Below are our past announcements, talks, podcasts, meetings, testimonials, and events:
SIG Partners, Robert Graham and Aaron Blick, joined Will Smith on the Acquiring Minds podcast to reveal how they grew Pillar Health Group to $15 million in EBITDA in just four years. Discover the critical decisions and strategic trade-offs they navigated, learn their methods for efficiently allocating time during sourcing, and explore how they cleverly combined SBA debt with conventional financing to optimize their transaction structures. Tune in for an insightful session on scaling and managing transformative business acquisitions.
Click here to Listen on Spotify
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Dallas Search/SMB Acquisition Networking Event (May 2024)
SFSA is hosting a self-funded searcher meetup on Thursday, May 2, 2024 at Happiest Hour (2616 Olive St, Dallas, TX 75201 at 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. The event is sponsored by SIG Partners, Live Oak Bank, LCS, Symphony Risk, and System Six.
Click here to RSVP to the event
Join veteran searcher and investor, Kent Weaver, in an engaging fireside chat as he shares insights into his journey from searcher to investor. Gain valuable lessons on CEO leadership, the essentials for search success, and the importance of thinking big beyond your first deal.
Recorded at The 2023 Self-Funded Search Conference.
Click here to Listen on Spotify
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The 2023 Self-Funded Search Conference
SIG is proud to sponsor Self-Funded Search Association’s first annual Self-Funded Search Conference.
This is the first and only conference in the world dedicated exclusively to the self-funded model of entrepreneurship through acquisition – exclusively for self-funded searchers.
The Self-Funded Search Conference is not-for-profit, with 100% of all proceeds reinvested into the conference to maximize value to attendees.
SIG is a recurring sponsor of Self-Funded Search Association (“SFSA”) events. The SFSA supports individuals pursuing the self-funded route of entrepreneurship through acquisition in their mission of acquiring, owning, and operating great companies. The SFSA regularly facilitates in-person networking for the self-funded search community.
SIG Partner Aaron Blick participated as a panelist at the annual SEETA Conference hosted by the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, and the Duke Fuqua School of Business. Afterwards, SIG co-hosted a happy hour with Oberle Risk Strategies and Live Oak Bank.
SIG Partner Jordan Carter joined The Veteran (Semi) Professional podcast to discuss his entrepreneurship through acquisition journey and how military veterans can get on the path. Jordan shares how veterans can deploy their unique backgrounds of experience to buy, own, and operate their own businesses. Jordan and the SIG team have enabled multiple veterans to self-funded search, source, diligence, 100% fund, and close acquisitions of their own businesses in which they retained majority common equity ownership and control upon closing. Most recently, SIG supported a Marine Corps veteran and Naval Academy alum in the SIG Full-Time Support (FTS) program to successfully acquire his own business to become Owner & CEO.
Dallas Networking Happy Hour (May 2023)
SFSA is hosting a self-funded searcher meetup on May 4th, 2023. The event will be held at Chelsea Corner (4830 McKinney Avenue, Dallas, TX 75204) at 5:30 p.m. CT and last until 8:30 p.m. CT. The event is sponsored by SIG, Lummis Consulting Services, Symphony Risk Solutions, and First Bank of the Lake
SIG is honored to have Partner Aaron Blick participate as a panelist at the annual SE ETA Conference hosted by the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, and the Duke Fuqua School of Business. Aaron enjoyed sharing his experience in pursuing self-funded ETA, important lessons learned along the way, the benefits of a partner in a self-funded search, and how he has leveraged his and SIG's experience in completing more than a dozen successful self-funded acquisitions in the past several years.
SIG Partner Jordan Carter joined Will Smith of Acquiring Minds Podcast to discuss the search process and the decisions that need to be made in that process. We talk about the tradeoffs that need to be made during your search phase, how to allocate your time in sourcing, and how to access equity capital.
Click here to listen on Spotify
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SIG Partner Jordan Carter joined Ryan Condie of Let’s Buy a Business Podcast to discuss the psychological evolution of pursuing a full-time search. We talk about the factors that hold back potential and part-time searchers from taking the leap to full-time search.
Click here to listen on Spotify
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SIG Partner Robert Graham was honored to be invited to speak at the 2022 Booth / Kellogg ETA conference in Chicago. SIG also sponsored the event and a private dinner afterwards.
