Episode 188: What’s it like Selling your Company to National Pool Partners? A New Perspective on Service Industry Consolidation
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Episode Summary
Today, we speak with NPP’s President of Texas Hal Denbar and Texas Business Development Manager Amy Engelmann.
After a brief update on how business has fared ever since Patriot joined NPP, we introduce Amy, who talks about her path to eventually partnering with NPP. She and her husband Neil co-owned O'Neill's Pools & Hot Tubs before its transition into Patriot. She looks back on her foray into the pool industry and the early challenges she had to overcome as a business owner, and what eventually drew her to NPP.
Hal then speaks on private equity and the process that led to this consolidation, why he believes that third-party valuations are subpar by comparison, and how this process actually resulted in Hal learning more about his own business and the direction he wants to take it.
Hal and Amy then explain how they are managing all of these moving parts amid year one. They offer tips on creating a sound exit strategy and how sellers may evaluate whether or not to take the plunge. They also speak on how employees have reacted and adjusted after learning that their companies had switched hands. Finally, they discuss the new technologies NPP is introducing in the coming months.
“This is year one,” concludes Hal. “We’re building everything as we go. It’s not a fully formed thing yet. That should smooth out with time because we’ll be more confident with what we’ve built and we’ll be able to roll it out more uniformly.”
Topics Discussed
01:11 - An introduction to Hal and how things have been since Patriot joined NPP
06:02 - An introduction to Amy and O'Neill's Pools & Hot Tubs
10:20 - Amy’s early struggles owning a pool business
13:34 - Why Amy joined NPP
25:36 - Explaining “private equity”
32:37 - Maintaining sound financials and growing the value of your company
36:43 - Value on the marketing side
43:05 - How the seller may evaluate whether to stay on or not
45:49 - How employees reacted when they learned the company had been sold
54:40- How employees can attain growth and development at NPP
Key Quotes From Episode
If you can do what you say you’re going to do, and treat people the way they want to be treated, you shine pretty bright in services industries like this. ~Amy
“Private equity” is really just private investors pooling money to purchase companies and invest in them for the long term. ~Hal
The more data you accrue as a company, the more valuable your company is going to be, because there are actually hard metrics to judge it on. It’s not just taking somebody’s word that, “This is how it’s always been and this is how it’s always going to be.” ~Hal