This CEO Made 350% Returns Rolling Up One Industry. He Just Started on Another.
Someone Just Built a Razor-and-Blade Model in Essential Safety Equipment
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The fire safety equipment market has been controlled by the same family businesses for generations.
These companies have unbreakable customer relationships but lack scale and capital.
Enter a proven consolidator with a different approach:
Acquire the family businesses at 5-6x EBITDA
Keep the local relationships and management
Add manufacturing scale and financial resources
Cross-sell the complete portfolio to existing customers
Layer in high-margin recurring services
The numbers prove it’s working:
Fire Services has exploded from under $20M to a $100M+ run rate in 18 months. What started as 20% of revenue is approaching 50% and headed to 65%+.
This isn’t some speculative rollup story.
It’s a business where switching vendors means retraining entire departments on life-critical equipment.
Once a fire department standardizes on their gear, changing means risking operational readiness.
But here’s what changed everything: They just acquired fire service cleaning facilities that generate 60-70% gross margins with recurring revenue. Every fire department that uses their gear becomes locked into their cleaning services. It’s a razor-and-blade model where both the razor and blades are essential for survival.
Todays company is…