Thread by @Coyoteblog

372 days since the idea was first broached, I closed my acquisition of my competitor, who wanted to ease towards his retirement.

As a result, we are now the largest company in an industry you've never heard of, privately operating over 400 public campgrounds and parks

It was quite a ride -- if you are thinking this is the sort of thing that banks fund, HAH! Banks laugh at companies like mine looking for cash flow loans. But we tapped into the growing number of minority private equity companies, funding us with debt plus a 20% equity stake

Over the coming weeks I will tell the whole story for folks who might be interested in the same journey, but at one point in time we were holding the deal together when we were entirely shut down in every location due to COVID lockdowns...

... and at another point in time encountering insane demand for our services and record revenues, which created a different set of issues.

Anyway, all done now, except for the hard, hard work of merger integration

Our business (camprrm.com) operates all these recreation areas on a concession basis, meaning we accept no money from the government but instead pay the government a concession fee for the rights to operate. In most cases this converts a public loss to a gain

Our mission has evolved to two parallel goals
1. Keep parks open despite declining public budgets. We operate many showplaces that were once run-down and or even abandoned by public agencies running out of money

2. Help parks to modernize, adding the amenities, especially cabins, that the public wants and their own internal goals for expanding the relevance of parks demands, but which they can't afford.

Despite taking on [very expensive] financing, we are actually in a better position to fund our growth. We included a chunk of growth capital as part of the financing, and it turns out that getting cash flow loans in a company 2x larger is at least 4x easier.

I have a lot of 18-hour days ahead integrating our two companies, but the good news is the economics are all predicated on growth, so no big HQ consolidation and axe-wielding that is so common in larger corporate mergers. I got enough of that at McKinsey

We have not really integrated our web sites yet, but a pretty decent map of the locations we manage is here. It's missing the mini-cabin resorts we just installed in a number of MI state parks, but it is pretty close

google.com/maps/d/u/0/edi…

@AlderLaneeggs, I was able to eventually double down on camping, it just took longer than I thought.

Oh, and I forgot the best part of all -- no personal guarantees on any of the debt. Which you large corporate types don't understand but all you small business owners totally get. 10 years ago, I used to have to give a personal guarantee just to get Pepsi to deliver

Actually the really best part, in retrospect, was having 1000 employees, 700+ of which are over 60, and not a single one got seriously ill from COVID. Virtues of the great outdoors.
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knock on wood

BTW I will absolutely guarantee you that having seen "1000 employees" you have over-estimated the size of our company. We have perhaps the lowest revenue per employee of any company with a pulse in the USA. Keeps things interesting.