AUSTIN · TEXAS
We acquire a business, lead it hands-on, and grow what’s already working. If you’ve spent a career building a company and you’re thinking about what comes next, we’d like to hear about it.
FOUNDED 2026 · JOE GUTIERREZ & TRAVIS HELMS
THE TEAM
We met during the first days of our MBA at the University of Texas, and started Armadillo Legacy Partners in April 2026. We didn't want to advise on other people's companies for the next twenty years — we wanted to run one. So we're doing the more fulfilling version: finding a business with a reputable name and a long operating history, buying it, and building our lives around it.
Deals, diligence, financing
Six years as an M&A lawyer at DLA Piper and Creel, Garcia-Cuellar, running acquisitions, sales and carve-outs end to end — including a family-owned distributor's exit after fifty years in business. Most recently in investment banking at Moelis & Company.
jose.gutierrez@armadillolegacypartners.com
Operations, people, growth
Oversaw both finance and operations at Rocky Mountain Crude Oil, building and then leading a Texas-based operation to strong growth. Most recently in energy investment banking at Citi.
travis.helms@armadillolegacypartners.comFOR OWNERS
Most calls you get are from firms buying dozens of companies this year. We're buying one - and we're going to run it ourselves. That means your team, your name, and your customers matter to us as much as they do to you.
Once we acquire, our search ends — this becomes the business we operate and are personally accountable for. Every decision between now and close is filtered through what it means to run this company for years to come
This acquisition is our full-time commitment and the foundation of our professional track record for the next decade. We become Co-CEOs of the business we buy, with direct responsibility for its performance and its people. No absentee ownership.
We buy a business because of its team, its customers and the reputation it has earned — and we're there to invest behind them. Keeping that institutional knowledge and those existing client relationships is a priority for us.
We work from a clear set of acquisition criteria, so a conversation or two is usually enough to give you a straight answer - including when the answer is no. If it is a fit, we move quickly and treat the decision with the care it deserves.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
We're searching, nationwide, for a single profitable business to buy and run — not a roll-up, not a stake, not the first of several. If your company looks roughly like this, we should talk.
$8–35mm
Annual revenue
We want a business that's grown to the point of having real systems in place, yet still small enough that we can come to know every part of it.
$1.5–6.0mm
EBITDA
Proven earnings, not a projection — four or more years of history.
15–35%
EBITDA margin
A business that makes good money on what it sells, doesn't need heavy spending to keep running, and turns its profit into cash.
Ranges, not rules. A motivated owner without a succession plan matters more to us than any single line above.
Industry focus is a deliberate part of our process, not an incidental preference. Limiting our search to one to three sectors at a time allows for sector-specific underwriting discipline and a more efficient path from first conversation to term sheet. These are the three sectors receiving that focus today.
Plumbing, fire safety, HVAC and mechanical services: recurring, relationship-driven work that continues regardless of economic conditions, typically retained on reputation rather than price.
Storage, cross-dock, and short-haul logistics operators serving construction, industrial, and e-commerce clients — mission-critical services
Licensed day care and preschool operators, where local reputation and enrollment consistency define the business.
WHAT THE PROCESS LOOKS LIKE
A conversation with us costs you an hour and commits you to nothing. Start to finish, the whole path runs four to eight months from the first call to closing — and every stage moves at your pace, not ours.
We reach out directly, or you do — and when decisions are made, you're talking with the two people who would actually buy and run the business.
What you built, how it runs, what you want for the people and the name. We listen more than we ask for documents.
We put a non-binding indication in writing early rather than months down the road — so if our number and yours aren't close, you'll know within days, not after months of effort.
Site visits are quiet and off-hours whenever you prefer. Your staff and customers hear nothing until you decide they should.
The purchase is backed by our investor group, and we only move forward when the numbers genuinely work — so the company isn't handed a burden it can't carry.
Stay as long as you'd like, stay on the board, or hand over the keys and go fishing. We'll build the handover around what you want.
CONTACT US
Tell us as little or as much as you like. Everything you send stays between the three of us, and we answer every message ourselves, usually within two business days.