60+ Acquisitions and $250M in Value E: 18 Mathew Wainwright Top M&A Entrepreneurs

Mhm Hi. Welcome to the uh top M&A entrepreneurs podcast. I've got a guest Matthew Wainwright. Matthew was a partner to Paul Seabridge and uh they do deals together. So, Matthew, welcome, you're uh from Spain, right? Yeah, thank you very much, John. Very excited to to join the the conversation. Yep, uh, currently in very young guy too, like 23, 24, 23, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So you guys partner with Seabridge. Seabridge has done like what, uh, 60 deals or something or 65 right now, I believe, at the time have any idea what that represents in dollar value or so? Yeah. Um, so revenue wise, uh, around 250 million, um, that's with own money, so it's not going external. Obviously you go for like bank borrowing, normal bank debt, and so on, but, um, yeah, around 250 million in, in revenue, um, and we recently acquired uh UK salads, uh, to it, so that's gonna add another 50, so I'm not sure whether that's gonna go to 300 or even further. So, uh, salads and tulips, so is this like uh produce or grocery or or or just farm? What is it? So it's pretty much uh lettuce, uh, tomato, peppers, uh, they're distributed all around Europe. UK supermarkets need that kind of, you know, food and that kind of. Um, yeah, food in, in their supermarkets and, uh, yeah, where as UK sell us as an entity we wholesale that over to the likes of Aldi, um, and we're trying to open accounts with Tesco, not sure whether you guys have, yeah, that's in Europe, yeah, yeah, so they're they're super big supermarkets and supplying around 85% of the supply, uh, for Aldi in the UK and in Germany. So it's um. It's quite a lot of volume, I guess, yeah. So let's go back how you got started in M&A. Now, uh, you guys, from what I understand, you guys went to a same course together. What was that course that was from one of the big name guys like. Yeah, so that was through uh Jeremy, um, Jeremy Harbor. Um, it's, uh, I, I learned a lot. Uh, it was a great course to, you know, especially really early in, in my career. Um, I was like 1920 at the time, um, thought I was a big boy now, so I wanted to do M&A, uh. And then realized that there's so much to learn. Um, so that gave me a very good foundation on how to approach, I guess, the M&A world from a newbie, uh, point of view. Well, let me ask you, what was going through your head in 1920 and, and, uh, said Matthew said, hey, I, I, I'm not gonna go the traditional route, which is go to school and get a job. I, I, I wanna go start businesses, buying businesses and working above. Where did that thinking come from? Um, I, I think from like an extremely young age, I, I was a typical guy trying to sell stuff at school, um, very, very, very curious about business, always thinking about like different ways of approaching different markets, um. Uh, yeah, just very, very interested in business in general. Uh, I saw that the 9 to 5 thing was gonna pretty much, um, Yeah, not be my thing at all, uh, just because there wasn't the passion behind it. You weren't gonna be, um, exploring new avenues, you weren't going to have the freedom to make your own choices, although, you know, as a business owner, you're quite restringent with other things, right? Um, it may not be time, but it may be resources, maybe be capacity to attract new people and so on, um, but Yeah, uh, overall, I, I just couldn't think the 9 to 5 thing could be an attractive way to, to move forward. Um, is that something, uh, that your parents instilled in you, or was you just offshoot of something different? I mean, everybody's read the Richard Francis stories. I think I've read three of Richard's books and everybody follows him. He's like, he's an incredible entrepreneur, you know, chores, businesses, etc. yeah, yeah. Yeah, I, I, I've always been a very big fan of Richard Branson, um, lots of entrepreneurs in the UK and the US as well, um. Uh, I just really liked the adventure behind entrepreneurship. Um, personally, my dad, uh, went down the corporate route, so he went up, you know, to, through, uh, a company called Microsemi, uh, became the vice president there, saw the, the time restrictions and the location restrictions that a job gave him, um, and I saw that I didn't want that for myself. And then my mom is a teacher, uh, so really the entrepreneurial. Thing has come more through myself and more through me than yeah, any external parties, although my dad did when they ask you what you're doing, did they just say, Well, you better get a job. