time for business here, certainly for these businesses, um, so. Yeah, so we did that deal in May 2020. You go. Completely, you bought the business, it's a done deal, it's executed and what did you do? What did you feel like? Wow, I'm, I'm elated. I'm happy now the tough work starts. Yeah, I had no idea actually. I, I, you know, you can say, yes, I know it's gonna be hard work. You can say that, but you have no idea what the reality is like. Um, and, uh, yeah, people think buying businesses is hard, but that's nothing compared to what happens afterwards. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you look under the hood and goes there, there's rats in there. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah, um, so there's a lot to do. There is a lot to do and. I mean, this is what I said I'd made some stupid decisions, um. Some of the, yeah, because it was a new industry. To me, and I'm, I'm sort of learned as I've gone. So there were some things we did wrong early on. I, you know, in business, whenever you make a mistake, the feedback is it costs you money. Yeah. Yeah, there's no, there's no question. The market will let you know if you made a mistake. Well, that, that's, that's it. I mean, that's the beauty of business, isn't it? You, you get that instant feedback. It's either 0 or it's it's like negative, right? Yeah, yeah, if it's 0, it's quite good actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What, uh, when you took it over, um, how many people were working in the business and were there anybody goes, oh my God, this guy doesn't know anything about the business. How is he going to lead us and I'm just gonna quit, or do they stay? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, um, nobody quit. Nobody quit. Good for you. No quit. Nobody quit, um. The, the way that the, the, I mean, I've been through this 3 times now. The, the, the outgoing owners. Don't tell anyone in advance that they're selling the business. So literally you turn up there one day. And you stand next to the, the seller in front of the workforce. And the seller says, Just want to let you know, I've sold the business and these are the new owners. And it's like, what? What? What? Who the hell are these people and what are they gonna do to us? So, yeah, um. And it's a, it's a, it is a sort of mix of shock and fear initially, it's, it's yeah, panic for people having jobs, they go, oh well, and that's the thing, isn't it? Is my job safe? That's the first thing that goes through the head, um, but. What I've, what I've found on the whole. Is that people, you know, pretty much entirely people will give you a chance. I mean they, they get over the initial shock and then it's like, OK, so. Come on then, what are you gonna do? Yeah. Um, and they will, they will give you a chance and. I mean, the, the businesses that we're buying. Have some things in common. Um, say they're all retirement sales, they're all established businesses. They're all, they're not in distress. We're looking, we're not looking for distressed businesses. We're it was a profitable business, right? Yeah, even during COVID, even though they lost that big customer. Yeah, well. Potentially the losing of the big customer would have would have put it into the red, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, but. Apart from that, yeah, it was a good, it was a good solid little business, so. What did it make? What did you guys make? They, um, this is a, what's called a CNC machining business, so basically they, they take effectively little blocks of metal, and they've got lathes and machines that then cut it into shapes, basically, and it forms components, parts which then go into other machines or. Largely it's parts of machinery, um, so it's all, it's all around having machines which cut bits of metal. Yeah, I used to work for Autodesk long tag they built CNC software. OK, right, so yeah, so you understand it, um, but, um. The people, yeah, so the point was that, that these, the businesses we're buying tend to be businesses which have got potential built into them, which is not being realized by the current owners because the current owner getting towards retirement, they've lost their energy, they'll keep it as it is, they'll keep it on a level, but they're not going to push it on. Yeah, they're uh they're kind of checking out, slowly checking out. Yeah, and the people who work there can see that. You know, and they can see the opportunities for it to be better, and they can see those things where the owner didn't want to spend the money to buy a new coffee machine for the canteen or, you know, didn't want to buy a new machine or didn't want to upgrade the software on a machine because it meant spending money and you know, they, they just weren't in that frame of mind, so. The the guys who work there. Uh, are often more open than you think because when someone new comes in and goes, right, we want to take this business and we want to grow it, we wanna make it better, we wanna make it, we wanna take it forward into the future. Then, um, they go, oh, OK, that sounds interesting. Well, actually, if you're talking about that, well, this doesn't work and we could do that over there, and if you did this, then that would be better. So actually they, they engage quite quickly. On the whole, um, because they can see better than anybody, what the problems are in the business, and if, you know, if, if you're going to fix these problems, then that's just good news for them, so. They actually get on board and I mean. We'd we'd had