🎙️His Business Is Boring, But It Returns 50% a Year

Hello SMB Deal Hunters!

Remember, you DON’T need to find a high-growth business in order to make a massive return.

Greg Geronemus quite literally did the opposite.

He bought a business that looked terrible on paper, but that’s only if you were looking at its growth rate.

And the deal?

A bus tour company putting baby boomers on group trips around the world.

I know, right?

It wasn’t an app, SaaS, or franchise with sexy unit economics.

Instead, it was an old-fashioned B2C tour operator sending retirees to South Africa, Thailand, Cuba, and Antarctica.

He bought it for $29 million:

• At under 5x multiple

• With a 50% seller note

• At 4% interest.

On the surface, it checked none of the boxes.

It was cyclical, and looked like it would get disrupted by Kayak or Expedia.

Four years later, he returned nearly 50% annualized to his investors.

Almost 5x their money.

And he didn't do it by building a rocket ship.

Revenue grew about 50%. Respectable, not explosive. He never 3x'd or 4x'd the business.

The real math was simpler.

The business threw off so much cash that he paid down $16 million in debt over 4 years.

On $10 million of equity, debt pay-down alone was generating 30 to 40% annualized returns before any growth.

Then he sold to a private equity firm at a higher multiple than he paid.

Buying well, de-leveraging, and modest multiple expansion did almost all the work.

In fact, Greg DIDN’T even think the deal was worth pursuing at first. 

Underneath the surface, the business had incredible customer retention, exceptional cash flow characteristics, and long-term tailwinds from baby boomer retirements.

But finding it was the hard part.

This week, I sat down with Greg Geronemus, former co-CEO of Smart Tours, which he acquired and sold to a private equity firm, and now managing partner of Footbridge Partners, where he invests in people who are looking to buy their own businesses.

Here are some of the highlights from the deep dive:

🔥 How a specific chain of actions starting from his first week of searching eventually surfaced a $29M deal he almost passed on

🔥 Why digital marketing completely failed as a growth strategy, and the old-school tactics that actually unlocked 50% top-line growth (you'd never guess them)

🔥 The cash flow structure that let him pay down $16M in debt over four years, generating 30-40% annualized returns before any growth at all

🔥 Why he believes you don't need a rocket ship outcome to generate massive returns, and what he'd tell first-time buyers who think they need to 4x revenue to win

Here's his must-watch breakdown...

And for our audio-only listeners, jump in and listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Member Spotlight

For those who missed it, we also did an SMB Deal Hunter Pro alumni interview breaking down Kyle's acquisition of a $600K pest control company in Sarasota, FL.

He already owned a $3.2M pest control business. He still couldn't buy his second one on his own.

Kyle bought his dad's pest control company in North Carolina four years ago and scaled it from under $1M to $3.2M. He had a business degree and was enrolled in an executive MBA at UGA.

He spent months searching on his own. Every time something interesting came up, he moved too slow on the LOI and watched it go to someone else.

After that, he joined the Pro program.

The result?

🔥 Flagged a deal through our AI aggregator in his backyard in Sarasota before he would have found it on his own

🔥 Closed on a deal the SBA wouldn't touch using a creative structure: seller note, forgivable note tied to growth, interest-only payments for year one

🔥 Beat an all-cash buyer to the table. His edge had nothing to do with price.

Four months in, Kyle runs the whole business in about 4-5hrs a week.

If you want to watch the full alumni interview, click below:

And here's what he had to say:

So, if you want me and my team to work with you to find, finance, and acquire a million-dollar cash-flowing business in the next 6-12 months, you might be interested in the Pro program.

👉️ Learn more and book a call

COMMUNITY PERKS

• Ready to buy and operate a $1M+ business? Get expert help at every step.

• Want to invest passively in SMB acquisitions? Get access to investment opportunities.

• Get a personal introduction to my preferred SBA 7(a) lender, non-SBA lenders, Quality of Earnings providers, or legal counsel

• Raising capital for your deal? I’ll connect you with investors from the SMB Deal Hunter Community.

• Interested in selling your business? I’ll help you connect with buyers from the SMB Deal Hunter Community.

THAT’S A WRAP

Want me to interview you for my podcast? Hit reply.

See you next week with some new deals!

-Helen Guo
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Disclaimer

This publication is a newsletter only and the information provided herein is the opinion of our editors and writers only. Any transaction or opportunity of any kind is provided for information only; SMB Deal Hunter does not verify nor confirm information. SMB Deal Hunter is not making any offer to readers to participate in any transaction or opportunity described herein.