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I mean, uh, definitely in the beginning, uh, it, it did become a, a point of where there was a lot of discussion happening, a lot of arguments. Um, until you bring results home, right? Um, then, you know, then it's good, like, oh, OK, great. I was like, uh, yeah, yeah, it's like I just, you know, we're talking about Paul McCartney, just imagine like, hey dad, I wanna be a musician. Oh, musician, how are you gonna ever make money? Yeah, Paul McCartney is a billionaire, so no, until you make it, right, like until you start uh living for yourself, then yeah, that then yeah. The talk starts to become reality. So Paul Seabridge now, did he get started before you and you join him with him as partner and how how did that go? Yeah, so, um, Paul started a recruitment company. Uh, you know, he started very young as well as an entrepreneur. I think it was like 21, 22, um, from then he started a recruitment company, uh, sold that in 2010. Um, and he started using that capital to acquire more and more businesses. Um, initially, I think over an 8-year period, initially he started acquiring a business a year, so just one per year, um, and then once he did the course on M&A, that's when he pretty much went, yeah, monastically focused on acquiring more and more companies towards the rates that we currently have, which is 16 companies per. Yeah, uh, you've already acquired 16 companies or the goal is 16 companies per year. So last year, um, we acquired 16 companies, um, and this year we're on track to do pretty much the same numbers, um. That's amazing. Now, so how does that deal set up like normally somebody's good at one thing and you know, the negotiation and another person's good at the, you know, uh, deal creating deal flow, what does that look like? Yeah, so that this, um, when I started, I thought I could do everything, right? I thought you could do deal flow, you can then negotiate, and then you can uh create the deal structure, you can negotiate that deal structure, and then you can close it and then operate it. So there's like so many different um like yeah. Yeah, there's so many different buckets that you need to learn, uh, that's you, you, ideally you need a team of 4 to 5 working on M&A within a firm, right? One doing the deal sourcing, one doing the negotiation, kind like prospecting, next one, structuring the deal and then closing the operation. Um, we personally, if you want to know my focus is on the negotiation side of things. Uh, and the deal structure side of things. Um, we've got a person doing the deal flow, uh, that generates around 600 opportunities every single year right now. Um, and then, uh, Paul would do the closing and then the operational side of things together with the management team of that company. Do you guys, is it, uh, you guys working together, uh, and you know, how your structures is it 50/50 or 2575 or what does that look like? Um, in terms of equity split wise, so. Yeah, so, um, I currently for every deal that I work in with Paul that I get introduced to, uh, I would get 15% equity equity stake inside the company, um, um, and then it would be kind of like split between different partners, uh, from there, um, have some other partners that are good at some of those buckets than others, right. Yeah, yeah, pretty much, um, and then from there if I were to, you know, source a deal, then I would get more. It depends on the value that you bring towards the deal at the end of the day. So what do you find an affinity for or like doing sourcing the deals or negotiating or or integration or what? I, I personally uh love talking to business owners. Um, I love. Uh, seeing where they're at sometimes you speak to, you know, 50 year olds that have built €100 million or revenue business, uh, and other times you speak to others they're looking to retire and move on to another venture. So it's extremely exciting to, you know, see where people are at in their business life cycle and what their experience has been building up that business. Uh, that's really, really exciting for me. Um, now, do they have any pushback? I mean, if you today you're doing a lot of Zoom calls or phone calls, like, hey, I would like, what is a 23 year old, you know, asking me to buy my business for 100 million? Where's that coming from? Yeah. Um. That, that, that, so that's a strange one. I've only had one person uh reference my age, actually, um. So, and that was a, a broker in the US who wanted kind of like a Paul or Goran, who's the other partner to join the call to make the offer. But apart from that, it's, it's been OK. It's about, it's about your confidence, um, I believe, and I've found it's about, you know, the way in which you pitch and way, the way the confidence that you've got, um, nothing. So how do you, how do you approach a business and you open a discussion with the, the, the executive, the, the owner? Yeah, um, initially we would send in an email. I would send an email or get introduced to him by email, um, take that to a Zoom call. Within the Zoom call, we would just try and create a bit of report, so try and, you know, generate the conversation, relationship happening, getting to know each other. Um, and then we would focus on kind of where he's at in the business life cycle after make it, uh, after I make my own introduction, um, um, and then take it from there really. It's, um, it's a script is you're saying the same thing to everybody and you know, the key is like when you're saying something, you are starting to identify, you know, I want a sell signal. