A Rolls-Royce Limo Company With a Dangerous Catch

0:00Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Acquisitions Anonymous. This is the internet's number one podcast on buying, selling, and operating small businesses. I am one of your hosts, Bill D 'Alessandro, and I am here today with Michael Girdley and Travis Jameson from CapitalPad.com, and we are reviewing a limousine business in Dubai. This business is making one and a half million bucks a year, chauffeuring people around Dubai in Rolls Royces. What makes it really interesting is there's a regulatory moat here. Apparently, the transit authority in Dubai is not issuing any more licenses for transit companies, no more licenses for individual cars, and it is hard to get visas for the drivers.

0:42So this company has three separate regulatory moats, which is pretty interesting. It's not something you would get necessarily in the States. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous.

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1:36They're passionate about helping entrepreneurs like you take the next big step. So don't wait to make your business ownership dream a reality. Visit acquisitionlab.com today to learn more and schedule your free consultation. And when you do, be sure to tell them the The Acquisitions Anonymous podcast sent you. All right. Back to back episodes of Acquisitions Anonymous. It's me, Bill D 'Alessandro and Michael Girdley and our good friend, Travis Jameson of Capital Pad. How are you guys doing? Great, man. Excellent. Stoked for today. Gotta mash my energy, Trav. I mean, we're - Oh, sorry. Sorry. It's the end of the day.

2:09If you're watching the video, these are two of my Cortado cups. They're empty. Oh, the caffeine's leady. Oh, I thought those were shot glass. Oh, yeah. I thought it was tequila. it is that time of day. Yeah, we have two recording times here at AA. We have the morning time, which is 10 a.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Pacific for Heather. And so we're all just getting going. And then this one we're recording, it's 5 p.m. ET. So it's tail end of the day. We should start doing like coffee episodes and beer episodes. That'd be fun. Wait, you guys are sober?

2:46We're getting high on this deal today. Speaking of sobriety, I talked to you in this thing for a second episode because of this deal. Let me pitch you on this, and then you can tell me if you're going to sign up for this one or not. So it's from our friends and future sponsors at Synergy Business Brokers. And I was scrolling through the transport companies that they have. And if you guys follow a lot of what's going on online right now, Now, transport companies and trucking companies are going bankrupt left and right. So I was like, oh, there's going to be something good in here. But I stumbled across this.

3:23And this is a luxury transport companies for sale. So it's a pair of sister companies. So it is listed by Aaron Cucullo, who no hat and looks pretty straight up. And then it's got a picture. Travis, are these Rolls Royce limousines? Is that what they are? You're asking the wrong guy. Looks like it. I think they are. I mean, you're the one with the cardigan on. So I thought I'd ask you. so luxury transport companies for sale the price is 6.9 million dollars the annual revenue is 3.5 million dollars so they're targeting about a little over two times a little under two times revenue net cash flow is 1.5 million dollars so bill they're targeting what is that about three and a half times cash flow um no more than that i mean they want 6.9 oh oh four is six that's 4.6 mil 4.6x.

4:17All right. Well, they do have Rolls-Royce limousines. Does that change your mind? Maybe. I mean, those are flanky, I think. I need a free ride in one. I need to check them out. And it is located in Dubai, Asia. Interesting. Yep. An exclusive opportunity to acquire two well-established sister luxury limousine service companies in Dubai. They are operating under a unified management structure. the entities represent a turnkey investment in one of the world's most dynamic luxury transportation markets. They have proven leadership and reputation. They are fully licensed by the RTA, which I assume is the local transit authority in Dubai.

4:56And they have a great reputation catering to hotels, embassies, and high net worth individuals who they claim to be trusted providers for. There's a significant barrier to entry. The current regulatory environment presents major challenges for new entrants, including restrictions on new company registrations and driver visas. This acquisition delivers an active fleet of luxury vehicles, all registered RTA permits, and experienced drivers with valid visas, bypassing these critical hurdles entirely. It has diversified recurring revenue streams, and they have a healthy mix of income sources, including long-term corporate contracts, partnerships with major international ride-hailing apps, such as Uber and Kareem, VIP services, and high-frequency airport traffics.