this first business for about 3 months. And we got, I thought, I need to tell them how we're doing. You know, let's get them together and just tell them what we think about what we've seen so far. And I got the guys together in the workshop, socially distanced, so they're all standing like 2 m apart. And I said, I, you know, 1st 3 months, yeah, we've got challenges, but I just want to tell you all that I'm really impressed with you. Because you've, you've, you've not given us any trouble, you've come in, you've got your heads down, you've done the job. Really impressed with everything you've done. And one of the guys there, he had tears in his eyes. And he said, I've worked here 12 years. And that's the first time anyone's ever said that I've done a good job. Oh man, good for you. And it's just, you know, so it's, it's. With a lot of these old fashioned businesses, you know, there's certain things they, there, there's some things they're good at, there's some things they're not very good at and. People management, people development, training, all that sort of stuff, they're not good at. You know, marketing, sales, they're not good at technology, they're not good at, and that's all the areas that, I mean, we may not know much about engineering, but we know about that. So that's, that's really what we bring, and that's why these guys. Will engage with us because They can see that we bring a dimension that they haven't got. How about out of all the ideas that were coming to you from all these employees, now you got some really loyal ones because you help them feel better about themselves, inspired them. All these ideas, how did you know what the right things or the KPIs or the metrics or what to ring the bell? was to do. Yeah, and it's I mean, some of them are obvious, but we're still, we're still finding that stuff out as we go because. Well, I don't, I. I don't believe in dehumanizing. Businesses, so I don't want to make it just about having lots and lots of numbers and it's all about the numbers. I mean, obviously numbers. Count, but I, I, I don't want to overdo it on that front, and I don't want to make it too complicated because I want them to be able to understand. So, um, I mean we, we straight away we got on to think, you know, the simple numbers like revenue and profit. Um, and again this astonished them because no one had ever told them. How much money the business made before they're just, they just came in 9 o'clock, left at 5 and did their job and didn't take any that stuff was like none of their business and and so I said well look, right now the business has got a revenue of this. And if we can get it to that. Then That makes us happy. So that's what over the next when you say that makes us happy, where you, we're talking about profit sharing. Um, no. No, no, but what it, what we were talking about was a, it secures your jobs, and B. We're talking about pay rises, you know, we'll give you a pay rise because if we make money, you make money, so um I mean I. They They using money as incentives is is something I, I believe you've got to be very careful about. Because you want people to work as teams, you want people to work together, you don't want people just. Out for themselves, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, it's like, and and the other thing is in a small business, you know, everyone knows everybody, everyone can see everybody, so it's easier to get this spirit of look, we're all in this together. So let's pull together and if we can make a pool of money, then we'll get some of it. Um, so you don't have to be too, you don't have to make it too complicated. Um, and So we, yeah, we started to talk to them about. Um, The basic numbers, you know, the idea that we need to make a profit, so we need to price things correctly, we need to look at not only how much are we gonna sell it for, but how much does it cost us to make it. And you took this role, they like just saying, hey, I, I'm gonna be the number one sales guy, the the the the marketing guy or, or No, um. Because they, they The objective was always to build a group. So I mean in the early, the, the, the way it the way it's sort of going. Is that in the early days I'll be there a lot. But the reason I'm there is to, is to build the team. And develop the team within the business so that they can run it day to day. And then I'm like part of head office and so head office helps set the strategy and do things like now getting the businesses to work together. And sell to each other. Um, and look at other acquisitions, that's our job, but the day to day stuff. Is is done within the business. Did you have somebody that was in sales that went out and got the contracts and, and, uh, you know, priced them? Yeah, we, we hired a sales guy for the first business we bought, um, we need, we, we had to find a general manager because there wasn't anyone in the business that could do that. So we hired a general manager. Um, and we hired a sales guy. Did you, do you have the cash flow that would support a new general manager? Were you a sales guy, or we, we had the cash flow to support the general manager. Um, the other thing we had to find actually was an office manager because it was a husband and wife. That had owned it before and the wife ran the the husband was the engineer, so we had to replace. Both of them, so there was money in the budget for that with the sales guy. Um, I mean, my thinking there is if you get a half decent sales guy, they should more than pay for themselves, so. They shouldn't really be a