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, so we, I've got my own pitch uh going on every single time I talk to business owners, um, so it's kind of like, you know, telling our story behind how we founded the business. So Paul sold his recruitment business, and that, and then he started, you know, acquiring more and more companies, uh, and what we are now. So we've acquired, you know, we've got a portfolio of companies, different industries and so on, um, and then from there I would try and uh Tell them, look, we partner with two types of business owners, those that are looking to exit their business, and those that are looking for that additional growth engine that could come in organically. Um, so that's the type of business that we focus on. So I'm pretty much trying to identify whether they want to grow or they want to sell. If they want to grow, we've got this partnership where we'll go fifty-fifty equity split wise on new acquisitions with the business owner himself. Uh, where he would bring the operational side of things and we would bring the capital resources due diligence team, M&A team to make that acquisition happen. And then other acquisition on top of his business. Yep. OK, gotcha. All right. Yeah. Do you bring in any uh like marketing to for organic growth, or do you say, you know, a lot of these companies are Well, you're gonna get, you know, maybe 10 or 15 at the most, 30% growth, spending X amount of money or it's better allocation of capital if we just acquire a business and double the size in a year. Yeah, so pretty much both. We've got an equity stake inside a marketing company, um, so we're utilizing that pretty much just, you know, your business partner Roland, uh, uses for, you know, he brings in the marketing side of things to bump up the, the, the sales. We've got that already, uh, implemented if we wanted to. Um, sometimes what we found is that if you grow through sales like organically too much, then you tend to, you know, uh, stretch yourself too thin. Um, on the, you know, the working capital side of things. So, you know, acquiring a new business is kind of like a value hack, right? Yeah, so how does that structure look if you, you know, you, you come on it with a new business and it's a $50 million business, uh, we'd like to acquire 50% of it, did you say? Um, so on new acquisitions, if you were to partner with the business owner, yeah, to partner with the business owner and grow through M&A, yeah, yeah, and those new acquisitions would go fifty-fifty with the business owner and ourselves, yeah. And the, the guy, the executive stays in that role for how long, for a couple of years. It, it depends on the market. If there, if there comes an offer and it makes sense for all parties, then we sell, um. When you, when you find a good business that you see those two buying signals, either they want to stay on, uh, and grow, or they want to exit out, uh, and you bring this package to Paul and Warren and your other guys and you just kind of sit around the table and go, hey, is this a deal we want to pursue or what? Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then you guys now Paul has a fund that he's created after selling that HR company a few years back, or has that grown? So that, um, so that's a great, extremely good question. Um, we're currently raising the fund right now to go after, um, you know, to go and acquire companies in different industries, one of them being food and beverage. So that's, that's gonna be €100 million fund, and then the other deals that we're doing is to leverage buyouts. So sometimes we'll plug in some equity on our side. Plus the debt that you're able to uh get out of the current assets of the business and give that upfront to the business owner and have some deferred consideration uh just to protect the goodwill that the owner has built over the years um and for the, you know, the best employee to not leave on day one, right, at the end of the day. So how do you structure when somebody comes in and goes, yeah, I, I'll sell it. I got a $25 million business and are you looking for? You know, I'll come in at no money out of my pocket, your pocket, uh, or are you going to put some kind of down payment and the rest is deferred compensation. Um, are you asking me personally or, or Palencia? Uh, or both, both of you on both of your sides because you bring these deals to which is your fun now, right? Yeah. So, uh, through Opelencia we'll, uh, look at, so, uh, first of all, the business owner has to have a realistic expectation, um, so