Betty Carrington
Managing Partner
What we do
Orinda, California · est. 2011
Selling the company should not require pretending you want to stay five more years.
Most buyers demand an earn-out that keeps the founder chained to a plan they no longer believe in. We price the business on what it is worth today and ask what role you actually want, up to and including none.
We buy staffing, facilities, compliance and inspection businesses between $2M and $10M of profit. Boring, contracted, necessary — the kind of company that keeps paying through a recession.
“An earn-out is a discount dressed up as a partnership.”
Recurring, contracted revenue
Customers who renew without being sold to twice a year.
A second in command
Someone already running the day. If that is only you, we plan for it.
Clean books, honestly kept
Small and tidy beats large and reconstructed. We will find out either way.
Your role afterwards is a choice, not a term
Twenty-two founders have sold to us. This is what each of them chose, and how many chose it.
- Stay and run it
- Full salary, board seat, no earn-out attached to it.
- 4 founders
- Stay one year
- A handover with a date on it, agreed before closing.
- 11 founders
- Chair, part time
- Two days a month, relationships and pricing only.
- 5 founders
- Leave at close
- Full price at close. No consulting agreement, no clawback.
- 2 founders
People
Twenty-five people, and the person you meet is the person who does the work.
- Headcount
- 25
- Offices
- 2
Cynthia Ives
Managing Partner
David Carrington
Partner
Deborah Sherwood
Partner
Dennis Barrington
Partner
Jeffrey Ellsworth
Partner
Jeffrey Lockhart
Principal
Jonathan Beaumont
Principal
Justin Sterling
Principal
Nicholas Ashworth
Principal
Rebecca Newkirk
Associate
Timothy Dashwood
Associate
Victoria Vandermeer
Associate
Warren Merriweather
Associate
Lydia Wadsworth
Associate
Edmund Garrick
Head of Diligence
Cecilia Radcliffe
Head of Value Creation
Frances Larkin
Head of Talent
Preston Underhill
Chief Financial Officer
Miriam Fairbanks
General Counsel
Walter Quimby
Director of Research
Beatrice Bramwell
Investor Relations
Roger Kingsbury
Head of Operations
Eleanor Thorndike
Controller
Adele Pemberton
Office Manager
Open role
We are hiring a principal, in Orinda.
Six years in lower middle-market M&A, and the patience to spend a year on a relationship before it is a deal.