cost, otherwise they're not very good at selling. Right, right, right, right, yeah, well, it's like I think it helped you be in HR recruiting, you knew how to go find people, just a different industry, you knew how to find people, which is probably a benefit. Exactly, yeah, yeah, and we've done quite well on recruiting actually, but as I say it is something that we, we understand that we. Because we've done it. Before, um, Even though it's a different industry, as you say, you're more confident. In hiring people just generally, because you know how it goes and at the end of it all people are people. So whether it's an engineer or or whether it's a lawyer or or you know whatever, there'll be good ones, bad ones, and indifferent ones, there'll be arrogant ones, there'll be really nice ones, there'll be productive ones and unproductive ones and. You've just got it. Ones that you uh hire because you they look great and then you have to let them go in a week because they did something. Yeah, yeah, and ones that say they can do something and then you find out they can't. Yeah. Oh we've had, oh yeah, yeah. I like the story a long time ago I was looking at a software company. We're about 5 million bucks. I wasn't the CEOs business development and they hired this guy that fixed the network because he basically just reset it. He didn't do anything. He didn't program, he didn't fix anything, he just reset it, and then my boss hired him, and then a week later he goes, man, you don't know what you're doing, do you? No, no, I don't. I was, I just reset but. OK, that's just like unplugging something and plugging it back in, OK, yeah. So, uh, what did you do, uh, did you keep that big contract, lose the contract? How's the business going since 2020? It's um Well, we, we, we kept some of it is the answer in the end. I mean, the, the volume is down, but there is still some business from them. Um, we're probably getting about half of what they were giving us before. Um, but, um, an, an interesting twist of fate, the, the company that replaced us. Has just gone bust. So it's quite likely that we're gonna see more. They're they're looking for another supplier. Yeah, yeah, so, um. And yeah, I mean, it's um. It's the the the it's done OK, it needed a lot of investment. And we've done a lot of, we've, we've done a lot of work on that business and it's now in a position where everything is in place. Really, and now it just needs to drive sales. Everything, we've done all the stuff behind the scenes, um. It's just about driving sales of that business now, so it's really ready to ready to. What would you say your ability, uh, machining ability is like a capacity 40%, 60, 70%, you can definitely take on new clients. Oh yeah, no, we could, we, we should. From the, the premises we've got with the machinery we've got, um, we can, we could easily, we could double the, the turnover of that business and, and how we would do that is just by getting more staff and working, doing shift working. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've got, no, we've got the ability to grow that business quite a lot. And it's just about now driving sales, um. And yeah, and it's, it's. It's this changing the culture of the business from. Well we answer the phone and if someone says they want something, then we'll supply it. To a business where you like, let's get out there, let's understand the type of businesses that buy the type of stuff we can make and let's go and let's go and get them. Right, right, right. That longer term, more profitable contracts. It's quite a change, um, but we're. We've come a long way and it's not finished yet, and you know, the whole COVID thing did slow stuff down but. It's come a heck of a long way. Yeah. It's a great learning experience. I mean that's the other thing is we've learned, I, I've learned and my colleagues have learned so much by doing it. You've got to start somewhere and it was, it was nice and small, it wasn't too big. It wasn't simple, but it wasn't overcomplicated either. So it was a great place to start. Yeah. Yeah, those, uh, the machinery, the CNC machinery, very expensive. I, I had a friend that owns a, uh, manufacturing business down here in Tucson, and, you know, he spent $300,000 and it was a kind of a a newer machine and it kept breaking down, which kills your business. Yeah. OK. That is the problem that is the thing with that business, it's, you're relying on. Machinery, which is, which is expensive. Um, even the, even the buying it used is, is not cheap, and if you get a bad one, it's like buying cars, you know, you're buying a, if you went out and bought a, I don't know, say a. 1980s Cadillac. Or there's a you go, yeah, or a you go, yeah. There are some really good ones out there that will run forever, and then there were those that were made on a Friday. And you know, you, you'll always have problems with it, and from the outside you can't tell the difference. Um, so you can just have bad luck with things like that with machines, um. But We, we, we managed to get a couple of new machines. Which have, which has worked out pretty well. A couple of news. Those are financed, right? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's, and that's the only way you can like a lease. Do they do leases today? They, they, yeah they do, or, um, these are on higher purchase, so it's basically like a a lease purchase type arrangement. So you pay like a lease for 5 years and then at the end of it you pay a small amount and you own it. Yeah. Um, so there's, you can do that with, that's a good, I mean it's the only realistic way to buy that type of machinery. Yeah, yeah, there's just 300,000. That'd be too much of a line item to take out of a million pound business. Yeah. Yeah, you could never do it, but, um, you can pick up some decent used machinery as well. I mean, and for businesses going out of business. Welles going out of businesses and there are a whole load of like used machine dealers that. That you can get stuff from and some of that stuff is really, is, is, it's very good. It's just like a few years old, but did you already talk to the uh the owners of the business that took over that contract and ask him to buy them as distressed prices or what? Uh, yeah, that would be the entrepreneurial thing to do. The, the, the, what I've learned though is that I'm not, we're not set up to do those kind of deals. Yeah, yeah. Um, you need to have some, you need to have more cash available than we've got right now, and you've got to be very quick on your feet. You've got to move very fast. Um, and we flirted with it a couple of times, but we're just not. We're just not ready yet to do that kind of thing. Yeah. um, you know, we're much better looking at a business where we've got a bit more time. Yeah. So you, you've got this business, you got the right people in the place, you're bringing in new business, uh, the right machines, everything is humming along and going by itself. At what point did you decide that I, I wanna go acquire another business? If you've done 3 and you did 2 in the last 12 months, yeah, yeah, I mean, and I started looking again. I don't know, probably within about 3 months, 3 to 6 months, 3 months probably actually. So we, I was looking almost before I was ready to do it. Because I know there's a time lag, I know it takes time. And, and the other thing is, if you, if you stop prospecting, you lose all the momentum and the pipeline just kind of disappears very quickly. So the more I'm sort of getting into this and understanding it, the more I realize you've got to keep the pipeline going. So, so like now with the most recent deal, we completed the deal, most recent deal in May. And I, I, the pipeline has just kept running, so that's why hopefully we'll do another one. Around about the end of September or mid October. Yeah, um, and then we've got a couple more coming in behind that and the more active you are, the more credible you are as well, especially if you do a couple of deals, you know, with people like brokers, I mean I had some business brokers who, In the early days, wouldn't talk to me, you know, wouldn't allow us to engage in looking at their, the businesses they had, because it's like, well, there's loads of people out there like you. There's tire kickers. There's all over, yeah. None of you have got any money, why would we engage with you? Um, once you've done a couple of deals and you're talking to them on a regular basis. And you kind of sound like you know what you're doing, then. It's like you've got that credibility then, but you've got to keep it going. Because they'll talk to you because they think you might just be the guy who's gonna do the deal. So that's why they'll talk to you, so you, it means you've got, you've gotta keep moving, you've gotta keep going and. Um, and we're geared up to do that now. I mean, we're still early stage really in what we want to build, but we, you know, we've got a core head office team of 3 people. Um, we've divided responsibilities between us. And It gives me the space to focus on the acquisitions and on. On being the I'm like the, the public face of it. Yeah, that's my job. How do you have that set up financially and legally? You, you have one, company here set in a completely different LLC, another one here in LLC, and you have a holding company on top, and that's you in the front office. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's exactly how we've done it, um. And I mean there's a, the, this is all about focus, you've got to be focused and that's why engineering, engineering and manufacturing is our thing because. If you start wandering around looking at all kinds of weird and wonderful things, then you just lose, well, you lose your credibility and then you lose your momentum. So we've got that focus. And the only other thing that, that we do or we're starting to do as a, as a kind of, again, a bit of a side hustle is. We, we're now getting people coming to us saying, well, can you show me how to do it? Show you how to buy businesses or show, yeah, OK, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, and also. Some business owners coming to us and saying, well, look, I've got this business and I'm thinking I might want to sell it in 3 or 4 years, so what should I do? To get it ready, what, what, you know, for someone like you who's buying businesses, what would you pay money for? So we're getting both potential buyers and potential sellers talking to us a bit, so we're just, and I don't want to lose our focus by doing this. that's a distraction. I think we've got to be careful not to let it become a distraction, but um. What what we do is important. I mean, all right, you know, you want to make some money out of it, but. We're actually doing something which is really important, which is helping these businesses survive into the next generation, and I mean in the UK and the US these businesses, small businesses are like 90% of, The, the, the businesses and the economy, we, we generate. Over half of the GDP comes from small businesses, and over half of the employment