you know, a lot of business owners want, uh, a big payout on day one. That's something that we're not currently doing. Uh, reason for it is, you know, at the SME level, the risk tends to be on the owner himself having a lot of the goodwill within the company, um, hence why, you know, we, we tend to give normally around 50% upfront and then 50% deferred. Um, uh, in terms of out of our own pocket, we do leverage, uh, so we do leverage buyouts, um, so we'll utilize, you know, financial instruments like SBA's, uh, normal bank debt through, you know, different banks in the UK where we've got a track record. Uh, we don't need to plug in, uh, the personal guarantee anymore, um, after you build, you know, a good foundation for yourself. Banks want to, um, you know, lend you money, right? That's how they make money. So after a while, once you get a good track record, we're able to leverage the business up and give that as a as an upfront payment uh to the business owner himself, and then we do kind of like plug in the deferred. Um, yeah, the deferred consideration on a, on a note, low note, pretty much. And then from a bank or is it how often is it a seller note versus a, you know, a bank note or just it depends on whatever the situation is. Yeah, yeah, it really depends. Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting, and, and sometimes you'll use those assets as collateral for loans to also purchase the business kind of the carveouts to also, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's very interesting. So you're working on a uh a grocery business. Now, why did you, how did you find a grocery business? Because sometime, you know, sometimes when you're it's like, hey, I want to go after IT businesses, that's all you do is you send mailers to IT business, you reach out on LinkedIn, you do all that, but how did you come across a grocery business? Um, so that, that's, uh, You know, the, the type of, it's not only groceries, but the type of companies that we go after tend to be traditional, um, so anything that's not sexy. We'll look at, uh, and by not sexy I mean not, you know, hasn't got not a thin tech or anything exactly, exactly, um, so we, you know, we, we see a lot of value in working with, uh, owners that, as I said, uh, maybe from the baby boomer generation, they may be looking to retire. They've got a good business that, you know, supplies products to normal civilians that use it on a everyday basis. Um, and you know, within that category, there's obviously fresh produce, there's, um, what else am I looking at right now? Insurance companies, uh, taxi companies, uh, transportation, construction. Yeah, so those are very different, uh, KPIs and, you know, whatever rings the bells. I mean, how do you, how do you bring the expertise to either grow them or to say, or or you just leave that in the back and say, OK, we're just gonna acquire another insurance business to add onto your insurance business cause you don't need to be experts at growing your insurance by 30% a year. Yeah, so one of the main things that I learned from Paul, like the actually the main thing is he's a manager, he's not a business owner, so he'll put in, uh, he'll like close the gaps where he doesn't have the knowledge with people that have the knowledge, so that he's able to, you know, spending time, his time on closing more and more deals and he just puts the expertise where it needs to be, um. So you know, let's say that he's not, he's never going to know as much about insurance that someone that's been there for 20 years. So we'll go and find someone that's been there for 20 years, give him some equity inside the business, and then have that compensation, um, you know, all the alignment of interest happen, uh, uh, accordingly, in a way. So you needed to find somebody insurance. how do you do that? You just go out like, well, he was a recruiter, right? He was an. Yeah, yeah, you answer my own question. Yeah, exactly, yeah, well, that's kind of handy skill to have to find right people. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and uh this is a really big question that I get everybody with a lot of the M&A is like how do you get paid? Are you guys? On a distribution of profits, you come on a salary or you know, there's a lot of people that get in the M&A business and they acquire a business and they, they don't get, they don't pay themselves anything. Uh, and then they, well, I'm only gonna get paid because we're gonna increase the value of it I'll sell it in 3 years. Yeah, yeah, that's, so that's that's also a very good question. I mean, um, there's different ways in which we pay ourselves on day one, we'll pay ourselves a deal fee. So, uh, sometimes you're able to leverage, uh, more of the assets that you're going to give upfront, so you kind of like the difference between what you're able to leverage and what you're gonna give the owner, you