What revenue and EBITDA did real serial acquirers have when they listed?

Which serial acquirers disclosed their size, and what were the numbers?

I used only figures I could open in company releases or reports, and I show the year of each. Each is a full-year figure for the year of listing, not the prospectus figure, except Lumine, where I show the year before. Currencies are as reported, and I have not converted them.

• Constellation Software, IPO in 2006. 2006 revenue $210.8 million, adjusted EBITDA $30.8 million, which the company gave as a 15% margin (US dollars). Source: the Constellation Q4 2007 press release, which shows 2006 as the comparative year and ties a first-quarter 2006 charge to the period before the completed IPO. The release does not give the IPO date.
• Indutrade, listed on the Stockholm exchange on October 5, 2005. 2005 net sales SEK 3,822 million (2004: 3,486 million). EBITA SEK 333 million (2004: 264 million). Four acquisitions in 2005. Source: the Indutrade full-year 2005 report.
• Lifco, listed on Nasdaq Stockholm on November 21, 2014. 2014 group sales about SEK 6.8 billion and an EBITA margin of 14.2%, per the Lifco annual report release of April 8, 2015. The Lifco release of December 17, 2014 gave about 100 companies in 30 countries and said the founder’s holding company sold 49.9% of the shares in an offer subscribed more than seven times.
• Lumine Group, TSX Venture Exchange trading set to begin March 24, 2023. This was a spin-out from Constellation, not an IPO. 2022 revenue $255.7 million in US dollars (2021: $228.4 million), the year before listing and before WideOrbit, per the Lumine results release. I did not find an EBITDA figure in the page I read. Its $490.0 million WideOrbit purchase closed on February 22, 2023, just before listing.

What is missing from this list?

Several well-known acquirers are left out because I could not verify revenue or EBITDA at listing from a filing: Judges Scientific, Topicus.com, Teqnion, Addtech and Compass Diversified. Where a company’s own filing did not give the figure, I did not fill it in from a data site. That is a limit of this article: it shows no figures for the smallest listings.

What do the numbers show?

Three observations, each limited to this list.

• The companies had already built a base. Lifco had about 100 companies, and Indutrade bought four companies in its listing year.
• EBITA margins ranged from about 8.7% (Indutrade, 2005) to 14.2% (Lifco, 2014). Constellation reported 15% on adjusted EBITDA, which is a different measure.
• Three of the four listings involved an existing owner. Lifco’s founder’s holding company sold 49.9%. The Indutrade Q1 2005 report said Industrivärden intended to keep about 35% of the shares, and the full-year report shows it held 37.1% at the end of 2005. Lumine was a spin-out from Constellation.

Worked numbers: how far from a search-fund company?

Take the $16 million median price for 2024–25 search fund acquisitions from the 2026 Stanford study and the 7.0x median multiple the 2024 Stanford study reported for 2022–23 acquisitions. The periods differ, so the pairing is an assumption. That implies about $2.29 million of EBITDA ($16.0M / 7.0). Constellation’s 2006 adjusted EBITDA of $30.8 million is about 13.5 times that ($30.84M / $2.29M). Indutrade’s 2005 EBITA of SEK 333 million cannot be compared without an exchange rate, which I have not used.

Lifco’s EBITA for 2014 works out to about SEK 0.97 billion (6.8 x 14.2%). That is my arithmetic from rounded figures.

My view is that a small holding company should not read these listings as a minimum or as a target. They show what established serial acquirers looked like, not what a first-time public company needs. For the actual listing standards, see What does Nasdaq require in 2026?, and for small-company examples see Which small holding companies have gone public?.

Where these numbers come from: The Constellation Q4 2007 press release(Constellation), the Indutrade full-year 2005 report, the Lifco release of December 17, 2014 and Lifco annual report release of April 8, 2015, the Lumine results release, and the Stanford GSB 2026 and 2024 search fund studies. The Lumine trading date is from its trading notice. The ratios are my arithmetic.

Related questions

Is a bigger company at listing better?

It gives the market more to value and spreads fixed public costs. It does not make the acquisitions better. Size also changes the exchange you can list on, as shown in the Nasdaq requirements article.

Why compare EBITA and EBITDA carefully?

EBITA adds back amortization, usually of acquired intangibles, but not depreciation. EBITDA adds back depreciation too, and “adjusted” versions exclude other items. Compare a company with itself over time before comparing across companies.

Do small holding companies list at far smaller sizes?

Some do. The requirements set no revenue floor on the OTCQB, as covered in Can a small holding company go public?. I have not shown any here because I could not verify them from filings.

What comes next

For one of these companies in depth, read Constellation Software: what did it do, by the numbers?.

Related articles

• From one acquisition to a listed serial acquirer: what are the milestones?
• Lifco: a controlled, decentralized compounder
• What is a serial acquirer, and how is it different from a roll-up?
• What is the "Constellation Software model," and can it work outside software?
• Which small holding companies have gone public, and what happened?

Meraki Dealmakers is a service of Meraki Partners, LLC, an advisory firm. It is not a broker-dealer, investment adviser, business broker, law firm or accounting firm. This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice.