Hi everybody.
HoldCo War Stories #7 here for you. Hope you enjoyed yesterday's issue.
Today: Peter Lehrman (founder of Axial) has spent 16 years matching buyers and sellers. He's seen exactly what works… and what gets you filtered out before you even know there's a deal.
In his HoldCo Conf 2025 talk, he ran the data on $5-100 million deals.
Meeting in person changes things. Deepen your bonds, make new connections, and get deals done at HoldCo Conference. Buy your ticket today.
The M&A Intelligence That Actually Matters
Why data beats gut feel when you’re writing big checks
From Peter Lehrman’s talk at HoldCo Conference 2025.
Most holdco operators think M&A is about relationships and gut feel. Peter Lehrman has the data that proves them wrong.
As CEO of Axial, Lehrman oversees a platform that's facilitated thousands of deals in the $5-100 million range. Over 16 years, he's accumulated something rare in M&A: actual statistics on what separates successful buyers from the ones who get filtered out.
The numbers tell a story that should change how you approach every deal.
Your name matters
Here's the stat that matters most: when you write a "love note" requesting access to a deal you weren't initially invited to see, you have a 50% chance of getting in.
But here's where it gets interesting. Family offices get admitted 72% of the time. Holdcos get in 55% of the time. Search funds? Just 40%.
"The rough pecking order tends to be that long-term permanent capital with reasonably good reputations get the best access to deals," Lehrman explains.
The message is clear: your reputation carries weight. Sellers and intermediaries see you as more serious than searchers, and more committed than serial flippers.
The 74% message that actually works
Within those love notes, Lehrman's team found the magic formula. An authentic and personal message specific to the deal creates a 74% access rate.
Generic copy-paste introductions about your holding company? "It's less effective," Lehrman notes diplomatically.
Sellers can smell automation from a mile away, and it gets you filtered out faster than a lowball offer. Specificity beats scale every time.
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The next HoldCo Conference is Feb 9–12, 2026. Get your ticket today.
The AI paradox killing deal flow
Technology has democratized access to business owner data. But that has its downsides.
"You can now go out and buy lists of business owners and their email addresses and drop them into your AI email bot," Lehrman observes.
The resulting spam means the noise in the market has gotten exponentially larger.
What used to be purely relationship-based with natural barriers—conferences, travel, in-person meetings—has been replaced by cheap, automated outreach that clogs every seller's inbox.
Lehrman predicts a reversal: "I think there'll probably be a significant shake-out in the holdco and search fund world over the next five years. The less serious people will probably exit these markets."
The opportunity?
While everyone else races toward automation, thoughtful operators who do the manual work will stand out more than ever.
Three Tactics for 2025 Deal Flow
Build Thematic Expertise: Lehrman met with a searcher focused exclusively on locksmith businesses. "They've studied the category. They understand it. When they pursue an opportunity in that market, they can speak crisply on it."
Document Everything: Your website, online profiles, social presence, and direct messages all signal competence. "When you do thoughtful work and have that manifested... it pays off. It takes longer. It's harder work. But it will improve your funnel."
Think Like a Seller: Sub-$100M business owners aren't fiduciaries to public shareholders. "That allows the owner to optimize for something other than price in the sale process." Price matters, but so does legacy, team retention, and strategic vision.
The post-modern deal sourcing moment
Lehrman is expecting a "post-modern moment” in the deal sourcing world where in-person really matters again. The pendulum is swinging back toward authenticity.
While AI handles the low-value, high-volume tasks like prospecting and initial outreach, the critical moments—building trust, understanding seller motivations, structuring creative deals—remain intensely human.
For holdco operators, this is the arbitrage opportunity. While competitors automate their way to irrelevance, you can win deals through the fundamentals: deep industry knowledge, personalized outreach, and authentic relationship building.
Lehrman’s final takeaway was simple: in a world of infinite noise, signal wins. And signal requires the kind of thoughtful, manual work that most operators won't do.
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That’s all seven war stories.
I’ve got one more email for you tomorrow: the principles for success I’ve come to believe over my decades in business.
Thanks for reading,
The HoldCo Conference Team
P.S. Data-driven insights like Peter’s can be competitive advantages. If you want access to this caliber of market intelligence, tickets for Feb 9-12, 2026 are still available.
