Will Wright·February 15, 2024

Fire, Covid, Exit: 5 Years in a $12m Events Business | Will Wright Interview

Will Wright, a former investment banker and private equity associate (Frontenac) who attended Kellogg specifically to pursue entrepreneurship through acquisition, raised a traditional search fund and after a roughly two-and-a-half-year, high-volume proprietary outreach search, acquired Peerless Events & Tents, a $12m-revenue, $2m-EBITDA event and tent rental business operating across four Texas metros, in December 2018 for about 5x EBITDA using senior debt and a seller note with no personal guarantee. Fourteen months in, a warehouse fire destroyed most of the flagship location's inventory right before peak season, and weeks later Covid hit, forcing millions in refunds, a 90% revenue drop, and a 30-40% layoff -- the hardest day of his career -- with a board member warning he might become a 'bankruptcy CEO.' Backed by patient search-fund investors and no personal financial exposure, Wright chose to go on offense rather than retreat: he drew down the credit line, pivoted the business into pandemic-era services (Covid testing tents, expanded school capacity), and aggressively hired top talent that competitors were laying off, while overhauling the company's toxic culture with new incentive and career-pathing structures. The business grew from $12m to roughly $24m in revenue and 225 employees by the time Wright sold to a strategic acquirer in September 2023, delivering investors just over a 4x MOIC and a 38-39% IRR over the five-year hold. Wright frames the story as a case study in how the traditional search fund structure -- institutional capital, an experienced board, and no PG -- enabled aggressive, high-risk moves during crisis that a self-funded, personally-guaranteed operator likely could not have afforded to make.

Deal facts

multiple: ~5x EBITDA
sde ebitda: EBITDA $2m at acquisition
revenue: $12m at acquisition (100 employees); grew to $18m (2021), $22m (2022), ~$24m at exit in 2023, with headcount growing to 225
financing structure: Traditional search fund (raised from investors including Search Fund Partners, Aspect, Brown Robinson, Pacific Lake-adjacent community); acquisition financed with two turns of senior debt plus a half turn of seller note; no personal guarantee
notes: Closed acquisition of Peerless Events & Tents in December 2018. Business operated in four Texas metros (Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio). Exited via sale to a strategic acquirer in early September 2023 after a 4-5 month deal process. Investor return was just over 4x MOIC / approximately 38-39% IRR over the 5-year hold.

Why this business

Wright ran a broad, industry-agnostic proprietary outreach search (emailed roughly 20,000 business owners over two years) rather than a narrow thesis, and found event/tent rental appealing because it was fragmented with mom-and-pop competitors, had a surprisingly relationship-driven, repeat-customer revenue base (about 80% repeat customers, many corporate/institutional) despite looking like a B2C business, was operationally unsophisticated (no real technology or data systems), and offered a large-scale, operationally intensive role that matched his goal of gaining meaningful CEO/operating experience. He ultimately sourced the specific deal, Peerless Events & Tents, through a niche broker (a 'river guide' in the rental industry) rather than his own cold outreach, and the thesis crystallized around a 'bet on Texas': the target was the only rental company with operations in all four major Texas metros, in a white-hot growth market, competing against a struggling private-equity roll-up rival.

What's working

Highly fragmented, unsophisticated local/regional market gave room to professionalize operations and take share
Repeat, relationship-based customer base (about 80% repeat) with recurring annual events gave revenue more predictability than a typical B2C rental business
Being the only operator across all four major Texas metros ahead of explosive Texas population/business growth (Tesla, Apple relocations)
During Covid, aggressively hired top industry talent away from competitors who were doing mass layoffs, while pivoting inventory to new revenue lines (Covid testing tents, expanded classroom capacity for schools) to keep people employed and gain market share
Rebuilt company culture from an autocratic, blame-oriented environment into a values-driven, incentive-aligned one, including a badge-based pay progression system for hourly staff and commission/bonus structures for sales and salaried operators tied to labor-as-percent-of-revenue
Traditional search fund structure (institutional board, deep-pocketed investors, no personal guarantee) gave the confidence and capital backing to go on offense during Covid rather than retrench, which self-funded/PG'd operators generally could not risk
Disaster-relief tenting services (deploying for hurricanes/tornadoes) were a differentiated, high-performing niche within the business, stripped out of the core financials but seen as upside

What's hard

Extremely capital-intensive, hard-to-scale business model (equipment-heavy, four warehouse locations, complex logistics moving inventory between sites) that Wright says is very difficult to make work under traditional search return thresholds without a specific growth thesis
Inherited toxic, autocratic, finger-pointing culture from the founder-sellers that took years to change
First year as CEO was 'trial by fire' -- overwhelmed doing hands-on service delivery (setting up tents until 4am) rather than the planned rotation through every role
An electrical fire destroyed 70-90% of inventory at the flagship Dallas warehouse about five to six weeks before peak season, forcing an emergency reallocation of inventory and labor from other locations
Covid hit weeks after the fire: refunded millions in April/May reservations, revenue fell about 40% for the year (90% decline in spring 2020), and the company had to lay off 30-40% of staff in one round -- described as the hardest day of his professional career
A board member told him there was a real chance the company would go bankrupt and he might become a 'bankruptcy CEO,' leading to many sleepless, pacing nights during 2020
A cybersecurity breach and FBI involvement occurred during his tenure (mentioned only in passing, not detailed)
Growth from $12m to $24m in revenue required doubling warehouse capacity, relocating three of four facilities, adding org-chart layers, and rebuilding compensation/incentive systems -- far more operationally complex than anticipated

Notable quotes

Suddenly the light bulb went off in my head that I am the private Equity Fund. I can do the deal myself. I don't need the backing of a large fund because the hard part is getting the sellers to the table, getting the lenders to the table. Capital's easy if you can solve the other pieces, the capital is the easy part.

I reached out to 20,000 businesses over the course of two years. I tell friends in the... Austin Community that if you owned them in between 2014 and 2016 I probably emailed you.

We're going to communicate clearly to our customers that... everything is okay, business is us, we've had a small fire but you have nothing to be worried about.

One of my board members said, you know, there's a good chance that we won't be along for this ride... there may be a career for you as a bankruptcy CEO because most likely the bank isn't going to want to take over this business, they're going to need someone to run it.