can take out as a deal fee, so as a compensation for yourself. So that's one, then on the quarterly or annual basis you're able to give yourself dividends, um, so on the shareholders agreement we'll put in that we want to distribute. Uh, a certain amount of dividends every single year to the shareholders on an equal basis. Uh, our number tends to be as high as possible, quite honestly, um, um, so we can go up to 80% just because, you know, our thought process is business are there to, uh, give us money, not to put money into, um, and then management fees. Um, and then at the end of the day, you know, where you make the, the, the fit, you know, the big fat, uh, bell ring is at the end of the day when you exit, right? Um, so what is the, the end goal here? Are you guys gonna acquire, I mean, you got 16 from last year, you're gonna probably hit 16 this year and, and it's, you know, the insurance, there's grocery, there's all kinds of stuff, but in that portfolio. As a, as a bundle, because I have a little experience with private equity funds. They're they're gonna say, well, gosh, this is, you know, really diverse set of companies and I don't have the skills and the management to be expertate each one of those. Yeah, but, you know, you're doing $250 million in revenue, that's fantastic, right? Yeah. Yeah, um, I, I think at the end of the day, our model is to buy and build, so by a company in a certain industry and then plug in companies that make sense towards it in order to build a larger group. Um, the, the end goal is to, and I was speaking to Paul the other day, um, is to try and build a billion euro, uh, yeah, a billion dollar, uh, group, uh, and then try and exit that over a three-year period. So we do have the volume, um, but at the end of the day, you know, it's about selling because that's when you make the, the capital, that's when you make the money, um, big, big payouts with the, uh, you know, double digit multiples. Yeah, yeah, pretty much, um, so that's, you know, that's gonna come down the line. We're starting to generate conversations with potential buyers as well, um, uh, and there's a lot of buyers, you know, that may not want the entire portfolio but may want one company, so we've got another one that we're looking to sell to this other company. So, you know, if your company is doing well, there's buyers out there, um, and if you're able to facilitate that exit, um, or facilitate that buy-in from the buyer side. Um, it's a lot easier, uh, which is something that, you know, uh, a lot of people don't tend to look into that are currently selling their business for the first time, uh. So how long do you see the process normally taking with an acquisition? Uh, from, uh, sending a mailer out to email to having that first conversation. Uh, it would be if it's email or LinkedIn, probably like 2 to 3 days, um, if it's mail probably a week, um, and then from the first conversation towards closing if the business owner is unmotivated. It'll take you between 8 to 12 weeks um from and motivate, how do you define motivated? They're just sick and tired of managing all the bills and the people and everything else. Yeah, 100%. So that's one, sick and tired. Uh, they want to travel to another country and they've got this business here, they want to exit. Uh, some of them just want to retire, uh, all the times, um, sadly enough, it's health issues, um, so some business owners. You know, have reached an age where they've got some health issues or they're young but they have some, some issues going on and that, you know, prevents them from running the business effectively and they want to exit and capitalize on their value, create it, um, and that's kind of the three main, three main reasons. Yeah, and then just when you bring the deal package, you're kind of the in the bucket of like, I like the deal flow and then you bring it to Paul and Warren and And you guys like, hey, is this a green light or red thumb or should we make an offer on it? Yeah, um, once, you know, I, I kind of know now what is gonna work and why it isn't just because of the experience that I've built, um, but at the beginning it was more of a, yeah, let, let me introduce you deals and see what works, what doesn't. Now you can get it, I can have a glance or glimpse, sorry. Uh, on a, on a company and I'll know whether it's gonna work or not. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. Um, who handles like the integration bucket or let let me like this way, who handles the negotiation part of it, saying, hey, we, we think that's the valuation on this business for this grocery business tulip is is X amount, and then, you know, the guy that's selling it thinks it's worth X times 5, you know, and you're kind of way off who handles that negotiation part. So, um, before we give the number. Um, we give the reason why we got to that number, um, and we show uh data and facts as to how we got to that number. So we don't wanna, uh, overpay, but we don't want to underpay. So like in the middle point. Um, well, what do you mean underpay, underpay being in that, it would be insulting to him, or, yeah, exactly, yeah. I mean, you, you want to respect what they've built over the years. Um, obviously there's some, you know, good offers out there, um, uh, and you want to capitalize on that, but overall, if we're gonna come in cold uh and give an offer. Uh, we'll look at kind of like medium multiples within that, uh, industry. Um, it's a 3 multiple, you know, I'm not a guy that was quibbles between a 3 and a 3.2 because it's usually only a couple months difference of cash flow, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, uh, sometimes you want a partner in this guy. If he's gonna stay on, you want him as a partner. You want him to be happy. Everybody's got to come away walking like, hey, I feel like successful in this negotiation. Exactly, yeah, so I mean you're never gonna, you're not gonna go very far if you don't do the win-win deals, right? Um. So we, yeah, we, we just reason it. Uh, we've got very good deal flow, um, and if sometimes, you know, the business owner just says, yeah, I want 10 times what you're gonna pay me. Well, it was good to meet you. Let's shake hands and See in a couple months' time if you've had any offers. Yeah, it is funny because I just had this conversation with somebody on my mastermind, uh, on Facebook this morning, you know, the guy thinks it's worth this. This is the very first time anybody's offered him anything. And I said, he's just not motivated. He's, you gotta, you know, he's gonna go through this discovery process of figuring out, oh my God, somebody's just offering me money. Let me go find out on Google what my business is worth. And he's either gonna say, well, wow, that's, it's not worth what I think it's worth. I'm gonna just keep the business. Yeah, barely does he sell, oh my God, it's worth what the seller is I need to sell. That's yeah, it doesn't happen, but they may come back around. You just gotta have some money to your deal flow. Yeah. It's, it's a long term game. I, I would say if you want to be successful in this game, give it 5 to 10 years, um. Just because, you know, when you start the conversations, that's when people start generating interest about selling, then they have the expectations up here. Time goes through, they don't start generating kind, you know, offers, and at some point you meet their threshold, and that's when the deal happens. Yeah. Do you guys have, does Paul and you have the same deal team working with you as far as like attorneys and accountants? It's, is it the same people? Yeah, uh, same people and they work on a, uh, contingency basis. So we, you know, if the deal happens, then we'll get paid. If it doesn't happen, then we don't anyone, no one gets paid, um, so is it, is it an attorney or something that's licensed in? You know, Europe and uh Australia and England and everywhere and United States or do they, is it, um, so Paul takes charge of that side of things, so, uh, you know, I, I'd rather have a conversation with him before I confirm, but, uh, for each jurisdiction, we would have our own lawyers pretty much, and the way in which we work with them would be, uh, same model at the end of the day. Um, which is. When you guys, when you do a deal, you find a deal, and this is, it's on your own, right? You find a deal and they say, OK, uh, this guy wants to sell and everybody gives it a green light. Do you create in the United States, we would create, let's say, a holding company and a bunch of LLCs under that. how is that done in like UK and Spain and everywhere where you got Paul's in Australia right now, right? Yeah, um, pretty much the same, same way, um, we'll create like we've got a holding company and then we'll create SPVs we call them, so like little, um, companies, um, and we make the acquisitions through the SPVs. Because you want to protect kind of the holding company, right? You want to protect the different companies within the group. Yeah, and you guys would just say every time you bring a deal is it, you know, you know, I brought the deal it's 15, 25%, you guys get 75%, etc. and then yeah, you do it over and over again, yeah. Yeah, exactly. rinse and repeat, wash hands. Do you have any goals of saying I'd like more of the deal to get involved in other of the other buckets of expertise? Uh, yeah, I, I mean, right now I don't have a, uh, I will want more of deals, uh, obviously, but right now my focus is more on learning and on adding value to, to companies, uh, and as I personally at least uh grow as an M&A person. Uh, then I look to do my own deals. I look to partner up 50/50 with other people, with Paul. Um, that's kind of like the, the vision, I think. So I got a question. This is kind of personal, but, uh, yeah, what do you think your, your worth, like this is clickbait because everybody loves us. You were, how much is your work changed? Um, you know, that were changed in the last 2-3 years working with Paul. Um, It's gone up. It's, it's gonna, it's got, yeah, it's, it's going up, uh, definitely, um, I, I would have to be extremely honest. I haven't capitalized on any of it, so the shareholder value is starting to build up. Yeah, and it's like, uh, Warren Buffett, and you know, if you look at this figure, I mean, yeah, a millionaire at uh, at I think 50 years old, it's only, you know, between 60 and 80 has he become the multibillion. Exactly, um, it's, yeah, it's, it's going up, it's going, I'd rather, I'd rather keep it for myself. No, no, I don't need a number on that. I just, uh, it's a, it's kind of a clickbait thing and we're like, this is one of the fastest ways to build wealth is acquiring a business with existing revenue. 100%, yeah. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, I mean, it's super exciting because you talk to different business owners all day long. Um, you get to try and like, you know, it's kind of like a game, right? You're like playing your game, you're trying to sell things, you get off, like the offer accepted, then rejected, then like, oh shit, what did that happen? Why did that happen? Then you come back, you try and change your way of pitching, it's. It's super, super exciting. So what's the kind of the craziest uh uh request from sometimes the seller wants a very specific thing, like, hey man, I'll, you know, I don't really care. I just want a boat, or I just want a great watch or something like that. Yeah, um, so there was this funny story where there was an engineering company, uh, the owner was around 65, um, and I was sounding like, what, so why do you want to sell? And he was like, well, I'm just fucking tired, mate. So I was like, OK, OK, I just wanna, and then after saying that he was like, I just want to go on a caravan down to the south of Spain and enjoy myself over there. That's literally his own request, you know, in the UK, like the weather tends to be quite. Quite bad, to be honest. Uh, it's always raining and so on. Uh, so there's a lot of people that go down to the south of Spain where the weather is super nice, you get 25 degrees every single day. Um, so that's what he wanted to do, and I was like, OK, let's try and create a deal structure that will give you that. Um, was it in in monetary value like just cash, or did you set them up with a place there and, you know, pay for the whole thing? Uh, whoa, I mean, that's that's the reason I asked that. Let me, let me give you an example. I had this uh buddy buying an engineering floor in Florida, and he found out the woman selling who took over for her husband who died, was a big lover of cats, and I said, you know, he called me up and I said, well, put something on the offer. Well, you're, you know, you will fund, you know, cat lover farm or something. Pay for that. You know, you know, empathetic sympathetic way of like helping her out. That's a, that's a, that's a funny request. That is, that's uh an interesting one. Well, I got this other one was, uh, I have a buddy that made an offer on a chicken e-commerce company, huge business. He said, I'm only selling it to somebody that loves chickens. They got chickens. And did he sell it or no because I don't love chickens that much. I love, but I don't love chickens that much. I love eating them. I can tell you, I the eggs and stuff like that, yeah. And look at Mattia, um, I know that we didn't have a lot of time here. How are we doing on time? We're good. I've got 5 more minutes. So what do your parents, uh, think of what you're doing now? They're like, oh gosh, my son, the Richard Branson of not, not, not, not yet, uh, but I mean they're they see I'm very focused on what I'm doing. I, you know, I was back in the office uh at one a.m. back from the office at 1 a.m. yesterday, um. You know, super, super focused on like building a large thing over the next 10 to 15 years, uh, and try and set myself up for, for life pretty much. Um, so they're, you know, they see that I'm working extremely hard, um, and they like that, right? Um, um, I'm also building a part-time business as well, which could be quite interesting for some of the audience. Which is around generating deal flow for um all the M&A companies um so that's starting to build up. Tell us about it. What is it? What are you, what are you doing? Yeah, so it's what I found was um that there's a lot of companies with like boutique companies that know how to structure the deals, know how to operate those companies, but don't have the deal flow, um, and at the end of the day, if you don't have deal flow. You don't have a business. Yeah, we, we've got 900 members in our mastermind. That's the number one request is deal flow, 100%, um, and that's