I learned business at the highest level: the 1st guy in the door selling bleeding edge IBM Watson a.i. to American Express, TD Bank, E-trade, and more. We added 108 logos in 18 months, and IBM sold it for less than market value. This was 2019, 3 years before anyone had ChatGPT on their phone.
Most recently I brokered the largest residential roofing company in North America in 2023 (14.6x Ebitda). They paid more than market, 50% plus more. More on the why below.
These two opposite experiences are just two deals in a decade of selling software to large enterprise. 200+ transactions.
IBM needed the capital (and talent) to invest in high growth cloud computing. Though we added 108 logos we were still operating cash flow negative (yet the goal was 50). Watson Health had a PR meltdown over a case using our technology and suddenly someone else got a steal of a deal. This division might as well have been McKesson as far as how distant we were from Watson Health.
The acquirer of the roofer had one goal to meet: $25M Ebitda, and Berkshire Hathaway had a pre-negotiated, guaranteed offer of "x times ebitda." My client and its growth rate got them there in 14 months if the rest of the business stayed flat. The return of the fund is not based on ebitda but rather increase in enterprise value over time. They had figured out that this platform was in a sector that they just couldn't figure out, and this exact company would allow them to pass the ball up to someone who thought they could, before it fell apart.
I got a call one day from a friend that had a conflict of interest helping his client, who wanted to vertically integrate into distribution materials, where 35% of his revenue went each year. But one caveat: "all of my competitors buy their material there, so the process has to be a secret and the buyer has to be a secret, you are the one signing at closing, not me."
As a seller who spent time working 18 month deals where you don't even know what pieces are on the chess board, this was what I was looking for. High stakes, high reward, high autonomy. 3.5 years later, after losing the SBA loan (I had to get that for him too) to Covid then twice more, it closed. I've been hooked on the process ever since.
My specialty is off market deals through my network.
My website sucks. Nobody cares.
I'm unlicensed. Don't need to be. Plus I have 5 licenses I can bring in if real estate
is involved.
This opportunity is one of those that I get my hands on once every other year, and you'll see why further if you don't give up on me during this preamble.
Someone is about to buy a $27mTT-->36mFT dividend for $325m, that trades on the public markets for 15-30x depending on the business model, built by a small handful of career corporate and PE bankers, brick by brick to become the leanest people cost to revenue, the lowest priced product versus competition in 80%+ verified markets, and an Ebitda performance that makes it a "Costco Story" of a boring, off the beaten path industry: Car Title for Loan.
This business is two things: how well you can train the front end (people) and how cheap and clever you can build the backend (systems + partners). The back end's diligent, decade long hunt for efficiency cranked and cranked.
Next Chapter Managing Partner. Next Chapter Advisory Group.
Online auto-secured installment lender. Lowest charge-offs in the title-lending category.
Consumer finance 30 states active FDIC charter via charter-state PE backed
Confidential Information Memorandum . 2026-05-18 . Prepared by Next Chapter Advisory Group
Project Helios is an online auto-title installment lender that operates more like a regulated auto finance company than a traditional title lender. The product is 100 percent vehicle-secured, fully amortizing on a three-year installment structure, and underwritten conservatively enough to produce the lowest charge-off rate in the title category globally. The company is licensed in 30 states and operates a parallel FDIC-backed product through a charter-state bank partnership that creates a path to 50-state coverage. Net income runs approximately $25M per year with a path to $30M over the next two years.
~$75M revenue ~30 percent net margin Lowest charge-offs in category
"Clip-to-coupon dividend play. Counter-cyclical. Performs best in recessions and inflation." owner-operator, Q2 2026 management call.
Online auto-secured installment loans. 100 percent car-based collateral. Average loan size is $4,000 outside the lead state and $5,000 including the lead state. Average duration is 14 months on a three-year installment structure. Rate steps down monthly as principal amortizes. Full repo and liquidation playbook on default.
