Patrick Grove

ETA. Buying cash flow positive businesses. Lower middle market. It’s such a small world. From Sweden to America, back to Germany and the UK, all the way to Malaysia and Singapore… In March this year, I attended the Serial Acquirers conference in Stockholm. I met around 60- 70 people. Everyone knew exactly why they were there, it was very easy to introduce yourself and get the conversation going. At the end of Day 1 I saw Patrick Grove, the Singaporean / Australian entrepreneur who I knew had taken 5-6 companies from startup to IPO. I tapped him on the shoulder, shook his hand and introduced myself. After talking for a few minutes, I mentioned podcast and started talking about business podcasts he is listening , opened up his phone and what did I see? A few logos. One of them: “Buyers & Builders” - white letters on a black background. I let him do his thing, scrolling all the way down to the serial acquirers episodes. He said he listened to those. I then asked if he knew the guy who was doing them. “No…” I then said I’m the guy, and he burst out laughing saying he knows me. Showed the twitter, following PrivateEquityGuy there as well. High energy and very enthusiastic as he was . We kept talking and he introduced me to his business partner and CEO, Eric. We hit it off and it turns out they’re building a serial acquirer in Southeast Asia. We kept in touch and today I had Eric on the podcast. Before buying businesses, Eric was a startup founder who had to let 80 people go and eventually shut down the entire firm… He moved forward, started seriously learning and studying Mark Leonard and the Constellation Software playbook. Time went by and they met with Patrick. You never know… While sharing what they were both reading, they discovered they had both been studying Constellation and the vertical market software playbook. Patrick then backed the idea and they started buying businesses. Fourteen acquisitions later, they’ve built a portfolio spanning media, B2B expos and SaaS. All in Southeast Asia, covering three languages. Eric said the group generates $30M in top-line revenue and $6M in EBITDA. Doing a podcast with someone you’ve spent hours talking to in person is very different. It’s like talking to an old friend. Eric was very generous and shared all the details, from sourcing to value creation and capital allocation decisions at the group level. And everything between. We recorded the whole conversation. It’s now in the hands of the editor. Posting soon.