what I do what I'm doing right now for other firms. So Boutiquetasks.com is the name of the, of the company, um, task.com. So boutique, as like boutique, um, and then tasks as like tasks, things to do. I'll put that in the YouTube and all the links there, definitely. Yeah, that, that would be awesome, um, and pretty much the only focus on scaling, um, uh, like private equity firms up through uh contacting decision makers in the markets in which they want to enter and generating deal flow, um. So I'm working with two other uh private equity firms on that uh on that side. One is in the US and the other one is in London, um, and their stocks are, are there. So if anyone. Monthly fee to do that or, uh, whatever, very flexible in terms of um what the price could be or how to structure that. uh, it's normally a recurring revenue or recurring like, you know, fee on a monthly basis to begin with. Um, and as, as they see the results happening, we could do like lead by lead or we could, you know, look at all the ways of structuring that. Yeah, just curious, how often do you keep up in touch with people in your deal flow funnel? I mean, you reach out with a letter or an email or LinkedIn. And then you put them in a CRM system and keep contact it automatically, or is that, uh, just, you know, hey, I need to contact to contact this guy it's in your deal and send him a, yeah. So you, you, that's a, that's a really good, good, good, good question. Um, I've got PipeDrive as a CRM um and PipeDrive is pretty much, you know, you're able to look at your pipeline. Um, we get like, so initially we get two contacts, one is, um, Once we send out the request, they'll come back. If they come back, then we add it to PipeDrive. We'll have to um kind of like messages sent out. If they reply to that and we get on the call, then they're like the book of call column. Uh, once we get to the book of call, we'll uh put them into the NDA send, accounts received, then proposal stage, and then on the proposal they'll either accept the proposal um or they won't. Those that don't want to accept the proposal will add them to a revisit column. Um, and we'll have 6 months, every 6 months, we'll send them a follow-up saying, hey, would you be interested in chatting through what we chat, you know, what we had a conversation about 6 months ago, um, or not, um, and those that, you know, it's about. Having, you know, consistent deal flow being on top of, on top of mind of those business owners, is that now to build a pipeline for deal flow through you or is it like independent saying, hey, do your own financing, do your own negotiation, integration, everything else. Would, would that be through boutique tasks or through they went through the boutique task, would it kind of be a pipeline to you? And I'm not saying that's wrong or right. I mean, and Frazer has Epic Group and he's got 1000 people sending them deal flow, which is, yeah, um, so if someone were to come in as a client, they would have their own pipeline and all the deals would be just for himself. Um, if he wanted me to, you know, work on some of the deals we could also do that, um. But ideally kind the situation would be to try and build up a pipeline for himself so they can have recurring opportunities coming to his desk in a way. Yeah really way to get good at this is do more of it. I mean, you have this like one deal coming every month and negotiate just not enough. Uh, I mean, just to give you an idea, in order to close 16 companies, we're talking between Gordon and I, which is, uh, kind, it's kind of like our role within Opulentia. We talk to around 3 new companies each every single day, every single day. And how many people are you mailing, emailing, LinkedIn? Thousands, thousands every day, yeah, not, not every day, but like, uh, every, every week, yeah, yeah, I, I believe it and, and you're buying list from wherever it is info USA or wherever that company is, you're mailing them and Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Hey, I know we're out of time Matthew. I really appreciate you taking your time to do this, uh, with you, kind of a plug for this. If you guys uh like what you're hearing, please subscribe uh on the button below. Matthew, uh, have a great day in Spain and a great workout the rest of the day. Yeah, thank you, John. I'm hoping to connect with the audience if you want to have a chat, very open to to having a chat, discussing anything. Um, if anyone needs to, um, from a young person's point of view or, you know, a more experienced one, if they need someone like Paul to come into the conversations and so on. So I gotta tell you, if you're gonna be on the planet for another 20 years, watch this guy, uh, because he may be the next Richard Branson, uh, let's see. Let's see. Let's see. All right, thank you very much, Matthew. Take care. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye bye.