Jason Andrew

Arbor Group

Arbor Group is a financial services group supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs to accelerate their growth.

We do this through a range of operational, financial and capital solutions.

http://www.arborgroup.co/

The Arbor Group of companies comprise of:

 - Stark Naked Media (starknakednumbers.com)
 - SBO.Financial (sbo.financial)
 - Assurety (assurety.co)
 - Arbor Capital (arborcapital.co)
 - Arbor Permanent Owners (arborpermanentowners.co)

Co-Founder | Director

Arbor Permanent Owners

Arbor Permanent Owners is a holding company that buys exceptional, private businesses, deliberately built for long-term success. Inspired by Berkshire Hathaway, our goal is to be a custodian of Great Australian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and grow them over the long term.

CoFounder and Investor

SBO Financial turns bookkeeping and accounting into sophisticated finance for growth-focussed entrepreneurs.

Accounting looks at the past, operational finance focuses on execution in the future.

SBO is a member of the Arbor Group of companies. 

sbo.financial

CoFounder | Director

Stark Naked Numbers

Whether you're a startup or scale up, traditional accounting is way too confusing. Most CPAs either needlessly dress up your financials or are just focused on preparing you for tax season.
In this groundbreaking book, accountant and entrepreneur Jason Andrew shows you a radical new method of accounting. By stripping your financials down to the bare essentials, you can see your numbers stark naked and identify the facts that really matter. His simple techniques reveal the game-changing insights you need to turn your company into a profitable, cash flow machine.

In Stark Naked Numbers, you'll learn loads of counter-intuitive wisdom, financial truths you can start using immediately to accelerate you light years ahead of the competition. Lessons like:

- Why the profit your CPA reports to you is fake
- Why selling more of your product or service will not make you more profitable
- Why you should fire 80% of your customers

Complete with practical examples, you will gain tactical knowledge about critical questions, such as:

- How do I unlock the cash in my business?
- When can I afford to hire my next employee?
- When can I give myself a raise?

After spending over a decade as a Chartered Accountant at a global firm, author Jason Andrew started his own company, SBO - helping high growth businesses improve their cash flow, profitability and be accountable to their financial goals. With a wry sense of humour, he conveys the practical secrets the world's best CFOs and revered investors know about building a business that lasts.

Purchase a copy:

DTC: starknakednumbers.com
Via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0648424006

Author

Arbor Capital

Arbor Capital invests patient capital into high-growth technology companies.

https://arborcapital.co/

Assurety

Assurety helps entrepreneurs solve complex, strategic problems.

We do this with a range of mergers and acquisitions and strategic advisory services.

Assurety is a member of the Arbor Group of companies.


www.assurety.co

Crowe Horwath Australia

Crowe Horwath's Corporate Finance division assists clients in a wide range of transaction and consulting assignments, including due diligence, capital markets advisory, business restructuring, valuations and expert reports.

Manager - Corporate Advisory

- Cashflow forecasting and analysis
 - Key Performance Indicator development  - financial and non financial
 - Organisation performance analysis and benchmarking
 - Strategic planning
 - Taxation compliance for small to medium enterprise

Supervisor - Business Advisory

Brisbane Junior Chamber of Commerce

The Brisbane Junior Chamber of Commerce is an NFP organisation focused on providing an environment for young business people, between the ages of 18 and 40 to:

•	improve their business, personal and leadership skills, 
•	create an environment for developing management, entrepreneurial and organisational skills;
•	mix and meet with like-minded people and provide an opportunity to build long term career defining networks.

President

Queensland Treasury Corporation

Projects Queensland is a unit within Queensland Treasury and Trade established to enhance the Queensland Government's infrastructure delivery capability.

Senior Analyst | Secondee at Projects Queensland

Prosperity Advisers Group

Undergraduate accountant
 - Australian Taxation compliance
 - Financial accounting
 - Corporate Secretarial compliance

Accountant

Hey, it's Jason

I’m a chartered accountant and have spent over a decade of my working life as a business and corporate advisor. I help my clients on a range of areas including M&A, financial strategy and performance improvement.  I also know just enough about Australian tax to be dangerous... 

My passion is helping business owners extract value from their numbers and financial data. My personal mission is to improve the financial literacy of entrepreneurs and change the current worldview of the accounting profession. 

My business partner and I are building a holding company of private companies, with the goal to build generational wealth. 

Thanks for listening. 

Now, here's how I might be able to help you:

👉If you're looking for a growth and future focused accountant to help you get on top of your numbers and taxes, check out SBO.Financial

👉If you're looking to buy a business and need help with financial due diligence, check out assurety.co

👉If you're looking to sell your business, please check out https://arborpermanentowners.co/

👉If you're looking to improve your financial literacy in a safe and self-paced learning environment, check out starknakednumbers.com

----

You can also:

 - Connect with me here
 - Sign up to our free newsletter for weekly emails on finance, business and wealth creation: https://sbo.financial/newsletter/
 - Check out my book, Stark Naked Numbers: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0648424006

cheers

I used to be a fanatic NRL fan (Broncos, of course).

