Key Points From the Interview
t first glance, the resume of Carlo Santelli reads like a traditional finance guy.
Ivy league school. Wall Street investment banking. Private equity.
But behind the highlights, we learn that Carlo is actually more hustler than conventional overachiever.
He took three years off between high school and college.
It took him 3 attempts to get into Columbia — which was the only school he would consider.
He was fired from his analyst role in investment banking.
So Carlo made it happen for himself through these years, but at the same time never quite fit the mold.
Well in 2024, he appears to have finally found a fit as a business-buying entrepreneur.
Today's interview is about an acquisition that easily makes it to the Acquiring Minds top 10, maybe even top 3.
Carlo bought a decades-old manufacturer of fasteners — think screws, nuts, bolts.
It has $13m in revenue and $3.5m in EBITDA.
Carlo was able to structure a deal that:
a) didn't require him putting in any cash,
b) didn't require a personal guarantee,
c) paid him a nice fee at closing, and
d) didn't require any outside equity, which means he owns 100% of the business.
In this interview you'll learn how this acquisition entrepreneur secured and structured such a life-changing outcome.
Now Carlo did have some advantages that you will not. Years in investment banking and private equity means he'd been party to countless deals already.
He also had a balance sheet, which helped him foot the deal costs — a 6-figure amount he had to put at risk, not knowing whether the deal would close.
But even if you don't have those advantages, if you could find and structure a transaction a tenth the size of this one, for many of you listening that would likely change your lives. And then you'd do your next deal and build from there.
And anyway, I want to highlight that it's not just deal experience and substantial savings that enabled Carlo to pull this off.
It's also attitude.
Entrepreneurialism. Resourcefulness. Good old-fashioned persistence.
You'll hear Carlo give a lot of credit to his persistence, and I agree.
But my favorite quality of his is not being cowed when he doesn't know something. He pushes through confusion, learning as he goes. You'll hear him say that he has more sophisticated, more knowledgeable colleagues who don't do what he's doing because they feel they're not 100% qualified or expert enough.
Maybe that's you, doubting yourself, feeling like you need to be smarter before you can buy a business.
See what you think. Here he is: Carlo Santelli, owner of Triem Industries.
