How I bought a distressed events company with 3.5 million turnover for £1
My life changed dramatically when I bought a competitor in the telecom industry for £1. As a result of this deal, we grew by a year’s worth of sales in one afternoon. And in this letter, you’re about to learn how you can do the same too. My name is Jeremy Harbour, and for the past two decades, I’ve bought and sold over 100 companies in many different industries. I negotiated nearly all of these deals for close to zero cash upfront (Often just £1)… without getting into debt or using other people’s money.These companies were in industries like telecom, IT, air conditioning, furniture manufacturing, seminar events, music schools, marketing, property services, engineering, and many more.
When I negotiated each deal, I rarely used lawyers or accountants, Except for my IPO deals. My most recent being a company called “MBH Corporation PLC”. It has a 39 million Euro market cap and is now listed on the Frankfurt stock market.Now, I didn’t get to this point by magic. I’m just a normal person like you. So the question is: How did I secure deals where companies were happy to accept £1 upfront? Let me explain:
The Financial Shortcut That Changed My Life (And Income) Forever
In 1997, at 23 years of age, I started a telecoms company with £50. I bought business cards and used the money from my first sale to buy a computer. It was a bootstrapped business. Several years later, once I had decent success, competitors knocked on my door with offers to buy me out. Week after week, I talked to potential buyers as they pitched me their deals. Some meetings were better than others but they all had one thing in common: they all offered no money upfront. Instead, they offered benefits down the track. Solutions that ironed out my cash flow, dealt with staff, found new customers and provided me capital to grow. I was tempted. Somehow they pushed hot buttons I didn’t know I had!
It was at this moment I had a thought…
“Maybe I should try and acquire a business for no money down, just like these companies are attempting to do!”
Why You Need To Tune Into “Deal FM”
If you want to tune in to a particular station, you need to know the frequency it’s on. Looking back, there were deals right under my nose everywhere, but sadly, I wasn’t tuned into the right frequency. I wasn’t tuned into “deal FM.” After realizing this, I turned my focus to acquisition. My first deal was actually a lot smaller than I now recommend beginners to target but it’s worth sharing the story. I discovered a 13-year-old mobile phone retailer in Slough, with a majority of business customers (one of their customers was Nintendo). It was a perfect fit.
With 1,000 active mobile phone lines all on Cellnet (Later rebranded as O2), this was a lucrative deal for us. Individually, each client was worth £165 due to a new customer commission offered by Vodafone. Therefore, once each user switched over, the deal was worth £165,000 to us (He was unaware of this fact). However, the owner had one huge problem he couldn’t shake. His lease was about to expire. Relocating the business would cost him £70,000 yet he’d only make £12,000 per year by renewing his contracts for Cellnet. Not an ideal situation. He also made much more money renovating terrace houses. He converted them into two separate apartments and made around £60k profit per project. If he could just free up his time, he could dedicate more time to that venture. In a way, I was lucky.
The telecoms industry is famously low margin and capital intensive, I ran my own business hand to mouth, so I didn’t have the cash to offer him. I tried to source funds from friends, family, and investors but to no avail. As is quite common, he wanted at least some cash upfront. First, he wanted £15K, then £10K, and once his deadline loomed, he asked for just £2.5K. I figured I’d find someone to lend me 2.5K… but I just couldn’t scrape it together.
The day the bulldozers turned up at his office, I signed the contract to buy his company for £1. The deal offered no cash upfront but I paid him installments as we switched his customers over to our business. Driving back to the office, I had an epiphany that day. I just grew my company by a year’s worth of sales in one afternoon and I didn’t use any cash to do it. It was a game-changer. And that’s when I had my biggest business breakthrough…
The Wealth Secret No One Talks About
Never again would I ever start a company from scratch when I could simply buy an existing company.
I was hooked. I realized I could run the last 10 yards in a marathon and still win the trophy!
For the next 18 months, I went on an empire-building rampage. I bought 12 companies that together generated £13.5 million turnover and had over 100 employees. This might sound impressive, but in reality, it was an absolute nightmare to run. My days were punctuated by emergencies and problems at each business. Each month I simply stayed afloat, surviving one payroll to the next. Several months later I sold one of these companies. That’s when I learned one of the most valuable wealth-building secrets of my life:
You don’t make money running companies, you make money selling them.
