The Consortium Acquisition Desk
A business-acquisitions discipline
built where the machine reads —
and the hands still work.
The Capital Consortium’s business-acquisitions discipline sits at the intersection of two convictions. First, that artificial intelligence — applied to underwriting rather than as underwriting — is finally capable of reading a small-business balance sheet, tax return, and operating footprint the way an experienced acquirer would: patiently, comparatively, and in three dimensions. Second, that the durable compounding businesses of the next twenty years are the ones the machine cannot replace at the point of service — the trades. Our thesis is that AI belongs on the diligence desk, on the phone with a seller’s accountant, and behind the dispatcher’s screen. It does not belong on the ladder.
We source, screen, and acquire owner-operated trade businesses where a skilled human in the field is the product. We finance those acquisitions through SBA 7(a) programs where the target fits the eligibility envelope, and through private-equity co-invest and Consortium-directed structured capital where scale or complexity moves the deal outside SBA lanes. The output is a portfolio of installed cash-flow, professionalized operationally, and levered on the diligence side by tooling that would have taken a mid-market PE firm a six-figure Big-Four workstream ten years ago.
AI-driven deep diligence.
Every target enters a documentation intake — three to five years of P&L, balance sheets, federal and state tax returns, general ledgers, aged AR & AP, payroll and workers-comp filings, equipment schedules, customer concentration, vendor terms, licensure, insurance, and pending litigation. The Consortium’s AI stack normalizes the accounting across GAAP and cash-basis, reconciles the returns against the books, surfaces owner add-backs on their own line, and flags anomalies before the LOI is drafted. Human underwriters interrogate what the machine flags — not the other way around.
SBA-eligibility screen, then structured capital.
Financiability is scored at the same moment quality is scored. Targets that clear SBA 7(a) eligibility — size standards, industry code, ownership, and cash-flow coverage — are packaged with a preferred-lender bench. Targets that exceed SBA program limits, or that call for buy-and-build sequencing, are routed to private-equity partners and Consortium-directed structured capital: seller notes, rollover equity, mezzanine, and equipment lines negotiated as one instrument. The Consortium underwrites the capital stack alongside the business.
Field-heavy businesses, AI-bolstered back-office.
Post-close, the machine moves to the back office — dispatch, quoting, scheduling, call intake, collections, warranty, and customer retention — while the technician, installer, and field supervisor remain the product. The operating thesis is symmetric: AI takes the desk work that once bled a founder’s nights, and hands the technician a better route, a cleaner quote, and a faster invoice. Margin compounds because the hands still work.
- Financial Statements3–5 year P&L, balance sheets, cash-flow, and the corresponding trial balances — reconciled to the general ledger.
- Tax ReturnsFederal and state returns for the entity and, where relevant, the owner(s); K-1s, depreciation schedules, and elections.
- Operating DocumentationArticles, operating agreements, cap table, licensure, permits, bonding, insurance certificates, and litigation history.
- Revenue & Backlog QualityCustomer concentration, contract terms, backlog aging, warranty exposure, and recurring-versus-transactional mix.
- Payroll, Workers’ Comp & HRHeadcount by role, payroll registers, workers-comp mod, benefits, and turnover analytics.
- Fixed Assets & FleetEquipment schedules, vehicle fleet, maintenance history, and remaining useful life — feeding the tax and financing model in parallel.
- AR / AP & Working CapitalAged receivables and payables, DSO / DPO, seasonality, and working-capital covenants embedded in the transaction.
- SBA / PE FinanciabilitySize-standards test, eligibility, DSCR modeling, and a live view into which vehicles — SBA, PE, seller carry, mezzanine — the deal actually clears.
HVAC and electrical installations — existing dwellings and new construction.
The initial acquisition mandate concentrates on HVAC and electrical installation businesses serving both the existing residential and light-commercial stock and the new-construction pipeline. The category is chosen deliberately. Demand is durable: heating, cooling, and power are not discretionary spend — they are the baseline of habitability. The regulatory frame — state licensure, municipal permitting, code inspection — erects a defensive moat around a well-run local operator. And the labor is skilled, physical, and unamenable to remote substitution. A furnace does not install itself. A panel does not upgrade itself. A rough-in on a new home does not happen in the cloud.
Adjacent trade categories — plumbing, mechanical, low-voltage, solar-and-storage integration — are on the platform’s roadmap as capability builds. The through-line is the same across all of them: businesses that AI makes better, not businesses that AI makes obsolete.
Nothing on this page constitutes an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy, any security or interest in any acquired business. The Capital Consortium’s acquisition activity is conducted under separately governed instruments and is offered only to qualified counterparties under applicable law.