Most buyers of consumer brands plan their exit before they close. We work differently, and the reason is simple: the money is ours.
By Gerry Morton, Founder & CEO, NutriScience
A private equity fund typically has to return capital to its investors within a set number of years, so every acquisition it makes comes with a sale date attached. NutriScience has no fund and no outside investors waiting on a return.
We have made five acquisitions since 2004 and still own every one. EnergyFirst has been ours for twenty-two years. Greens Plus has been ours since 2016. Nothing we have bought has been flipped, broken up or sold on.
When there is no sale date, decisions run on a different clock. We can invest in product quality, customer service and formulation work that pays back over years rather than quarters. We can keep a brand’s story and its customers intact instead of repositioning it for the next buyer. And we can be patient through a hard year without being forced to sell at the wrong time.
The person who bought each company still runs it. The same person who agreed the price is accountable for what happens afterward, from formulation and manufacturing to retail and direct sales. There is no investment committee and no layer of associates between a decision and the people it affects.
Customers notice continuity. More than 80% of the business at both EnergyFirst and Greens Plus comes from repeat customers, and EnergyFirst holds a 4.9 out of 5 rating from more than 9,500 verified reviews. Numbers like those are built over many years, and they are easy to lose in an ownership change that treats a brand as a line item.
If you are considering a sale, the question of what happens to your company afterward deserves a factual answer rather than a promise. Ours is on the record: we buy brands to run them, and we keep them.
If the supplier relationship, the formulation and the retail contacts all live in one head, the buyer is purchasing a job and prices it that way.
Read the exit-readiness checklist, or send us a note and we will tell you which of the three would cost you the most. No NDA needed for that conversation.