Project Helios is all-online versus the brick-and-mortar competitor base (the dominant brick-and-mortar incumbent, Check Into Cash). 75 percent of volume comes from new customers, 25 percent from repeat and reload. Lead mix is roughly 40 to 50 percent own-brand PPC and the balance from partner and lead-source channels. Win rate has compressed modestly from buy-now-pay-later and product substitution, a market-level dynamic the team is actively addressing.
30 states active. the top three markets are large-population states across the South and West. the lead state alone is roughly 20 to 25 percent of the book, driven by larger loan sizes ($10K and above). Restrictive Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states are avoided. one additional state faces regulatory drift risk. The the charter-state FDIC product opens a path to all 50 states without state-by-state licensing.
Operator depth is real. the owner-operator, came up through a tier-1 alternative-asset manager and works a couple of days per week as the figurehead and investor-facing executive. Day-to-day operations are run by the COO, who is the key operator. The CFO and Controller handle financial operations. the owner-operator and the CFO together manage the PE investor relationship.
The two competitors of consequence are the dominant brick-and-mortar incumbent and a brick-and-mortar peer / partner. Both are brick-and-mortar. Project Helios is the only national online operator at scale in the auto-title category. a brick-and-mortar peer / partner is a competitor and a partner. Project Helios's product is available in a brick-and-mortar peer / partner stores. The competitor with the cleanest comparable is the dominant pawn operator (pawn, same end-customer profile) trading at roughly 20x.
Three forces line up. First, the FDIC charter is already operational and battle-tested. The state-preemption upside has not yet been monetized through expansion. Second, the cost-of-funds gap to a scaled acquirer is structural and large. Third, the team has identified pricing, product, and AI levers that organic growth has not yet captured. An acquirer pulls levers that the standalone has flagged but not had the appetite to pull.
| Metric | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ~$75M | Current annualized run rate |
| Net margin | ~30 percent | Net income to revenue |
| Net income (dividends out) | ~$25M | Current year |
| Net income target (current year) | $26M to $27M | Management guide |
| Net income target (next year) | $30M | Management guide |
| Average loan size | $4K ex-CA / $5K incl-CA | |
| Average loan duration | 14 months | 3-year amortizing structure |
| All-in cost of funds | 8 to 10 percent | Standalone basis |
| Charge-off rate | Lowest in category globally | Specific rate available in data room |
| APR range | 36 percent floor to triple digits | Below the dominant brick-and-mortar incumbent 125 to 200 percent |
Income profile is the differentiator. The company is structured to pay dividends, not to reinvest aggressively. That makes the asset legible to coupon-oriented buyers and yield funds, and it makes the underwriting discipline easy to underwrite for a strategic.
The asset suits three buyer archetypes. (1) Bank or near-bank platforms with low cost of funds who can re-rate the entire book and unlock the structural margin uplift. (2) Specialty consumer-finance platforms that already operate a category-leading unsecured-installment platform- or a category-leading unsecured-installment platform-style unsecured products and want a secured-collateral wedge with an FDIC charter. (3) Yield and dividend-focused holding structures that value the clip-coupon cashflow profile and the proven counter-cyclical performance.
the owner-operator's strong preference is an off market process. No broad auction. The seller wants a handful of strategically-fit conversations rather than a wide bid book. Next Chapter Advisory Group will run a curated buyer outreach against this preference.
Valuation framework. The seller's reference comp is the dominant pawn operator at ~20x. The seller's stated target multiple is ~8x. Fee structure has been referenced against the roofing precedent ($1M base fee at $60M of value plus 25 percent of proceeds above $60M) and remains under discussion with the owner-operator's partners.
Timeline. No hard timeline pressure as of Q2 2026. the owner-operator indicated he was traveling post-call and would return to deal mechanics on his timetable. The seller team includes the CFO, the COO, and outside counsel through the data-room process.
Next Chapter Managing Partner. Managing Partner, Next Chapter Advisory Group.
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Next Chapter outreach lead. Next Chapter Advisory Group. Buyer outreach and process.
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