oday's guest and his 2 partners are building a long-term holdco.

And they're doing it with a model we should pay attention to.

They didn't start with much money. They didn't raise investor capital. They didn't look for the perfect business.

Marc Nzojibwami and his partners decided that they would pool their capital, about $50k each, to come up with the deposit for a first business acquisition, and one of them would quit his job to run it.

Once that business was stable, and the 3 partners had saved enough capital again for the deposit on a second acquisition, they would buy that one, and one of the 2 remaining partners would quit his job & run it.

Same thing for the third business, at which point the 3 partners each operate one of the 3 different businesses in the portfolio.

Then in similar fashion, they will extricate themselves one by one from each business's operations as they install operators, freeing each partner to go buy another business.

I'm not sure I've come across this model, and there is something elegant to it.

You could imagine a future where the trio not only owns a portfolio of businesses, but each of the partners will have such deep operational experience that maybe for acquisitions 5, 6, and 7 they don't need to operate themselves, but know how to identify & hire great operators.

You can also imagine their reputation growing quickly in their home market Calgary as a group that buys businesses, and the deal flow that will materialize from that. Indeed, they're already seeing it, and to date they've only bought their first business.

Which is the subject of this interview with Marc Nzojibwami, co-owner of ABL Imaging. Enjoy.