Phil Reeves and Michael Brown Rig, co-founding partners of Apis & Heritage Capital Partners, discuss their employee-led buyout (ELBO) strategy that converts lower middle-market businesses to employee ownership.

They detail how they sourced and structured the Blooming Nursery transaction (Cornelius, Oregon), including screening criteria, diligence on agriculture-specific risks like seasonality and weather.

They explain ESOP mechanics, trustee oversight, tax advantages, multilingual employee communications, post-close governance and ownership-culture training, operational upgrades, and their non-sale exit model focused on refinancing principal and monetizing warrants as the business grows.

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Guests:

Phil Reeves: Co-founder, Apis & Heritage

Phil@apisheritage.com | LinkedIn

Michael Brownrigg: Co-founder, Apis & Heritage

Michael@apisheritage.com | LinkedIn

Deal Highlights:

Blooming grows branded, high-quality plants and sells exclusively to specialty garden centers across the western U.S. Demand is tied to seasonal and weather-driven buying patterns which creates diligence and forecasting challenges.

Apis & Heritage found the deal through a brokerage and structured the acquisition as a sale into an ESOP, enabling the founder, Grace Dinsdale, to receive about 90% of value upfront. The ESOP approach protected the land and Grace's legacy by keeping ownership with the company and workers.

The debt transaction put roughly 70 full-time employees plus about 50 seasonal H-2A workers on a path to wealth, with plan tweaks so seasonal workers could earn shares. Post-close, Apis & Heritage added governance, ownership-culture training, finance upgrades, and expanded capacity with new greenhouses. Apis & Heritage received share purchase rights along with their subordinated note which gives them the opportunity for upside.

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Glenn Bean and Ian Noyes of Sycamore Equity examine a shared-equity housing model designed to bridge the gap between what nonprofit and church staff can afford and local housing costs. Bean and Noyes explain how equity sharing agreements provide 10–30% of a home’s value at closing to reduce mortgage burdens, typically targeting 3–9% IRRs, with capital recycled upon sale or refinance to build a housing endowment-like reserve.

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Guests:

Glenn Bean: Co-founder, Sycamore Equity

glenn@sycamoreequity.com | LinkedIn

Ian Noyes: Co-founder, Sycamore Equity

ian@sycamoreequity.com | LinkedIn

Deal Highlights:

They detail a Central Coast California transaction: a pastor family sought to buy a $1.2M home they had been renting, had saved $100k, qualified for a $600k mortgage, and filled a $500k gap through aggregated sources—about $200k in gifts from ~20 congregants to a designated church fund, about $200k from donor-advised funds, and $100k from a self-directed IRA—pooled into an LLC that invested in the shared-equity position. The church (annual budget ~$300k–$350k) raised $500k in about two months, which they say also strengthened congregational confidence and unity.

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Impact Investing Roadshow transforms the way we discuss impact investing.

Unlike typical investment podcasts with scripted questions and high-level generalities, the Roadshow features in-depth conversations with impact investment fund managers who talk you through the execution of a single deal.

Inspired by the 'Song Exploder' podcast format, the Roadshow extracts the essence of an impact fund manager's investment thesis, impact mission, and deal execution by drilling deep into a single deal.

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