Bolt-On Acquisition
Buy a BusinessA bolt-on acquisition (also called an add-on or tuck-in) is a smaller company you buy and fold into a larger business you already control. Instead of standing on its own, it plugs into your existing overhead, management team, and customer base — so you pay for the revenue and assets, but you don’t have to pay twice for the back office.
Why it works. A standalone business has to carry its own accounting, admin, marketing, and management. A bolt-on inherits yours. That means more of its revenue drops to the bottom line after you integrate it, and you can often justify paying a bit more than a pure financial buyer because the combined entity is worth more than the two apart. It’s also the building block of a roll-up: buy several bolt-ons, combine them, and sell the whole as one larger company.
The cost of a bolt-on isn’t the purchase price — it’s the integration. Mismatched systems, unhappy inherited staff, and customer overlap can erase the synergy on paper. Underwrite the integration work, not just the multiple.
See roll-ups and add-on acquisitions for the full strategy, and how to value a business for pricing the target.