How a Salt & Soil transition could work for you

You’ve spent decades building a business that matters to your team, your customers, and your community. At Salt & Soil, we don’t take that lightly. We’re hands-on operators who respect what you’ve built and are committed to carrying it forward with care. Whether you're thinking about retirement, taking chips off the table, or simply stepping back after years at the helm, we offer a steady, thoughtful path forward as buyers. Selling a business is personal, and we'd love to talk if you're looking for high-integrity people who will preserve your reputation, support your team, and build for the long haul.

Criteria we look for in you and your business

To get a better sense of whether your business might be a fit for us, here's a guide to the characteristics we look for:

  • Located in Canada with a preference for Western Canada (BC, AB, SK, MB)
  • $5-50M in annual revenue, $2-10M EBITDA
  • 10+ year history of operations with 5+ years of profitability
  • Strong competitive positioning with your business filling a clear need in the market
  • Great people who are easy to work with
  • A strong team capable of handling day-to-day operations that we invest in and build upon

What makes us unique as buyers

Not all buyers are the same, and the real differences go beyond simply valuation. M&A often functions much more as a partnership between buyer and seller than a negotiation, and we take pride in being easy to work with and getting to know what matters to you. Unlike PE or strategic acquirers, we are entrepreneurs who have been through this from your shoes ourselves. Because we've been done it before, we understand that operating a company while managing a transition process can be a burden and look to make it as smooth as possible for everyone.

Beyond our focus on being good partners in this process, we believe the following characteristics of Salt & Soil deals and the way we approach transactions make us a unique option for you:

Empowering your existing team

Your team stays. That's the point.

Your team is what makes the business work. If they weren't the right people for the job, they wouldn't be your team. That's the starting point for everything we do after a transaction.

Unlike a strategic acquirer, we aren't bringing in our own people to replace yours, eliminating roles to chase synergies, or absorbing functions into a head office somewhere else. The team you spent years building stays intact, in their seats, doing the work they're good at. We're looking to build and grow the company around them, not strip it down and rebuild it in someone else's image.

Filling the seat you're leaving

The one role that does need to be filled is yours. How we fill it depends on the situation.

In a lot of the businesses we look at, there's already a strong GM or senior operator on the team who's been close to the action for years and is ready for more. When that's the case, we support and promote them into the leadership role, and back them with the resources, mentorship, and runway to grow into it.

Other times, the situation calls for an external hire. Maybe the GM isn't quite there yet, or the next chapter of the business needs a different kind of experience at the top. In those cases, we bring in a highly qualified CEO with the track record to run companies like yours, and pair them with the team you've built.

We don't have a preference between the two paths. We have a preference for getting it right. The decision comes out of conversations with you, time spent with the team, and an honest read on what the business needs to thrive over the next decade.

Same team, more room to grow

Either way, the focus is the same: keep the team together, give them strong leadership, and let them do what they do best. Your customers keep working with the people they know. Your culture stays in the building. The institutional knowledge that took years to develop doesn't walk out the door.

That's what continuity actually looks like, and it's the foundation of how we grow the businesses we partner with.

Preserving your legacy for the long-term

Long-term ownership of a valuable reputation

Your brand and reputation took years to build. They're tied to specific decisions you made, specific promises you kept, and the specific way you treat the people you do business with. We treat that as something to protect, not something to rework. The name on the door stays. The standards behind it stay. The relationships you've built with customers, suppliers, and your community keep going the way they always have.

That long-term mindset shapes how we think about ownership itself. A lot of PE firms run on a fund cycle that forces them to flip companies in three to five years, which means every decision gets filtered through how it'll look at exit. We don't operate that way. We're looking to own your company for a decade or more, and we make decisions on that timeline. That changes everything: how we invest, how we grow, how we treat the people who work here, and how patient we're willing to be when the right move takes time to pay off.

Building on what you started

Before we change anything, we spend the time to actually understand what we're working with. Your products and services, the industry you operate in, the customers you serve, and the things that make your company different from the others in your space. A lot of that knowledge lives in your head and in the heads of your team, and we put in the work to learn it properly.

From there, the goal is to build, not rebuild. We use the foundation you've created as the launching point for the next chapter, looking for ways to grow the business into something even stronger than what you're handing off. New markets, new offerings, deeper investment in the team, sharper operations, whatever the right path turns out to be.

Years from now, when you look back at what the business has become, the goal is for it to feel like a continuation of what you built. Bigger, stronger, still recognizable, and something you can be proud of.

Providing flexibility on timing and structure

A transition built around you

We're interested in talking with owners who want to exit now and owners who don't see themselves stepping back for another couple years. Both are good conversations to have. Building long-term relationships matters to us, and we'd rather get to know you well before a transaction than show up cold when you're finally ready to move. When the timing is right for you, we want to be ready.

When that time does come, we work with you to design a transition timeline that actually fits. Some sellers want a clean handoff and a clear finish line, and we can structure things that way. Others want to stay involved for a while longer to see a major project through, finish onboarding a key hire, or make sure a big customer relationship transitions properly. The shape of your exit should be built around what you need, not forced into someone else's template.

Building a financial package that fits

The financial side gets the same treatment. There's no single deal structure we push every seller toward. Instead, we work with a few different tools to put together something that works for you and for the business:

  • Cash at close. A straightforward cash payment delivered at closing. Cash is part of every deal we do, but it's never the whole deal on its own. The right balance depends on what you're trying to accomplish and what makes sense for the business going forward.
  • Seller note. A loan from you to the buyer, typically interest-bearing, repaid over time. Beyond the financial benefits, a seller note keeps everyone aligned in wanting the transition to go well. You stay invested in the success of the handoff, and we stay accountable to delivering it.
  • Earnout. Additional payments tied to the performance of the business after close. Earnouts are a useful way to bridge a gap in valuation when the seller and buyer see the future a little differently. If the business performs the way you believe it will, you share in that outcome.
  • Retained equity. You keep a meaningful ownership stake in the business after the transaction. This aligns incentives on both sides and lets you share in the upside as the company continues to grow under the next chapter of ownership.

Most deals end up using a few of these in combination. The right mix is the one that gets you what you need from the sale, keeps the business well-positioned for the long run, and feels fair to everyone at the table. That's the conversation we want to have with you.

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