I soon learned a painful lesson from one of the companies I had decided to keep. I had a small call center business that made about £200,000 in profit per quarter. I kept the business because it had a very lucrative long term contract with the world’s largest insurance provider (AIG). In hindsight, that was the perfect reason to sell it. The new buyer would have loved that.However, this was just before they famously ran into the financial problems that lead to their bankruptcy. I could have sold the company for millions but instead sold it for £1. The lesson learned? The best time to sell a company is now. Any reasons you can give me about why you should keep it, are exactly the same reasons you should sell. For the next 20 years, I dedicated my life to buying and selling companies. To date, I’ve completed over 100 deals. I bought and sold many businesses. Many were a raging success, while others were learning experiences. However, it was my 12th deal – the one I mentioned at the beginning of this letter – that changed everything.
How I Bought A 3.5 Million Revenue Seminar Company For £1 Upfront
Back in 2010, two Australian business partners flew to the UK to sell their struggling seminar company. Their UK business generated sales but hemorrhaged so much cash that the Australia parent company was fed up constantly bailing them out. They gave themselves two weeks to secure a deal. Their asking price: £300,000. Surprisingly, two of the competitors they pitched knew me. They didn’t want to buy but said, “You should speak to Jeremy, he buys companies.” I met them both on a Wednesday.After looking at the business, I noticed it wasn’t worth £300,000. It broke the golden rule of business: have more money coming in than going out. Generally, the seminar training space is a high-profit industry. Therefore, it was clear that their problem was bad cash flow management.
They didn’t have accounts or forecasts, In fact, it would be impossible to sell the business to anyone else. There was no way they would pass any form of due diligence from a potential buyer. With two successful businesses back in Australia, their UK subsidiary was just becoming a big pain in the arse for them.
They were motivated to sell before they flew home. And so…
I Made An Offer They Couldn’t Refuse
The clock was ticking. With 2 days until they flew back to Australia, the owners were keen to sell.
They couldn’t even provide the information needed to make a deal happen. However, I noticed that this trip was the one thing they hung their hopes on. So here’s what I said:
“Give me a 60% stake in the company now for £1 with the option to buy the other 40% for £300,000 once I fixed the problems.
They agreed.
I pressed the pen to paper and signed my name. They did the same. I held the contract in my hands. I looked down at the paper with excitement. I did it. I had just bought my largest company to date. I just bought 60% of a company with 3.5 million turnovers; for £1. All outgoing payments had to be frozen while we did the due diligence to make sure we were not preferring any creditors over others. After 30 days, the company even had £300,000 cash in the bank!
I rang Dan Priestly and thanked him for the referral. That’s when he said, “So how much did you pay for it?” “£1”, I said, “That’s what I always pay for companies.”
“Really? I would have bought it for £1! I really need to learn this stuff!
How I Made My Strategies Available To Entrepreneurs
The events company I bought for £1 ran an 800 person multi-speaker event and they invited me to give a talk. I did a presentation on how to buy companies with no money down deals. The result? Hoards of people asked me to consult, mentor or sit on their board of directors in a non-executive position.
I declined.
But I came up with an idea. Rather than consult and help four or five people, I created a training program to help anyone buy and sell companies. As long as they had determination, drive, and a phone, they could do it. And that’s how…
The Harbour Club Was Born
The Harbour Club is the most comprehensive 3-day training on how to buy and sell companies step-by-step. It’s liVe, in-person and takes place in London. You’ll discover how to buy companies for no cash upfront without borrowing money or debt. And you’ll learn strategies to conduct the entire deal without lawyers, accountants or brokers… saving you tens of thousands of pounds!
You’ll discover:
#1: How to find deals
#2: How to contact the business owners
#3: How to conduct meetings
#4: How to put win-win deals together
#5: How to legally protect yourself properly
#6: How to turn around the company quickly
#7: And exit strategies to sell the company at a profit
#8: And much more…
These strategies have been boiled down from my 20 years of experience. Plus, you’ll avoid dozens of costly mistakes that I made in my early days, saving you years of trial and error…
Why The Harbour Club Is Unlike Anything You’ve Ever Seen
Unlike most M&A courses that teach theory and textbook principles…The Harbour Club is packed with real-world, battle-tested strategies. The step-by-step system has been honed and refined over the past two decades from my own personal “in the trenches” experiences doing over 100 deals, and advising on hundreds more. The Harbour Club is not just “a course.”
It’s a supportive community. After the 3-day event, you get all your questions answered in our exclusive online members’ area. Where people share and collaborate with each other to put together deals. It’s like having a high-profile mastermind without the five-figure price tag! The Harbour Club has generated countless raving fans (and hundreds of deals) since 2009.
The Harbour Club – London, Singapore & Miami
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