But when I started my business, that passion faded. I haven’t watched a grand final or State of Origin in over a decade.

Last month, I bumped into Justin Hodges at a café… I straight up asked if he still played centre.

Anyway, business is my sport. 

It’s fun, frustrating, and - most importantly - infinite.

I disagree with posts that frame business as something you “win” at. 

You don’t win at business. 

Unlike footy, there's no grand final. 

There's no "final boss" in infinite games.

The only scorecard that really matters is what Buffett calls the "inner scorecard".

Are you - and your company - better than you were yesterday?

That’s the game I’m playing. 

It never ends.

Chartered Accountant and business builder. Follow me for posts about finance, business and wealth creation.

🚨PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT🚨

Every. Single. Week I get DMs from people wanting to “pick my brain” about their investment thesis.

It’s always the same playbook:

“We’ll buy a small boring business and scale it with AI

plug in N8n, a CRM, Clay, swarm AI SDRs……and boom, 10x growth.”

Here’s the thing: none of these people have ever owned or operated a business - let alone bought one.

So here’s the advice I give them all (and, yes that includes you too, the guy with the same idea):

Entrepreneurship is permissionless

You want to do something? Go Do It.

Nobody’s stopping you.

But buying a business? Totally different game:

- You need a good business 
- You need a willing and trustworthy seller
- You need to negotiate a deal
- You need capital
- You need operational skills

It’s slow. Messy. Emotional. And full of friction. You'll torch a tonne of money and time on broken deals. 

This is what you should do instead.

Don’t start with an acquisition.

Start with a services business:
 1️⃣ Help other SMEs implement AI
 2️⃣ Get real customers
 3️⃣ Learn what works (and what doesn’t)
 4️⃣ Build repeatable systems
 5️⃣ Collect testimonials
 6️⃣ Get more customers
 7️⃣ Get profitable

Do that on repeat. 

again and again and again and again. 

Do it until it hurts. 
Do it until you're numb.
Do it until you bleed.

Then go hire some people to help you (or your AI agents I s'pose).

Learn how to manage people. Learn how to lead people. 

Learn how to actually grow a business.

After a few years - and a bit of luck - you’ll have a cash-flowing machine.

Then, if you still want to buy an SME? Perfect.

You’ll have the:
 ✅ Skills
 ✅ Systems
 ✅ Capital
 ✅ Track record

 …to actually pull it off.

Or maybe you won’t bother - because you’ll already have what you wanted in the first place:

Freedom. Autonomy. Control of your time.

Stop dreaming about “buying an SME and scaling with AI.”

Go sell something first.

The rest gets easier once you’ve got cash, customers, and competence.

*END RANT*

EBITDA only matters twice in a company’s life - when you buy it, and when you sell it.

In between? 

It’s all about NPAT and Free Cash Flow.

EBITDA is a convenient proxy. It strips away the "noise" to help buyers price a business. 

But once you own it, that noise becomes your reality.

⚠️Depreciation? That’s the cost of the truck you just bought.
⚠️Interest? That’s your debt to service.
⚠️Tax? That’s real cash out the door.
⚠️Working Capital? That's the balance sheet stuff that consumes your cash.

As an operator, you don’t pay dividends out of EBITDA. 

You pay them out of cash flow.

You build wealth by growing NPAT and converting that into free cash flow.

Buy on EBITDA. 

Run on FCF.

When you read a pitch deck, the metrics that management choose to present tells you a lot about the opportunity:

Cash profits → “We’re actually making money.”
Adjusted profits → “We’re making money… if you ignore a few things.”
Gross profits → “We make money before… you know… expenses.”
Revenue → “Please don’t ask about costs.”
GMV → “We don’t keep most of that money.”
Monthly Active Users → “They haven’t paid us yet.”
Subscribers → “Some might pay us one day.”
Downloads → “They opened the app once.”
Pageviews → “Bots love us.”
Best Place to Work award → “But hey, our office has kombucha on tap!”

Rule of thumb:

The further down the list, the less you’re looking at a business… and the more you’re looking at a story.

Last month, I broke every rule in my investing playbook…

I YOLO’d into two AI tech stocks.

Both are burning cash like there’s no tomorrow -  betting the farm on AI/data infrastructure.

I discovered Stock 1 from a guy who I respect shilling it on Twitter.

I found Stock 2 in a reply to that tweet… trashing Stock 1 and pitching a “better trade.”

Fast forward to today (a month later):

🚀 Stock 1 → +40%
🚀Stock 2 → +56%

Feels like 2021 energy all over again.

We are so back.

I have to say, the modern day Monopoly is The Battle of Polytopia
.

𝐌𝐲 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 (𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝)

When I was 14, I set a personal goal to be a millionaire by the time I was 30.

It didn't happen. 

Why?

 - I got lost in my corporate job
 - Travelled the world
 - Bought a house
 - Got married

But more importantly, I realised that financial goal was completely arbitrary.

What I really wanted was freedom, and when I was lying on a beach in Ko Samui on my annual holiday, I felt like I had that.

But freedom is relative, depending on which context you view it from.

Being chained to my corporate job was a very different setting.

I realised that in order to achieve pure freedom, I needed to become financially independent.

