He Sold His Parents' Paving Company in 30 Days, Then Called to Tell Them

Okay, now you buy this thing with private equity.

Now what happens? Now you've got a private equity partner, which is also a different thing than being on your own as a family business.

That was fun, not fun.

So the private equity bought into the same idea as everything else.

And here's the problem with some of the private equities.

We're an emerging technology.

We're all the things sexy that private equity companies love when they look at these invisible horizons.

But we're also an engineering firm.

We're also a lot of other facets.

And so we have this really awesome looking trailing 12 and 24 that everybody loves.

High margins, high all the stuff, all the things.

And and they love this forward-looking runway, but many private equity companies miss in specialty business, especially family-owned, is how we look at the forward runway because there's a lot of stuff that's intuitive.

There's a lot of stuff that's relational-based.

There's a lot of stuff that Yeah, you're a 41-year-old company.

You look like this backwards because all private equity companies look backwards.

Banks love looking backwards.

And we're in the kind of business where we're beautiful backwards.

Concrete has a shelf life of about 50 years.

So we're in this place now where you're hearing in the news all these bridges falling.

So horizonally speaking, it looks great.

The go-to-market strategy for private equity is hard because while we have this awesome looking forward picture, when we take on a contract, we have to pay for it.

And so I'm somewhat gone at this point, more on the corporate board level.

And they're obviously smarter, better, and faster, 100%.

And I agree with them.

Except for the part they missed, which was, oh my gosh, we have, you know, 50, $60 million at a time in contracts.

Okay, now you buy this thing with private equity.

Now what happens? Now you've got a private equity partner, which is also a different thing than being on your own as a family business.

That was fun, not fun.

So the private equity bought into the same idea as everything else.

And here's the problem with some of the private equities.

We're an emerging technology.

We're all the things sexy that private equity companies love when they look at these invisible horizons.

But we're also an engineering firm.

We're also a lot of other facets.

And so we have this really awesome looking trailing 12 and 24 that everybody loves.

High margins, high all the stuff, all the things.

And and they love this forward-looking runway, but many private equity companies miss in specialty business, especially family-owned, is how we look at the forward runway because there's a lot of stuff that's intuitive.

There's a lot of stuff that's relational-based.

There's a lot of stuff that Yeah, you're a 41-year-old company.

You look like this backwards because all private equity companies look backwards.

Banks love looking backwards.

And we're in the kind of business where we're beautiful backwards.

Concrete has a shelf life of about 50 years.

So we're in this place now where you're hearing in the news all these bridges falling.

So horizonally speaking, it looks great.

The go-to-market strategy for private equity is hard because while we have this awesome looking forward picture, when we take on a contract, we have to pay for it.

And so I'm somewhat gone at this point, more on the corporate board level.

And they're obviously smarter, better, and faster, 100%.

And I agree with them.

Except for the part they missed, which was, oh my gosh, we have, you know, 50, $60 million at a time in contracts.