comes from small businesses, so yeah, yeah. Having these things healthy and thriving and and going on into the future is really important for our societies and our countries, so, so if we can help other people do what we're doing, then. We're not just benefiting ourselves, we're and we're not just benefiting them, we're helping society. And that's important, you know, we should all be doing stuff to give back. It's not just about how much money can you make. Well, I think, I mean that, uh, that employee that, you know, told you that uh you know, this first time in 10 years somebody's told me we did a good job. Like you can't be a human and not want feedback. Yeah, cause you just become a robot and a pla irreplaceable thing, so yeah. No, exactly, um, so. We, we, we're looking at that as a, as, as, you know, can we do this without losing our focus? because I ask you a question. Do, do you think that's what drives you now versus, let's say 2 to 3 years ago, you know, I want to buy a business cause I want to have income and have more control of my future and yeah and now I see what how important it is, my drive and my why has changed. Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. I mean, I think it was always there. But, but often when you talk about giving. Um, lots of people, a lot of people want to give, but. Don't always know how, you know, don't always know what's the right thing for me to do, to, to give my bit back. You know, for some people it might be going to work in a soup kitchen and handing out food or it, it, you know. It could be going helping in a homeless shelter or whatever, but we're just writing a check, yeah, or, or just writing a check, yeah, but we've all got to find our own way and for me this feels like a good way to do it. um I mean. I'm not Highly motivated by money in itself. I want to create a legacy, I wanna, I wanna. I mean I've got a very loyal and long suffering wife. And I want to make sure that. We've got enough money when, when I want to retire, that she never has to worry about money. Because she's stuck with me through a lot. Well, you know, uh, the, the history of England and Ireland like that long time ago, but, you know, 1700s when you, when the husband died, the money earner, like the wife had like was destitute. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fortunately, these days, hopefully it shouldn't happen, but yeah, and, but I, it's you know it's important. For me, that she's taken care of and, and my kids as well. I mean, although, yeah, they're both into M&A now, right? I saw some, they're both, yeah, they're both, certainly my, my son is, my daughter's working with me. She's my partner in this venture. My son is more successful than us, but we'll catch him up. Um, let me, let me ask you about the, uh, the acquisitions, like the 3. Was there a plan to a strategic strategic plan where they, uh, and let me give you an example. When I worked for Autodesk as a software company, they started buying 3D packages and they found that 3D animation packages, even two competing ones. We at to the customers in different process in the production cycle. So you know they bought uh uh uh one software company and they bought another one because they were two different. They for 10 years they were competing against each other or they so they thought. But they understood that when they looked at the where their customers were using them, they were in two different production cycles. Yeah, and, and the answer is yes, that's what we're doing is, is we're, we're like making a jigsaw. So we're looking for things which fit together and which add to the, add to the whole. Um, so with each business. Each business we're looking at now, the question is how does that sit alongside what we've got already, what does it add? So what can we do if we have this business we couldn't do before, um, and, and also, how can this trade with the businesses that we've got already, cos that's really important as well. Material trades, you mean like buying material? Yeah, yeah, yeah, buying stuff from each other because within these kind of engineering and manufacturing businesses, they all need to buy. Parts and raw materials in. And they're all doing something to them and then selling them and there's lots of opportunities to, to do stuff together, so, um, that's, that's quite important, and then, I mean the plan, and I mean it's not, it's not rocket science and there's no problem with sharing this. The plan is that we, we have a, we end up with a set of basic engineering companies. So we've got our CNC machining business, we've got a fabricating business. I'd love to have a plastic injection molding business, maybe a business that does electrical controls. They're your core businesses that sit at the bottom of the pyramid. And on top of that, I want to find some manufacturing businesses. That then buy components from the businesses on the bottom that supply those businesses or or or sell the business sell the products, yes, yeah, so you've got some vertical integration um and then I want a design capability. But it's like a draft in engineering that would use AutoCAD, yeah, and then we can design our own products. Um, because at the moment, all the stuff we're doing in the businesses we've got is subcontract work, so we're making components for other people. We don't really have our own standalone products. Um, and I want to have some stuff we can take direct to market, not just selling. Elements to other people or somebody else's, yeah, so, um, whether it's B2B or