Business was really beginning to boom in the mid 1990s when we (three majority owners) paid the final check to our previous owner and took possession of our 200-employee company. It was 1995 and our roofing company was growing during the dot-com boom as Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan fueled the economy heading into Y2K.
In 1997 the booming economy was fostering many initial public offerings (IPOs), and the roofing contractor sector was no exception. There were several attempts at “consolidation” with roll-ups hoping to go public. Eventually, we received two offers from consolidators and two offers from boutique private equity groups that wanted to invest in our company. We explored an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP) and, in 2003, began transferring our stock to key managers via a management buyout.