Have you noticed?

There's a nationwide trend that private equity firms are buying up family-owned HVAC shops. The private equity managers "optimize" their investment by treating both employees and customers quite badly and using up whatever goodwill these companies have accumulated over the decades.

You don't have to deal very much with someone who is actively looking to cheat you at every turn to be grateful for someone willing to do honest work at a fair price.

this doesn’t sound like a sustainable business model? Or one that a smart investment firm would use. Certainly those investment buyers are customers also

Years ago the utilities were buying up the small HVAC shops, but it was short lived.

Franchising can be a good way for a shop to grow and benefit from training both sales and technical, capital, equipment , call centers, etc

https://www.wsj.com/business/entrepreneurship/plumbers-hvac-skilled-trades-millionaires-2b62bf6c?st=qJawZG&reflink=article_email_share

Aaron Rice has two logos tattooed on his left leg: one from the plumbing business he co-founded more than a decade ago, and another from the private-equity-backed company that recently bought it.

Few businesses are as vital to their customers as local plumbing, heating or air-conditioning companies—especially in places like Tucson, Ariz., where Rice works and residents sweltered in 100-degree heat most days this summer.

For years, Rice, 43 years old, was skeptical when out-of-state investors offered to buy his company. He assumed most of them knew little about skilled-trade work or his customers. They were just looking to make a buck. But in 2022, when approached by a local HVAC company backed by private equity, he changed his mind, figuring that they knew the business.

“The trades are hard work. A lot of today’s society, picking up a shovel is foreign to them,” he says.

Private equity, however, is no foreign player in the skilled trades these days. PE firms across the country have been scooping up home services like HVAC—that is, heating, ventilation and air conditioning—as well as plumbing and electrical companies. They hope to profit by running larger, more profitable operations.

Their growth marks a major shift, taking home-services firms away from family operators by offering mom-and-pop shops seven-figure and eight-figure paydays. It is a contrast from previous generations, when more owners handed companies down to their children or employees.

The wave of investment is minting a new class of millionaires across the country, one that small-business owners say is helping add more shine to working with a tool belt.

“You don’t need to go to Silicon Valley to have a successful career and entrepreneurial opportunities,” says Brian Rassel, a partner at the Detroit-based Huron Capital, which focuses on investments in service companies.

I try to e-mail my question to increase the likely hood that it gets passed to someone that knows the answer.

Legrand bought up a whole lot of the companies that make AV equipment. I thought that in that process they were going to lose the understanding of what those products are supposed to do but I have been able to get good answers when I have needed support from them after the takeovers.

I once worked for a fellow setting up and operating hardware and software for scanning motion picture film. We were the first ones in the business on the East coast of the USA so I had to spend a lot of time explaining things to customers and holding customers' hands. He decided I spent too much time talking with customers so he forbid me to do so. It resulted in a lot of pissed off customers. I was eventually fired because I couldn't make the world work the way he wanted it to.

I have to think today's customers are too distracted with their social media feeds, tweets and texts to take interest in what contractors are doing. That and technical expertise and curiousness is gone.