B2C, um, it's interesting cos. I mean the business we bought most recently, fabricating business, they make stuff out of metal tubes. Um, if you look at a lot of furniture, certainly in the UK now, there's everyone's big into this industrial style furniture. Um, and you see it a lot in bars and restaurants, you see it a lot in houses as well, where it's basically steel, it's bits of steel that are welded together, and then it's either got some glass or some wood in it or on it. And it sells for sometimes quite a lot of money. And so why not sell it direct and you take a bigger portion of that, we can make it. So what we need is the designer. Who can come in and and do the sexy, the sexy product range, we can make the stuff and sell it. And then you're just more, you're then more in control aren't you, of, and it's another element, it's another string to your bow. So, so that's, I mean that's the plan in. Yeah, let me ask you about this. I don't have a lot of time left because it's an hour has gone by. Where do you keep the inspiration going? I know that it looks like you're in a mastermind. JT Fox is, I just connected with JT Fox, uh, like 345 months ago, I think. Uh, he reached out to me, so cool. OK. Uh, have you joined the Founders yet? Uh, I have not yet founders, OK, I'll flying, I'll flying we'll have a conversation, but um. Yeah, I mean, JT Fox. And what he has done for me has given me, it's like I had this fire burning inside me, and he's helped me to channel it. Um, And he's introduced me to a whole world full of people that I didn't know existed. Um, so, and, and, you know, people like me, entrepreneurial people, people who want to make something of themselves around the world, not just in the, you know, Europe, US, Canada, all around the world. Yeah, yeah. But that has been, that's been an incredible experience. For me, and I'm extremely grateful to JT for what he's done for me because it's a lot. Um, but I had the fire, so it wouldn't have worked if I had he can't, yeah, he can't light the fire. No, it, right? No, I mean, he can, he can sort of be like the bellows that gives it some extra oxygen. But um but now the fire's got to be there. If there's no fire, you can blow on it as long as you like, you won't get any flames. Yeah. And you read a lot of books. I love books. I spend a lot of money on books on Amazon. Uh, what kind of books do you like to read? Is it more, uh, you know, business related books or all of the above? Yeah, it's um I I like business. Business related books and books that have got ideas and insights into, into stuff, so like right now I'm reading, I got into this guy Adam Grant. Because I just found his book Originals. Um, and read that and went, wow, this is amazing, and so I've just bought another of his books without knowing what it was about, but it's, um, given, called Give and take. Yeah, yeah, I got that one, that's a good book. And, and that's, it's amazing cos it's really opened my eyes and it, and you read something like that and you think, well, hang on a minute, you know, the most successful people I know. Are actually givers An unlimited source of giving, unlimited source. It's, it's, it's so true. And you then you think, OK, and then you think, well, OK, so how should I be behaving? Cause you know, sometimes I'm a giver, but other times I've definitely been a matcher. I'm not sure I've ever been a a bit of a taker, but I've certainly been a matcher, and it's like, OK. It's OK to be a giver, as long as you follow these. Right, right, so, but yeah, stuff like that I just love, and I just, I'll just try and get my hands on anything that will. Help me learn something new, take me in a different direction, give me an insight, so, the best ones are probably when people say read this, it's great. It's the ones where, you know, other people have read it and they go, you need to read this. And almost invariably it'll be something really good and it takes you in a new direction. So, yeah, I mean I, I. And I spend quite a bit of time in the car at the moment, so I just use audiobooks, I'll use Audible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. And listen to them there. And if I like it, I then buy the book, because that's the problem with audiobooks is you can't write, you can't, uh, mark the page or highlight the little section that changed your mind and thinking about something. Yeah. So I was, I end up buying these things twice. I buy it on the, on the audible. Well, audio is usually like $1 or something like a couple dollars, yeah, yeah. Well, that's cool. Yeah, Philip, I appreciate the time spending on top M&A entrepreneurs. I wanna wish you the best of success in the future too. Yeah, thank you. It's been, it's been really cool to be here and um have a chance to talk about it all and to meet you and. Yeah, it's been really good. Maybe someday we'll get to meet each other. I did, uh, a couple of years ago, I was trying to buy a business in, uh, England, London, and I flew over there to try to make a deal. It fell through, but I enjoyed being there for a couple of days. I love Arizona. So I've been to Arizona a couple of times. So I, I will be, I'm, well, I'm coming to the, I've been to the US I think 3 times since September. I'll be in the US again. In November, yeah, I said the weather in uh England, London is the exact opposite of what it looks like in Phoenix and Tucson. You're like, my God, it's sunlight all day. I want to thank you so much, very much, John. It's been great to be here. Thank you. Take care. OK, thanks a lot. Bye.