Why most roll-ups fail, and what it takes to turn ten companies into one. An operator's playbook for IT services Buy and Build, set against two decades of M&A research.
An operator's view of the work that starts after the deal closes, set against two decades of M&A research from McKinsey, Bain, and BCG.
Four failure modes behind most roll-ups, and why each is an operating failure, not a deal failure. Deals rarely die at signing. They die in the months after it.
The financial tailwind is gone and operations replaced it. The valuation gap, four straight years of DACH multiple compression, and why this market is uniquely ripe right now.
What a decade of software-deal returns really shows: growth does most of the work, multiple expansion is fading, and margin is the hardest lever and the one that separates the top quartile.
Twenty years of evidence that a steady, repeatable acquisition programme beats occasional big deals, at higher returns and lower risk. The winning model is an engine, not a bold deal.
The Integration Engine: four stages applied in a deliberate order, Commercial first and Brand last, with a flywheel that makes each deal faster than the one before it.
What moves a founder-led shop to re-rating-ready: recurring revenue, customer concentration, owner independence, and standardised processes, plus when each lever lands over five years.
A practical decision aid: which role you actually play, what a serious buyer looks for, and the one question every founder should ask, are they buying you to integrate you, or to park you?
A platform creates value by running every company through the same machine. Four stages, applied in a deliberate order.
Commercial first, brand last. Each acquisition put through the engine should make the next one faster, the flywheel that shifts returns from multiple expansion toward growth and margin.
This guide is for the founder weighing whether, and how, to join a platform, and for the investor judging whether a roll-up is becoming a champion or simply a bag of small companies. One idea runs through every chapter: integration is the product, not the deal.
Get the operator's playbook for turning a pile of acquisitions into a single, re-rating company, set against two decades of M&A research from McKinsey, Bain, and BCG.
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Looking for more? This guide has a companion paper, The AI-Native IT Services Company.
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