The Boardroom Buzz: Grow, Sell, or Exit

Mike Rogers started Killingsworth Environmental of Charlotte in a double-wide trailer. Who could have imagined that a high school-educated Rogers, would end up turning his street smart salesmanship into a multi-faceted multi-million dollar conglomerate? Mike took the leap and bought out the owners when Killingsworth was at $5 million in revenue. Within a decade, he grew the business to almost $24 million in revenue, 182 employees, 156 vehicles and 11 service centers – including a 38,000 square foot; ahem, 138,000 square foot - corporate center. In 2018, Maverick Mike sold his #37 on the PCT Top 100 business to Anticimex. Mike discusses key performance indicators such as his ‘gross profit per man day’, ranking employees & customers, managing chemical costs, vehicle longevity, and much more. Sit back and join Patrick and Paul as they learn from story-master Mike as he opens up about his humble beginnings and venture into wealth. 

Patrick and Paul’s longtime friends Lenny Gray (author of Door-to-Door Millionaire) and McKay Bodily (author of some emails and a birthday card) – partners at Rove Pest Control -- sit down to a surprising discussion on door-to-door trends over the last quarter century. What do these businesses sell for? What is the future of door-to-door sales in pest control? While Paul hates door-to-door sales, he loves enriching his clients and continues to advise on more door-to-door transactions ($250m+) than anyone else on the planet and is responsible for driving up the prices of these businesses… but what are his thoughts on future valuations in the space? And finally, we learn that Patrick, the traditionalist, almost started doing door-to-door at his firm in Texas.

In this episode, Paul and Patrick answer listeners’ questions and discuss topics that were raised in previous episodes with Tony Sfreddo, Mike Givlin and Jamie Clement. Topics include: Understanding what drives acquirers to make acquisitions and how value is created by a business combination. Making the hard decision to say “no” to too many disparate service offerings. The advantages of decoupling service from billing. What do acquirers look for in acquisition targets and why you shouldn’t really care. Should Anticimex’s portfolio company Killingsworth really start offering food delivery and medical services? And finally, is Rollins, the parent company of Orkin, really for sale?

When he’s not making maple syrup snow candy, sipping barely-drinkable coffee at Tim Horton’s, or waiting in a long line at Health Canada for his flu shot, Mike Givlin, CEO of Certus, is building the next US national pest control firm. In this episode, Paul Giannamore and Patrick Baldwin find out what it’s really like to raise private equity funding to build a business. In this interview, Mike holds nothing back, discussing his career trajectory and how he and his team are striving to put people first as they execute a buy-and-build strategy in the pest control industry.

Jamie Clement has worked on Wall Street for investment banking and research institutions for over two decades, providing actionable insight to hedge funds and institutional investors on pest control and other industries. He is an important part of Paul’s inner circle and one of his go-to guys for insight on pest control and other industries. For many years, the two have debated valuation, value creation and M&A in the pest control industry privately, and today you’ll listen in on one of their discussions. In this new segment, Patrick Baldwin and Paul Giannamore Step Outside of the Boardroom for a lively discussion on: valuation multiples, private equity firms EQT and GIC, Rentokil emerging from the COVID pandemic, Rollins’s consistency, ServiceMaster’s future and possible takeover, Anticimex’s CEO Jarl Dahlfors’ history as the Blonde Beast -- bringing Brinks’ former management team to its knees when he ran Loomis in the US -- and a whole lot more. This episode is a behind-the-scenes look at what is going on at the highest levels in the pest control industry.

The Boardroom Buzz kicks off a new segment, Step Into the Boardroom, with former CEO of Triple S Services, Tony Sfreddo. Prior to selling Triple S to Anticimex, Tony and his brother Phil built the business into a commercial powerhouse in the Washington, DC metro area generating $267,000 in revenue per technician per year. Servicing accounts such as the Pentagon, the CIA, and the US Supreme Court, Triple S reached number #68 on the PCT Top 100 list prior to the sale. In this hard-hitting interview, Paul Giannamore and Patrick Baldwin get schooled by Tony on route density, commercial sales, technician compensation, competition, management and what Tony would have done differently if he were to do it all over again.

Paul and Patrick discuss the importance of stay bonuses, and how one management team tried to extort $1 million from a seller at the closing of the sale of his pest control business. We also learn about what happened to the family of a seller who died of a heart attack the day before the sale of his business. Patrick and Paul also talk about the closing of Project Warrior with Certus last week and how activist hedge fund, Third Point, has acquired a 3.1 million share stake in ServiceMaster. Does this mean that ServiceMaster will be taken private or acquired?

Paul Giannamore and Patrick Baldwin respond to "What makes a firm more valuable?" question submitted from the AFTERMATH presentation. They also take a step back into how they first met eight years ago when Patrick called on Paul to do a valuation (appraisal) for his pest control business.

Paul Giannamore and Patrick Baldwin discuss where money will end up after the COVID-19 pandemic. How will essential service businesses look for investors in the long-run? Pest control is an essential business. Will investors shift their portfolios to 'de-risked' industries because of Covid-19? How will the pandemic affect future pest control acquisitions? Will this shift valuations on residential vs commercial segments? Will the DOW return to its pre-COVID-19 high?

Paul Giannamore and Patrick Baldwin chat about how pest control transactions are structured differently. What happens after the sale... after Paul's first pest control deal in 2003, what happened after the close? Patrick and Paul also talk about "taking a lump sum in a duffle bag and the proper way to 'make it rain' when you're at an underground Romanian rave".