We buy companies in Spain and Portugal · And we keep them
Alce buys family and niche businesses, and keeps them. The team, the name and the way of doing things stay the same. And the owner stays at the helm, for as long as they want.
What Alce is
The usual options are more alike than they seem. A fund buys to sell within four or five years. A competitor buys to absorb: the brand, the team and the way of doing things last only as long as the integration.
We are a business group that buys companies and keeps them, with no sale date and no integration plans. Our backers are business families and long-term investors.
It is a model that has worked for decades in northern Europe and the United States. In Spain and Portugal, very few buyers do this yet. We want to be the buyer of reference.
Decisions are made inside the company. We bring capital to grow, help with key hires and a second opinion when the owner wants one.
We buy only a few companies a year, carefully chosen and without loading them with debt. We prefer to know the company and the owner well before deciding.
What the companies earn is reinvested in growing them and in buying others. That is how you build a group that lasts for decades.
Criteria
We buy companies in Spain and Portugal that, in general, meet these conditions. If this sounds like your company, let's talk.
Size
Companies with an operating profit of between one and four million euros a year.
Profitability
Double-digit margins and predictable cash generation, without needing heavy investment every year just to keep going.
Position
Leaders in their niche, difficult for their customers to replace. You do not have to be big: you have to be the best at something specific.
Customers
Business-to-business, with recurring revenue and a diversified customer base.
Team
We prefer the owner to stay at the helm. When that is not possible, an orderly transition plan works too.
Sector
We care about the business, not whether the sector is in fashion. We prefer light manufacturing, value-added distribution and business services, but if the business is good and we understand it, it fits.
For owners
Our preferred scenario is that the owner keeps running the company. If at some point they want to step back, we plan the handover together, taking as long as it takes: the natural route is for their own management team to step up. Bringing in someone from outside is the last resort, not the first.
We buy a majority stake and we ask the owner to keep a meaningful part of the company; in most cases, around a quarter. It is not a formality: we want them to remain part of the project for the long term. If their situation is different, we are happy to look at it.
We do not buy to cut back or to dismantle what works; we buy precisely because it works. The company keeps being run from within, and the team keeps doing its job with the same people as always. We do not stand over the company; we stand beside it.
No integration, no rebranding, no becoming a division of another company. The company stays the company.
Almost everything the owner has built sits inside the company. The sale secures a significant part of that, while they keep a share of what comes next. And they do it when nobody is forcing them to: sales that go wrong almost always come too late, because of an unresolved succession, a health problem or a bad year.
A partner with the capital to grow, without the owner putting in more money or personal guarantees. A board that meets infrequently and decides quickly. Clear, up-to-date information. And help with what is hardest: bringing in key people and preparing the succession. Always alongside the owner, never above them.
Where others buy with a sale date in mind, we buy to keep.
| A fund | A competitor | |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Time frame | Sell in 4 or 5 years | Absorb and integrate | Forever |
| Owner's role | Replaced or under pressure | Dispensable after integration | At the helm as long as they want |
| The team | Routine restructuring | Duplicated roles and departures | Stays as it is, and gets stronger |
| The brand | Kept until the resale | Disappears | Stays |
| The day-to-day | New objectives and constant reporting | The buyer's procedures | The same, with more resources |
| Debt | High | Carried by the acquiring group | Moderate, without putting the company at risk |
Team
We are two partners who have spent years working in company sales and acquisitions, from both the adviser's side and the investor's. We have seen many company sales from the inside, and too often we have seen what happens to a good company when its buyer is in a hurry to sell it on. Alce exists to be the buyer we kept missing at those tables: the one that buys to stay.
Founding partner
More than a decade buying and selling companies. He has worked at Barclays, ING and H.I.G. Capital, advising on and leading acquisitions in Spain and across Europe. He holds a degree in Business Administration and Management from CUNEF.
Founding partner
More than six years in corporate transactions, with experience at Barclays, Crédit Agricole and Alantra. He holds a double degree in Business Administration and Law from IE University and an MBA from INSEAD. Member of the Spanish Family Business Association.
Contact
If you have been thinking about your company's future, even if it is early days and you have not decided anything, leave us your number and we will call you. The conversation is confidential and commits you to nothing.
Thank you. We will call you, discreetly.
Alce · Paseo de la Castellana 182, 28046 Madrid, Spain