SIG Partner Robert Graham and Greg Geronemus (Managing Partner of Footbridge Partners) were hosted by Acquiring Minds in a debate on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the self-funded and traditional funded ETA models.
Search Fund Coalition hosted Jordan Carter of SIG on a panel to discuss key deal terms, including the importance of structuring your deal properly so that you achieve the best outcome possible as an acquisition entrepreneur.
"The traditional search fund model is broken" Yep - we're making big claims over here at SIG. We were honored to be hosted by Gavin Jocius on his podcast, Wisdom.MBA, to talk about SIG's innovative model (searchinvestgroup.com).
Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts
SIG was honored to be hosted by the Let's Buy a Business podcast! In this episode we cover the benefits of partnering, deal structuring, equity raises, and the latest developments in the self-funded search space.
Robert Graham was recently honored to be hosted by The University of Chicago's Polsky Center for their "Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition" podcast series. In the episode he discusses his unique roll-up growth strategy in the home-based care industry as well as the advice that he provides to self funded searchers in his role as a partner with SIG.
Click here to listen on iTunes
Click here to listen on SoundCloud
One of our partners, Robert Graham, was hosted by Alex Bridgeman on his podcast “Think Like and Owner”. In the session they discussed Robert’s background and the benefits to searchers of working with SIG.
On December 5th, 2021 we were honored to speak on a panel of industry experts to discuss “Screening & Evaluating Investment Opportunities” to an audience of over 200 students and conference attendees at Harvard Business School’s 2021 ETA Conference.
On December 9th, 2021, Texas Search Group hosted a successful happy hour at The Remington bar in Houston, TX. Searchers, independent sponsors, lenders, service providers, investors, and others were in attendance. SIG sponsored the event.
Will Smith, of Acquiring Minds, hosted Jordan Carter and Robert Graham, with SIG, on a podcast. During the discussion we reviewed the pros/cons of the self-funded model vs the traditional funded model. We enjoyed the chat and thank Will for his great job hosting.
Self-funded searcher Lance Barnard acquired an institutional pharmacy in 2021 for 4.3x EBITDA of $1.3 million. Lance partnered with SIG for capital structure, negotiations, debt, and equity capital raise support to get the deal over the finish line. Lance retained over 80% of the common equity – a life-changing outcome. We discussed Lance’s experience during the search, throughout all phases of the deal, and what it was like to work with the SIG team.
Jordan Carter, one of the SIG partners, had a talk with the founder of Blue Maple, Tony Cappaert, on “What to look for when acquiring a government professional services company”. The talk covered acquisitions in the government services, technology, and professional services industries.
A successful self-funded searcher discussed with two of the partners of SIG to cover all aspects of his journey.
Robert Graham, one of the SIG partners, had a talk with the founder of Blue Maple, Tony Cappaert, on “What to look for when acquiring a home care provider”. The talk covered acquisitions in the home care, home health, and hospice industries.
On May 19, 2021 at 5:00 PM SIG hosted a great event put on by Texas Search Group. The event was a networking happy hour at Chelsea Corner in Dallas for Texas-based searchers, operators, investors, and advisors. Over 50 attendees came out!
Searchfunder.com featured two Partners from SIG in a great debate on the pros and cons of the Self-Funded vs. Incubator vs. Traditional Models. The debate included leading members of the search fund industry from each of the respective camps. The audience asked some great questions and the Searchfunder.com team did a wonderful job hosting the event.
Chip Mahan, Chairman and CEO of Live Oak Bank flew out to Dallas to meet with us on one of our latest deals. Live Oak Bank is the single largest SBA lender in the world and also the largest SBA lender to search funds. We appreciated Chip’s time and enjoyed some lunch and a good chat. Thanks again, Chip!
SIG presented out to ~100 members of Search Fund Coalition on how search fund investors think. The event was titled “The Mind of a Search Investor” and we enjoyed every minute.
Searchfunder.com hosted the SIG team for a discussion on strategies to reduce the risk of a failed search. We were honored to be joined by over 100 members of their organization for an informative presentation followed by a engaging open forum discussion.
We were honored to be asked to join a panel of industry experts to discuss “Screening & Evaluating Investment Opportunities” to an audience of over 200 Harvard Business School students and conference attendees.
