I first met Eric and his business partner Patrick in Stockholm at the Swedish Serial Acquirers Conference.
Eric is running the day-to-day... eight acquisitions in 12 months.
Patrick is a true pioneer of launching, building, and acquiring businesses.
He has taken six groups to an IPO... all with a simple strategy:
"Look at what works in the West and bring it to the East."
"When I was growing up and I looked at the wealthiest people in Asia, it was never anyone who invented anything. It was just someone who took an idea from the West and brought it to Asia... I decided to do the same."
PrivateEquityGuy (Mikk Markus) (@PrivatEquityGuy)
My conversation with Eric. Him and @patrickgrove are building one of Southeast Asia's most interesting buy-and-build platforms.
They've completed 14 acquisitions (eight in 12 months) while creating a permanent home for market-leading businesses across digital media, B2B exhibitions, and vertical software.
We dive deep into capital allocation, decentralized operations, buy-and-build strategies and why live events may become even more valuable in the AI era.
Enjoy!
Timestamps:
0:00 Building Southeast Asia's serial acquirer
1:00 From failed startup to Catcha Digital
8:20 How Catcha Digital operates a decentralized holding company
13:05 Why 99 out of 100 acquisition opportunities get rejected
15:25 Lessons from Sweden's best serial acquirers
24:00 Why B2B trade exhibitions are exceptional businesses
28:40 The software acquisition strategy inspired by Constellation Software
30:15 The buy-and-build playbook behind Catcha Digital's growth
39:00 Learning from Danaher, Roper, Constellation & other compounders
43:50 Why live events become more valuable in an AI world
47:00 Working with Patrick Grove & building an acquisition machine
51:00 Capital allocation, going public & balancing long-term thinking with quarterly results
Video
— https://nitter.net/PrivatEquityGuy/status/2084970868715737572#m