Got a business you thought you would never sell? Can't trust trade buyers and vulture capitalists not to pillage your loyal workforce once you've retired? Then a privately funded business in Manchester aimed at building a diverse range of businesses under its wing could be for you.
CorpAcq, founded by entrepreneur and chairman Simon Orange, is aiming to build a portfolio of businesses in sectors as diverse as food, financial services, engineering, healthcare building products and plant hire.
“We’re not a turnaround fund. We want to buy old-style businesses with good management,” said Orange. “Any seller interested in the future of their business should know we never cost cut or make redundancies – we’ve always tried to give businesses a new lease of life.
“We pay good money for businesses and we’re in it for the long term. We’ve never put more than two times profits onto a company as debt. It got ridiculous with private equity investors paying nine times earnings, but we have less debt and tend to buy better-quality businesses than most,” he said.
The group had two deals in the pipeline as Insider went to press and has formed three seperate divisions to run its portfolio. Wirral’s Vista Group and Regency Glass from Leigh make up the Building Services group. The Plant group consists of Metcalfe Plant Hire and Filtermech, based in Yorkshire.
The management team at CorpAcq consists of Orange, Legal Director Gary Black, Managing Director Geoff Robinson and Finance Director David Martin.
Orange said buying businesses has proved much more lucrative and enjoyable than start-ups. He said he raised the initial funding with “my contacts, then took loans and equity investments from funds and investors”.
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