Teamshares

Earlier this week, Teamshares closed a $225 million preferred equity investment from accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Investment Management. The capital will serve to fund new acquisitions of profitable, owner-operated businesses across the country. Read the full announcement here: https://lnkd.in/gJiKK2ap

A healthy business doesn’t need to be reinvented after a sale. When Teamshares acquires a company from a retiring owner, our first priority is continuity. We don’t come in planning dramatic cost cuts, large synergies, or immediate growth. We typically use the first year to manage the transition, learn the business, protect the earnings, and build a foundation for future growth. That approach matters because a business is more than its financials. It’s the team the owner(s) built. The customer relationships they earned. The reputation they developed. And the way the company operates day to day. Our job is to preserve what already makes the business strong, then look for practical ways to improve it over time. For owners who care deeply about what happens after they retire, that difference matters.

What makes a business attractive to a long-term buyer? For us, it starts with durability. We look for businesses we understand, with cash flows we have high confidence in retaining and meaningful opportunities to grow over time. We also intentionally stay diversified across industries rather than building around one narrow vertical. For owners thinking about a future sale, that means the fundamentals still matter: 1. A durable business 2. Understandable economics 3. Strong cash flow 4. Clean financials 5. A solid management team Those are five key markers of a company that can transition well and continue for the long term.

A buyer’s price matters. So does their ability to actually close. Financing can introduce significant timing and execution risk into a business sale. On our Q2 earnings call, we discussed why becoming a public company was part of Teamshares’ strategy from the beginning: access to capital is central to our ability to acquire businesses. We also shared that since entering the public markets, our financing opportunity set has broadened, including a non-binding term sheet for a proposed warehouse facility intended to provide committed capital for acquisitions (subject to customary closing conditions). That matters to us because financing isn’t separate from the acquisition process. It’s part of transaction certainty. For an owner who has spent many years building a company (and for the advisor representing them) certainty deserves a place alongside valuation when evaluating a buyer. We want every intermediary and owner who works with us to have a high degree of confidence in our ability to close.

We source more than 15,000 businesses each year that meet our size criteria. Our historical win rate on LOIs is 50%, and our LOI-to-close rate is 80%. Why does all that matter? Because it’s a signal: when we decide we like a business, we do everything we can to make a deal happen. When we’re interested in an opportunity, we’re in it to win. It doesn’t always work out, but when we throw our hat in the ring it means we’re going to do our best to make it work for everyone. If you’re selling a business — or advising someone who’s selling — you can shop it around to 100 different buyers. But if it’s a business that meets our criteria and you send it our way first, all of that extra work may not be necessary. Sometimes the best way to determine fit is simply to start talking. If you’d like to chat about a sell-side mandate that’s on your list, you can set up a quick call here: https://lnkd.in/g522xRMD

We’re seeing more interest from businesses in the $2M–$5M EBITDA range. On our Q2 2026 earnings call, we shared that the average business in our queue of signed, non-binding LOIs has approximately $3 million of EBITDA. Why does all that matter? For a business at that size, succession can become more complex. There may be a larger management team, more employees, more customers, more vendor relationships, and more at stake in choosing the right next owner. That’s where the Teamshares model can be a strong fit. We’re built to own businesses permanently, not prepare them for another sale. We recruit and support new leadership when an owner retires. We give employees a stake in the outcome through stock ownership. And we’ve spent the last six years building the financial, operational, and technology infrastructure to support a growing group of companies over the long term. For owners, that can mean a path to retirement that preserves continuity while giving the business resources to keep growing. And it’s a big part of why we’re seeing more interest from this segment. If you advise or work with owners of high-quality businesses considering retirement, we’re always interested in chatting. Reach out here: teamshares.com/brokers

Most owners spend decades building their business. Then they have to decide who should own it next. Teamshares uses a permanent ownership model, combined with employee ownership, because we think it creates a different set of incentives. When you plan to own a company for the long term, you need to buy durable cash flows at reasonable terms. You need the business to keep working well after the transaction. And you need to think beyond the next few years. Our model is built around owning these businesses permanently. Steady, consistent growth over the long haul.

A successful business sale isn’t measured only on closing day. The harder test comes afterward. When Teamshares acquires a business from a retiring owner, we generally think about the first year in three parts: 1. Manage the transition. 2. Understand the business. 3. Protect the earnings. Then we build the foundation for future growth. That approach reflects something important about business succession that gets overlooked: ownership and leadership often change at the same time, and it takes time for a company to adjust to new leadership. Closing day might feel like a finish line, but it’s also the starting gun for the next chapter.

We’re actively acquiring businesses in 2026. If you’re not familiar, we buy 100% of established small- to medium-sized businesses and give employees stock. We’ve acquired 90+ companies since 2019, and we’re looking for more—especially companies in the $2M-$10M EBITDA range. If you’re a business owner considering retirement or an industry exit (or an advisor working with one) here��s a snapshot of what what we’re looking for. Have something that might be a fit? Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gfPgeeDk

For a retiring business owner, the highest offer may not always the best outcome. Price matters. But so do the questions that come after it: - Who will lead the company? - What happens to the employees? - Will the business still exist in its current form five or ten years from now? Teamshares was built to solve the succession problem: buying durable businesses from retiring owners and holding them permanently. Today, nearly 6 million small to mid-sized U.S. businesses have owners approaching retirement. That represents millions of individual decisions about what comes next: decisions that are both financial and emotional. These owners have spent decades building their companies and teams, and those aren’t things most can easily walk away from. For advisors helping owners prepare for a sale, we think the conversation is bigger than valuation alone. It’s also about finding the right next owner.