5:39so this ensures stable recurring revenue and mitigates market risks they have a proprietary technology platform that is a key competitive advantage and has an in-house booking system including client and supplier portals dedicated driver and guest mobile applications and a web booking platform there's a lot of growth potential they say with operational capacity at estimated at 50 there is immediate scope to scale revenue without existential capital expenditure which i assume would be more Rolls Royces. Clear Pathways exists within the UAE and adjacent GCC, which I think is Gulf markets, leveraging the established brand and operational infrastructure.

6:15It is founded and managed by highly reputable Emirati entrepreneurs with deep roots in the business and legal community. The companies have a longstanding membership in the prestigious government SME Foundation, underscoring their credibility and compliance. Now I have to be out. I was into it until you said all that. You got to be in the club? You got to be in the club. Yeah, anyway, continue. We'll talk more about it. Bill, we're supposed to save the hating of the deal until about minute 20. Oh, I was so into it. I'm sorry, I broke the girdly rule. The girdly rule is don't poop on the deal for 10 minutes.

6:46Got to pretend like I'm listening.

6:51Broke the girdly rule. I was reading it, then you were like, founded and managed by reputable Emirati guys with deep roots in the local community and a membership in some government And I was like, oh, like, you know, okay. So they know everybody. And you show up here, you know, white American dude, and no one gets in your Rolls Royces anymore. Founded and managed by a highly reputable cousin of the Emirate and members of the Illuminati. Okay, anyway. So, yeah, the current ownership is pursuing a strategic realignment of its diversified portfolio, creating an ideal window for a new investor to acquire a market-ready, profitable, and scalable business, which is code for we're looking for a crypto idiot to come in and buy this business off of our hand at a high markup.

7:44But anyway, so I'll just pause there. Travis, do you have a good feeling for what these guys do? First of all, I think they took all the description of the business, put it into like Claude and said, make this as investment bankery as you can and spit it back out, right? Like all the descriptions are like classic right there. But yeah, I mean, this is an interesting business. They essentially drive around rich people, right? Or at least corporate people coming in with corporate expense cards. It seems like Dubai is probably a great place for this, I would assume. Oh, yeah. I mean, I have never been to Dubai.

8:21I mean, that's not true. I have been to Dubai briefly, but I have not spent an amount of time in Dubai. But I imagine it's a great market for this type of thing. probably the best market for this type of thing, really. So much money, so luxury focused, definitely a big enough city to support this. Wealth is pouring in from all sides. You know, Dubai is the hotness right now. It's collecting rich people like crazy at the moment. Everyone's leaving their home countries to go to Dubai, except for us Americans that have to pay taxes no matter where we live. Right, yeah. What are the only two countries that are that way?

8:58it's like us in North Korea or something weird like that are the only two countries that make their citizens pay taxes on offshore earnings. I'm joking about North Korea, but there's two countries. I thought it was in Africa or something. I did hear that I think France is going to try and do this, I believe. I don't know if they can succeed. Yeah. Well, I have friends that are UK citizens and six months before they start to get ready to sell their business, they're like, hey, guess what? I'm moving to Dubai and there's no income taxes or capital gains taxes. So yeah, they go from there. And the next thing you know, they're starting businesses in the UAE, which is like, okay, well, I guess maybe, I guess maybe the strategy is working.

9:37So if you want to live in Puerto Rico, well, you can live in Puerto Rico. That's, I do not though. There is not enough tax break to make me live in Puerto Rico. Listeners. If you do not know about this, it is the one great tax avoidance scheme without giving up your American citizenship. you can pay basically 4 % income tax if you live in Puerto Rico. That's the rough idea, but there's a lot of catches to it. You have to live there and you have to earn money there. There's a lot of hedge fund folks and folks that live. That's what we're talking about. You have to really live there. You have to move there and you have to do your business from there for at least a couple years.

