Brian Anderson·March 19, 2026

Leaving Wall Street to Buy a $1m Manufacturing Business | Brian Anderson Interview

Brian Anderson spent his career as a hedge fund portfolio manager doing event-driven investing, including a stint in London, before the fund closed around 2015 when he was 47. Drawing on his finance background and contrarian instincts, he identified small manufacturing businesses as an underappreciated asset class and in 2016 purchased Deco Manufacturing — a Vermont machine shop producing custom work rest plates for centerless grinders — for just over $1 million (~3-3.5x SDE of ~$300k), paid almost entirely in cash with a small seller note. The first three years went well: sales grew ~50% and the business became capacity-constrained, prompting Brian to acquire a distressed Connecticut competitor as a bolt-on to gain capacity and new machine capabilities. COVID struck just after that acquisition closed, and Brian made what he calls his worst decision: shutting the Vermont shop and consolidating into Connecticut. He lost the tribal machining knowledge embedded in Vermont employees, was pulled back into deep hands-on operations, and saw productivity and cash flows decline sharply. He spent several years rebuilding — learning manual machining himself, documenting SOPs, reducing process variation, and cycling through two COOs before finding the right fit. By 2024 the business had returned to firm footing, and Brian sold it in February 2025 to the COO via 100% seller financing, realizing roughly a 25% IRR and 2x money. He reflects that buying small was his key structural mistake and that being trapped in operations for years was an avoidable consequence of the consolidation decision; he now plans to step up in deal size, pursue a more strategic/sponsor-oriented role, and potentially partner with others rather than operate alone again.

Deal facts

purchase price: just over $1m
multiple: low end of 3-3.5x SDE
sde ebitda: ~$300k SDE
revenue: under $1m revenue
financing structure: mostly all-cash (own capital) + small seller note
notes: No SBA debt used; buyer had the financial resources to pay nearly all cash. A bolt-on Connecticut competitor was also acquired later (distressed, dirt-cheap price, structure not detailed). Final exit was 100% seller-financed sale to the COO. Buyer reported ~25% IRR and ~2x money on exit.

Why this business

Brian gravitated toward manufacturing after kicking many tires on BizBuySell because he kept finding better valuation there. He wanted a business with a product that could not be offshored, a niche with genuine pricing power, recurring customers, and a macro tailwind. Deco's work rest plates for centerless grinders checked those boxes: thousands of SKUs made-to-order, a repair/refurbishment revenue stream, and a product he believed nothing on the horizon could replace. He also explicitly wanted to enter as a full owner-operator to learn the business from the bottom up as a stepping stone to future acquisitions.

What's working

Niche, made-to-order product (work rest plates for centerless grinders) that cannot be offshored and has inherent pricing power due to high customization and low volumes
Repair and refurbishment revenue stream representing roughly 50% of business — recurring, sticky demand from existing customers
Strong first three years: sales grew approximately 50%, cash flows grew at a solid rate, and the business became capacity-constrained — a sign of demand strength
Brian successfully extracted himself from day-to-day operations of the Vermont shop before the bolt-on acquisition, demonstrating scalable management
Front-office systems and SOPs were thoroughly built out, reducing key-person dependency and making the business more transferable
Identified and groomed a COO who became the buyer, enabling a clean exit via 100% seller financing without needing to run a full sale process

What's hard

COVID hit just after closing the Connecticut bolt-on acquisition, forcing a hard choice between two sites
Chose to shut the original Vermont business and consolidate into Connecticut — a decision Brian calls his worst: he lost tribal knowledge embedded in Vermont employees, productivity collapsed, and he was pulled back into deep operational involvement
Lost specialized manual machining skills held by Vermont floor operators; had to learn machine operation himself and then document, standardize, and re-teach it
Manufacturing is capital-intensive and labor-intensive with significant CAPEX requirements and limited operating leverage
Operated largely alone for years — described as intensely lonely; averaged ~80-hour weeks and logged 360,000 miles of driving over the ownership period
Was away from family five days a week (4-hour commute each way to Vermont); teenage children at times pushed back on his absence
Hiring and managing COOs was difficult; the first COO did not work out, requiring a second search
Business never fully recovered to 2019 cash flow levels before the sale, though it had returned to firm footing
Size of the business (under $1m revenue, ~10 employees) proved too small to generate the leverage, scalability, and return profile Brian would want in a future acquisition

Notable quotes

Every time I brought this up to people, they all gave you the condescending, 'Oh, good for you.' kind of attitude. And that to me, being the contrarian that I am, was more of a reinforcement than it was an argument against.

I said to myself, I'm like, what is the most undervalued asset here? And I realized it was me.

I then ended shutting the Vermont business and operating exclusively out of Connecticut. And that was a bad, bad decision. I lost tribal knowledge. That's knowledge that basically exists only at the employee level. So there's no way if the employee goes away that that knowledge could be extracted.

I worked on average with the travel time probably 80-hour weeks. And I logged 360,000 miles of driving over the nine years — 15 and a half trips around the earth, and to the moon and three quarters of the way back.