DALLAS, Tex. – The Tree Fella, LLC, a professional tree trimming and arborist service, was acquired this week by Robert A. Budz in a transaction facilitated by Sigma Mergers & Acquisitions.
The Tree Fella has been providing the city of
Plano, and the surrounding communities, tree trimming, removal, diagnosis and treatment services since 1999. Company founder and president Richard Van Druten grew this business from a single truck into an eight-person operation running two full crews on both residential and commercial jobs.
During the summer of 2012, Mr. Van Druten started to entertain the idea of selling his company in order to pursue another opportunity in Alaska. After talking to several business brokerage offices, including Sigma, he decided to go a different route – for sale by owner.
“I listed my business on BizBuySell, and actually got good response,” Mr. Van Druten said, “but I wasn’t ready to deal with all of the buyers’ requests, questions and demands. I was getting frustrated with the whole situation about the time Jeremy (Furtick) reached out to me to see how things were going. Within a week I was listed with Sigma – I decided to let the professionals handle it from that point on because I needed to worry about running my business, not selling it.”
Mr. Budz, already the owner of two other tree services (Dallas Tree Pros and Eagle Tree Experts), was not actually looking for an acquisition opportunity when this business came across his desk. As luck would have it, though, it was a perfect fit and something he couldn’t pass up.
“Buying another business was the furthest thing from my mind a few weeks ago,” Mr. Budz said. “But when Sigma’s new listing email showed up on (February) 4th it was a no-brainer opportunity for me to explore. The Tree Fella operates in the same primary areas I do – so with this purchase I have an even stronger presence and doubled in size at the same time.”
Overall, the acquisition exceeded everyone’s expectations on just about every level – Sigma located an outstanding buyer from within its own database in less than a week, it took only 25 days from the listing date to closing, Mr. Budz took over an operation he will immediately make more profitable by rolling it into his system and Mr. Van Druten was able to sell the business for a higher price with Sigma than he was asking on his own.
“If I had to give one word of advice to other business owners trying to sell their companies themselves, it would be to stop banging your head against the wall and call Sigma,” Mr. Van Druten said. “I would have never gotten these results on my own.”
The Tree Fella (www.thetreefella.com), combined with Dallas Tree Pros (www.dallastreepros.com) and Eagle Tree Experts (www.eagletreeexperts.com), offer complete tree maintenance services to customers in and around Plano, McKinney, Allen, Frisco, Richardson, Dallas and Carrollton. They are specialists in tree trimming, pruning and removal, as well as stump grinding, fertilization and limb cabling.
Sigma Mergers & Acquisitions’ (www.sigmamergers.com) roots as a Dallas business brokerage and M&A firm date back to 1984. After the company was acquired in 2004, Sigma has grown into one of the country’s most successful firms of its kind. The proprietary Sigma DealMap™ process has changed the way businesses are sold in Texas and has established Sigma as one of the most productive business brokerage and M&A firms in the country year after year. Sigma has closed more than 500 business transactions since 2004, and on average those businesses have sold for 95% of their asking prices.
DallasBizBroker Blog 