10:10But if you do that, you can sell your business for huge dollars and pay functionally no taxes and then move back to the United States. It was probably three, four years ago I looked at one of those businesses. You know those businesses that send out those kind of semi-government looking things about, hey, you need to renew your LLC or this tax is filed and pay this stuff. There's a special ring in hell for those people. So I looked at one of those businesses and first of all, it's not a business I'd be proud of being in, but they absolutely, totally print cash. And they had figured out that basically they were doing like six and a half million in top line and they were profiting like 4 million bucks a year in cash from sending out those things.

10:57And they had figured out different ways to like get leverage to legally access a lot of the government data on it. So it was just insane. And I was like, why does the one brother live in Puerto Rico? And then I realized, oh, that's why he lives in Puerto Rico. Didn't want to pay any tax. So on that business model you just mentioned, is the business model, like what do they do? They send out these things that look like legitimate, you know, LLC renewals from the state, but they're not. When they pay, what happens then? So let's say you have a, let's say, let's forget the LLC, but let's say there's some filing like a farm license or whatever, right?

11:34They get the license, the people who are supposed to be paying a hundred bucks a year for their farm license, and they get the list of people whose farm licenses have expired. And then what they'll do is they will collect the hundred bucks, say the fee is$100, they'll collect$299 from the people. They'll sit on the money for 30 days, and then they'll go and they'll pay the$100 fee and they'll pocket the difference. Okay, I take that back. These people don't have their special ring of hell reserved for them. It's the fake trademark people. Oh, well, the reason this works is they send out a letter to the people that if you're not paying attention, looks like it's an official government letter and it tricks you.

12:15So there's a ring of hell for those people. Okay, all right. But, well, we'll circle back. These guys get sued all the time by different states and stuff like that. Yeah. Anyway, so Rolls Royces. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Anyway, so if you want to save on income tax, you can move to Puerto Rico. The problem is Puerto Rico and hurricanes, and you've got to be in Puerto Rico. So, Bill, I mean, the thing I like about this is, like, competitive barrier. Like, it's hard to start a new one of these. It seems like it's impossible to start a new one of these. Now, of course, that's just what Claude says on the business listing.

12:49I would want to actually diligence it. Like I would try to start a new one and see if I got bounced eight different ways. That would be exciting, right? That would validate what they're saying here. But taking at face value, it seems like it's almost impossible to register a new company and then to get licenses. It seems as though you need a license for each of the cars in this jurisdiction based on their description here. So it seems like not only is it hard to start one, it's hard to get new cars and it's hard to license new drivers. I thought that was an interesting wrinkle because, you know, here in the States, we think it's, oh, it's really hard to like staff a plumbing company or, you know, with, with licensed trades.

13:28But in Dubai, they seem very focused on the visas for the drivers, which I thought was interesting. Like you can't even, it's not that driving is like the super skilled role, but I wonder if it's just, there aren't enough laborers who have a visa and can work. Well, most of the laborers are imported anyway, right? So it makes sense. The visas make a lot of sense here right yeah like they're all there's indian pakistani bangladeshi um it's that way i think across a lot of the middle east so i mean if you take this at face value this is like the classic case study for sometimes why people buy businesses instead of start them right like this business almost all of the value in this business is in the hard assets the roll of Royces and the regulatory mode.

14:15Right. And then maybe some in the, uh, the, the customer relationships. I don't know if they have any contracts, but what they probably have is their number and a bunch of rich guys' phones who they just pick up the phone and call, right? They're the preferred provider. Um, without the regulatory mode, this business is worth a lot less. Would you guys agree? Yeah. You buy a Rolls Royce, you do some SEO. Bada bing, you're rolling, right? But with the regulatory mode, this is potentially very interesting. Big thanks to High Level for sponsoring this video and helping us pay for our editors. High Level is the all-in-one CRM that handles your emails, texts, funnels, and more all in one place.

14:53Think of it like the Swiss Army knife for small businesses, and you can try it for free for 30 days at gohighlevel.com slash michaelgirdley. I mean, this is one of the first things I look at when I look at deals is what is actually there to prevent someone else from just doing this without buying the business, right? Starting it from scratch. Sometimes there's not much and sometimes like this, it looks like there's probably a lot. Yeah. I mean, I, the multiple is rich. I have a feeling the multiple is rich at four and a half times because they're pricing in the value of these Rolls Royces and they're feeling like they, they have quote unquote inventory here.

