From one generation of builders to the next.
Graculus Industries is looking to acquire one exceptional founder- or family-owned manufacturing, engineering or industrial technology business in the Alpine region.
The first company we acquire will become the cornerstone of Graculus and shape how we build the group over time.
Start a confidential conversationAt some point, the question changes.
For years, the questions are about building the business.
The next customer. Another machine. Finding good people. A larger factory. A new market. Then the difficult years, when costs rise, a customer leaves, or something breaks at exactly the wrong time.
Over time, a workshop becomes a company. People stay. Skills are passed on.
Perhaps your wife helped in the early years. Perhaps some of the people working with you today joined twenty or thirty years ago.
Your children may have grown up around the business and then chosen lives of their own.
And eventually the question changes.
Who should own this business after me?
Price matters. But it is rarely the whole question.
Employees whose livelihoods depend on the company. Customers who have dealt with the same people for years. Technical knowledge that may never have been written down. A reputation built slowly and lost quickly.
There is also the name above the door.
Choosing the next owner means deciding who you trust to take responsibility for it all.
Industry belongs here.
Across the Alpine region, manufacturing is often woven directly into the places where people live.
A specialist manufacturer can sell across the world while remaining deeply connected to a town or valley of only a few thousand people. Employees stay for decades. Technical skills pass between generations. Suppliers, customers and other industrial businesses often sit surprisingly close to one another.
This creates companies that can be highly international without becoming detached from where they came from.
Some of that advantage sits inside the factory. Some sits around it, in skilled people, supplier relationships and industrial knowledge built over time.
The environment is not easy. Energy costs, labour shortages, regulation and international competition are real. But they have not erased generations of technical capability.
Your business would be our starting point.
Graculus is deliberately starting with one company.
We are not adding another business to an existing portfolio. We are looking for our first cornerstone.
The company we acquire will shape where we invest, which capabilities we build and which businesses we may acquire alongside it over time.
We are not looking for a company to fit into Graculus.
We are looking for the company from which to build Graculus.
Keep what makes the company special. Build what it needs next.
We do not buy companies to sell them again. We are building Graculus as a long-term industrial group around the company we acquire first.
Long-term ownership does not mean keeping a successful company unchanged. Founders themselves spend decades developing products, entering markets, investing in people and adapting the business as circumstances change.
We want to understand what made the company successful before deciding what should change, then build from those strengths.
Understand why it works.
Learn the products, processes, relationships and judgement behind years of success.
Keep what makes it special.
Strengthen the people and capabilities the company needs for what comes next.
Extend from the cornerstone.
Grow into new customers and markets, or add complementary businesses that strengthen it.
Every acquisition must strengthen the cornerstone.
The company we are looking for
The capital and experience to take responsibility.
Equity capacity for our first acquisition.
Of prior transaction experience
Combined experience across transactions, ownership and operations.
For our first acquisition, the partners will invest their own capital alongside long-standing capital partners with whom we have strong relationships. Together, we can bring up to €10 million of equity to the right opportunity.
That equity can be combined with bank debt, seller financing or continued ownership by the seller where appropriate. We structure each transaction around the business, the owner and the circumstances of the succession. The financing should support the business, not shape it.
Three people. Clear responsibilities.
We came by different routes. We chose the same place to build.
The three partners remain directly involved from the first conversation and are supported by an established network of advisers, industry specialists and engineers who bring additional expertise where required.
Meet the team →We welcome conversations with advisers supporting founder- and family-owned businesses, and introductions to relevant owners and opportunities.
You don’t need to be actively considering a sale.
Succession often starts quietly.
A question from your accountant.
A sense that it may be time to understand your options.
A first conversation does not need to lead anywhere.