Strategic Buyer Acquires Apex Technical Institute
Transaction Description
A large Title IV vocational college acquired Apex Technical Institute, a leading CDL training provider in Kansas City, Kansas, as part of a national rollup strategy in the CDL training sector.
Transaction Details
Strategic Buyer
A Title IV Vocational College
Phoenix, AZ
Apex Technical Services
A leading commercial truck driver training facility
Kansas City, KS
Jackim Woods & Co represented the buyer, sourced the target, and arranged the transaction.
Transaction Overview
Jackim Woods & Co represented the buyer in a national buy-side search program to help our client acquire one or more CDL schools in five different states.
This represented the third acquisition this client made in the CDL sector.
Challenges
For regulatory reasons, our client needed to close before the end of 2025 and the combined CDL operations in total had to have at least $8M in revenue, so this required that we close 2-3 acquisitions in 10 months.. So time was of essence.
The transaction required us to move very quickly, eliminate unnecessary steps, and focus on results.
In addition, because the buyer’s portfolio of CDL operations now spanned three states, it was important to acquire a target that had an owner/CEO who was capable of leading a multi-state, national CDL school and who was interested in being part of the buyer’s senior management team for the foreseeable future.
Solutions
The team as Jackim Woods & Co developed a highly targeted list based on our client’s geographic preferences, size preferences, and other criteria, like distance from the closest major airport.
We identified 693 initial targets, which we narrowed down to just over 300 targets that were a great fit for our client.
We then reached out to the owner of each CDL training company through a combination of email and phone calls as part of a comprehensive buy-side search campaign.
Our initial outreach resulted in 15 schools that were interested in speaking with us. We had introductory phone calls with 12 of schools, arranged six conference calls between our client and the target school, and helped our client make an offer for two schools.
In this case, since the owner’s involvement post closing was essential, our client spent time to meet and get to know him, share their strategic vision, and negotiate an employment package that was attractive to him. The owner is now the divisional vice president in charge of the buyer’s national CDL division.
Our efforts resulted in a closing in 184 days from start to finish.
Summary
The key to this successful buy-side campaign was a combination of the following:
- Our client had a very clear set of acquisition criteria and knew exactly what they wanted to acquire.
- They were well capitalized and able to pay cash for the right opportunity. This eliminating the need to obtain bank financing saved time.
- Our client had a very capable management team, including a full-time CFO who had prior M&A experience, so they were able to conduct their own due diligence.
- The client had an accelerated timeline which demonstrated to potential sellers that they were serious and not window shopping.
- Jackim Woods & Co has extensive experience in the CDL space, so we were able to build immediate credibility with CDL school operators and help our client put together compelling offers that resulted in fast closings.
This entire transaction, from start to finish, took just over 180 days.
