Lineage: The ETA Podcast
Lineage: Ep. 9 - David Schenavsky - The Buy and Build Playbook based on 60+ Acquisitions
Buy and Build: 60 Acquisitions in 17 Countries | David Schenavsky on Lineage Buy and build is the most talked-about value creation strategy in small business investing, and the least understood in practice. Every add-on is its own deal, its own integration, and its own set of people problems. Doing it repeatedly without breaking the platform is where most acquirers fail. David Schenavsky spent nearly eight years inside one of the most active buy-and-build machines in the German Mittelstand. At Tentamus Group, the Berlin-based laboratory group, he joined in 2017 when the first platform, bilacon, had just a handful of add-ons, and left as Head of Corporate Development and Country Manager Benelux with the group at roughly 4,500 employees and over 100 sites across Europe, the US, Asia, and Israel. Along the way he was involved in around 60 acquisitions in 17 countries. Since 2024 he has been part of the founding team of Assessimus Group, a new testing, inspection, and certification platform built from scratch, now operating across Germany, the UK, and the US. In this episode, David walks through the full buy-and-build playbook: what a platform needs before its first add-on, how to source off-market deals with founder-owners, how to value and structure small acquisitions, what minimum viable diligence looks like, and how to integrate without destroying what you just bought. What you'll learn in this episode: → Why stability beats size when choosing a platform → What makes a good add-on and why smaller and healthy beats bigger and broken → Sourcing off-market deals through accreditation lists, networks, and personal outreach → Winning founder trust through autonomy, brand retention, and a decentralised model → Valuing on normalised post-closing EBITDA and aligning the baseline early → Why a two-page LOI in plain English closes more deals than a ten-page one → Explaining earn-outs and rollover equity to first-time sellers → Founder retention: 51 to 90 percent stakes and why a 10 percent stake is not an incentive → Red-flag diligence: what to check, what to skip, and the risks that only show up after closing → Centralise vs. decentralise: why there is no one-size-fits-all and consistency matters more Chapters: 00:00 Introduction to David Schenavsky 01:10 Tentamus and Assessimus: setting the stage 03:45 Why lab testing is a buy-and-build industry 05:43 Platform vs. add-on: what Tentamus had and Assessimus lacked 08:56 Stability before scale: what a platform needs 10:16 What makes a good add-on 13:08 Off-market sourcing and the first founder conversation 16:19 Winning trust: autonomy, brand, and the decentralised model 20:34 Deal sizes and no-go criteria 21:51 Valuation and normalised EBITDA 25:13 Transparency, mini commercial DD, and aligning the baseline 27:28 What goes into a two-page LOI 30:40 Explaining earn-outs and rollover to first-time sellers 32:16 Founder retention and transition structures 34:31 The LOI as a tool: keep it short 36:43 Majority stakes and incentive alignment 40:03 Group-level vs. company-level incentives 42:33 Minimum viable diligence: red-flag reports 45:14 What diligence misses: unwritten rules and sector nuance 48:23 SPA negotiation: disclosure schedules and keeping lawyers in their lane 51:24 Centralise vs. decentralise: no one-size-fits-all 55:53 Synergies: subcontracting and cross-selling 57:53 When deals did not work out 60:10 Deal cadence: how many acquisitions per year 62:27 Advice for the first add-on 64:50 Trust and transparency: getting deals over the line Connect with David Schenavsky: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-schenavsky-151a4279/