15:26To me, that doesn't seem like a fair thing to do because I can't buy the business without the Rolls Royces. Like that's a capital structure decision. You know, like they could be leasing these Rolls Royces also, but they're choosing not to. But you definitely see multiples being different in different countries too, right? That's true. You know, you go and look at like Australia, well, their HVAC companies are still trading at 3x or lower, right? You look at other countries, it's way more. So, you know, there's an interesting point here with which let's say this does include the Rolls Royces. And I don't know how many there are and what they're valued at.

16:02there is a potential sale lease back financing mechanism in this business, right? I mean, if they are sitting on$2 million of Rolls Royces, like I said, I don't know how many or what they're worth, but you could immediately sell those Rolls Royces and lease them back and convert an asset to a monthly obligation, which is what debt is, right? Is turning a big lump sum payment into repayment. And you can also kind of outsource if you structure your lease right, the maintenance, the depreciation, et cetera. I mean, they're probably driving these things hard, right? I mean, this isn't like your personal Rolls Royce that sits in your driveway.

16:42This thing is hopefully rolling all the time and depreciating. And if it's not, maybe that's more exciting because their utilization is too low. But it seems to me like this is a lease business, not an owned business. What do you guys think? I like that aspect of structure the deal. Yeah, I would prefer to be leasing those vehicles rather than own them because you can always just try to give them back. Yeah, who knows how the depreciation's working there anyway. I don't know. I assume these things hold their value pretty well, but at what point? I think also important, Travis, you're driving around customized Rolls Royces in 120 degree Fahrenheit night weather in dust storms.

17:27Like, it's not exactly, you know, this is not exactly like, you know, the Caribbean. So I think that's there. But I think, Bill, my question on this one is, the whole bet is what is the likelihood you keep this exclusive license post buying it? Because I think if somebody could come in and say, guarantee that you're going to keep this license, you're going to have no competition, and, you know, you're going to have this business is going to perform the way it has, it's a pretty darn good deal. But the question is how likely and how much this license that they have is tied to the fact these are Emirati guys who are in close with the government.

18:05So this is one of the reasons that a capital battle, we've never done a non-US deal, because we're just not comfortable with the regulatory framework and how even the non-regulatory stuff works outside of the US. What is the process for all this stuff? like we just there's just so many unknowns um makes it really difficult you basically have to like be a local or have some like close local partners to to kind of know the ins and outs of it and how many bribes are have to be paid to get this deal done to get this deal done or to maintain your license yeah right so so to me like there's two there's a couple buckets of risk here there is like the insider's game from a regulatory risk like do i have to bribe people or be emirati or whatever to maintain this license and could the government yank my license?

18:55That's risk bucket number one. Risk bucket number two is they suddenly get a libertarian impulse and they loosen up the licensing, right? I mean, that could easily happen. The government could suddenly start saying, oh, we need a couple more taxi companies and they start giving out more licenses and erode my moat. I mean, that's stroke of the patent risk also. And then the third bucket is a different flavor of the insider risk, which is, do you have to be an Emirati guy who's friends with all the clients and you got to be in the network to get the revenue? So do you have to be in the network to get the license?

19:31Even if you don't, do you have to be in the network to get the revenue and like on the ground there, or can anybody do it? Is this revenue going to evaporate when they transact? Those are the three things that scare me the most from the transition point of view. So I mean, I'm not a business, right? It's a pretty good business if you can be guaranteed this moat persists. Let me pitch you my idea to solve all of those in one creative idea. All right. You go to these guys who founded this thing and say, congratulations, we're going to take this off your hands. Here's what you're going to do. We're going to buy 51 % of the business.

20:05We'll pay you cash with some seller financing for that. You roll over 49 % and you'd be our minority partner with protections. and your whole reason to exist is to make sure we keep this license exactly the way it is as a co-owner of the business. We'll take care of everything else. And you cash them out of a little over 50 % of the business and suddenly you have somebody who is intimately capable of keeping you in business, highly motivated to do it with you. I love that. I love that. Yeah. Now, of course, you're not going to pay them full price. You're going to pay them 51 % of the price, right?

