Mathias Calonius is a serial acquirer and co-founder of the Finnish holding company JATKAJA, which has 5 companies in its portfolio and a turnover of more than 50 million dollars.
“The first 3.5 years have included 10+ transactions and the formed 4 group companies stand at around $30M+ in revenue”
Location: Finland
HoldCo name: JATKAJA (means: continuer)
This short 55-minute call turned out to be an MBA on how to build a diversified HoldCo around boring traditional companies.
We discuss:
— Day-to-day when operating 5 portfolio companies
— How to find excellent deals
— Expensive mistakes to avoid in the future
— How to 3x a $3m company to $9m company
— Entrepreneurs being too greedy
Show Notes:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:15 - Why invest in traditional companies and not in something else?
00:02:25 - Swedish series acquirers (trading at P/E ratio of 25x) were a big motivation
00:03:45 - Is Mathias a generalist or a specialist
00:06:15 - What Mathias and the JATKAJA team look at when acquiring the company
00:08:45 - This is how they find deals
00:13:10 - How much time they spent on finding good deals in 2023
00:14:05 - Will they buy 100% of the company
00:17:00 - Growing a portfolio company from 3 million to 9 million in revenue
00:19:35 - Exact methods to accelerate growth
00:23:30 - The biggest mistakes with portfolio companies
00:28:10 - HoldCo's biggest risks in the world (sales-sales-sales)
00:31:20 - How Mathias spends his time between 5 portfolio companies
00:32:55 - Mathias' difficult situations in life and business
00:35:02 - Should we build one company or focus on 19 other companies?
00:38:03 - When a great team meets a bad market, the bad market wins - how and why?
00:40:20 - We all have that friend who isn't the smartest but runs a very successful business
00:41:25 - Should you be greedy in business?
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Mathias on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MathiasCalonius
This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