20:39They've got to roll over 49%. but then we're going to go sell the rolls royces to somebody else or at least it back. We're going to use the cash to pay off these dudes. That's the second thing we're going to do. So very little money out of pocket. I like it. Yeah. That's how that's now you're getting into ditch risk, Michael, because they figure out what you hold on them. And you, there's no cashflow because we're servicing all these leases, you know, and then you end up in a ditch in Dubai. I don't like that, but, and by the way, it's also worth mentioning, this is taken for such granted in the United States.

21:15We are sitting here for all of the great stuff about this business. We can't focus on any of it because we're too worried about the regulatory framework and the ability to transition this business safely and confidently from one owner to another. And that is something we take for absolute granted in the United States, right? That we have property rights, that we don't have any measurable, you know, a huge amount of government corruption, obviously there is some, uh, but you know, that corruption does not make our world go around in the United States. You can transfer property left, you know, easily between people.

21:48We have deep capital markets. You can borrow to finance a transaction like this. The, just the pure fact that this is not in the United States casts a huge cloud over it. And we wouldn't even be talking about these things if this was U S based business, you know, America, fuck. Yeah. It's great. A hundred percent agree. all right what else on this one i mean we like it if if it weren't in dubai if we could feel comfortable with regulatory risk uh you got to move to dubai to run this business so i don't want to be there for that a lot of people would a lot of people tend to like it it's puerto rico the middle east all right all right i'm i mean if i could get comfortable with regulatory i like this business.

22:35You know, that demand's always going to be there. I imagine, though, it might be a little cyclical. You know, economy goes the other way. People start riding around in Camrys instead of Rolls Royces. Or maybe the ultra-wealthy here are, you know, untouchable, even still. Yeah. I bet if the economy goes down, more people go to Dubai. Right? That's possible. That's possible. So, I don't know. I want to know who the customer base is. I want to know, is it all Emirati dudes? You know, maybe that's good. Maybe it's not. Is it all tourists? Is it, you know, to and from hotels? Is it to and from private residences?

23:08Is it repeat riders? I mean, there's a lot of questions I have about this business, but could be nice. I like that it's high end. I like that it's Uber's not touching this, right? I mean, you're not booking a Rolls Royce on Uber. This is not the same clientele. Although maybe in Dubai, I don't know. Like Uber black, black? Super black. I don't know. I feel like you want your guy. like the clients here like they're calling their guy Bobby or whatever who shows up in the car you know and that's how it is even in states too at the high end you know people want to call their guy who shows up in the Rolls Royce and takes him to where he wants to go I don't think this is booked on Uber so I don't tentatively thumbs up I the Dubai risk is big for me yeah there's no way to get over that other than that great looking business yeah I like it Gerds what do you think I think I'm a Thumbs up for the right person.

24:01Yeah. With the right structure. Yeah. Crypto Emirati guy would be perfect for them. I have a couple friends who are crypto Dubai people. So if you're listening, you can buy this business. You can be the Rolls Royce guy in Dubai. All right. Well, let's wrap it up. This concludes this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. If you like this one, there are 400 more like it on acquianon.com. um travis from capital pad thanks for being with us man what the heck is a capital pad can you tell people a capital pad is a kind of like a deal by deal private equity platform for like the lower middle market deals which is investor speak for essentially deals that kind of rhyme with this one right we focus on the more of the boring business niches so not as much online businesses kind of like in-person industries that are harder to disrupt uh usually like 20 million dollar deals and below, probably as low as like$5 million deals and kind of just a syndicated platform where investors can distribute their investment.

25:02So instead of having to buy a whole business yourself, you can invest a little tiny piece of it. And we pull all the investors together and invest in these deals that get acquired. So it's definitely not venture. It's not money to like fund growth of a business. It's really just we're acquiring a small business and kind of passing owners. So if you want to invest in small businesses, but you don't want to move to Dubai and drive Rolls Royces, Capital Pad will let you buy a fraction to back somebody who might want to do that. Maybe you get the Rolls Royce anyway. I don't know. That's right. And the returns, maybe you get your Rolls Royce because you do so well.