So, I wrote a playbook.

Here it is:

𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟭: 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀

Owning equity in a valuable business is the fastest path to creating wealth.

The fastest path to owning equity in a business is to create one yourself.

So, start a service based business.

Why a service-based business over, say a product or software business? 

A few reasons:

 - low capital requirements
 - Relatively simply business model
 - Known market
 - Can leverage your existing technical skills

So that leads us to Step 2

(thread in the comments)

I was clearing out some junk over the weekend and found an employment offer letter from my first job in accounting.

After finishing my HSC, I knew I wanted to work in Business/finance but I didn’t know where to start. Mum said accountancy was a well respected and well-paid profession, and that I should explore that line of work. 

TBH - I had no idea what the hell accountants did.

I sent over 200+ resumes to a bunch of firms in Brisbane. I think I got to the 30th page on Google.

I received 3 responses.

One firm offered me part-time work to help with an archiving project. 

Another offered casual work as a receptionist...

But the third was the most promising. I had an interview with Prosperity Advisers Group and started a full-time traineeship with them whilst pursuing a Bachelor of Business at University.

When I found this letter on the weekend, my first reaction was to laugh at the remuneration package of $20k including Super!

At $9.21 an hour, I was damn expensive!!!

I had nothing to offer - I was grateful that someone was willing to pay a 17 year old kid  anything!

Can Aussies do mexican food better than, um, Mexicans?

market says no

$GYG

h/t @88888sAccount

Why are SMEs priced at 3x - 5x EBITDA?

Why isn't it 10x? Why is it 20x? Why isn't it 1x?

And so to answer this question, I want to share with you this very simple framework.

PS if you're interested in acquiring or investing in SMEs - you MUST come to the ETA Forum in September where I'll talk about how we price businesses at Arbor. I'll even give you a free copy of this financial model.

Big4 accounting firms will charge you $000's for this spreadsheet alone...

check it out via the link in the comments.

What is the best homegrown Aussie business I’ve ever seen? 

It’s not a mining company.
It’s not a bank. 
It’s not a telco. 

I’ll die on this hill: it’s the vertical software company WiseTech Global.

In 1984, two Australian software engineers tried to automate shipping logistics. Little do they know it, they stumbled into an absolute goldmine. 

3 decades later, Wistech is worth over $33bn dollars, and generates ~$1bn in annual revenue.

Up 24x since IPO in 2016, Wistech is still putting up 25%+ YoY revenue growth with lots of room to run.

No VC funding, no startup hoodies, no TED talks. Just huge, sticky enterprise software contracts and 50%+ EBITDA margins.  

So how did Wisetech go from a software challenger to an industry heavyweight?

We break it down in our latest financial teardown (link in the comments)

Listen up - I have multiple 8-figures of capital to invest in Australian and NZ SMEs. 

we can close deals within 90 days - from LOI to cash in the bank.

below is our criteria.

if you have any opportunities that you think might fit, please DM me.

We also pay referral fees via our Scout Program (details of that program in the comments)

I’ve had my fair share of bad partner relationships.

Romantic. Friendships. Business.

And almost every time, the same problem was at the root:

We didn’t actually want the same things, and our values weren’t aligned.

When you’re caught up in the excitement of a new venture or partnership, it’s easy to overlook those differences. But they always show up later - and usually at the worst possible time.

So, before starting my latest company, Arbor Permanent Owners, with my co-founder Simon, I decided to do things differently. 

I wanted to be certain that our values, goals, and lifestyles were in sync before we signed up for the long haul.

The process was surprisingly simple - and it’s something I now recommend to every entrepreneur I meet.

full article in the comments.

In my years on the buy-side of SME acquisitions, I’ve seen every flavour of add-back - some more imaginative than others. 

The issue, of course, is that normalised EBITDA can be whatever you want it to be. Management often has an incentive to frame economic reality through rose-coloured glasses.

My personal philosophy is the same as David Ogilvy’s on advertising:

“Never write an advertisement you wouldn’t want your own family to read. The consumer isn’t a moron, she’s your wife. You wouldn’t lie to your wife. Don’t lie to mine.”

My family has a significant amount of our wealth invested in the deals I do. By extension, our co-investors are part of that family.

Acquiring SMEs and the Return on Hassle

Core to Arbor Permanent Owners strategy is operating downhill - into the overlooked and undercapitalised shallows of the lower middle market. Here, businesses are smaller, not institutionalised - typically family owned and operated. 

It’s fragmented. It’s messy. And in our view, it’s where inefficiencies and opportunities still exist in abundance.

In a pond full of opportunities, it’s tempting to convince ourselves that every deal is doable. With enough caffeine and a big enough spreadsheet, I can make anything look good on paper. 

I’ve been a spreadsheet billionaire many times over.

So how do we stay disciplined? We kill our darlings.

The late Charlie Munger spoke often about the power of inversion:
“Tell me where I’m going to die, that is, so I don’t go there.”

Rather than asking, “Why should we buy this business?” We start by asking, 
“How do we kill this business?”

✅What happens if revenue drops 20% overnight?
✅What if the largest customer leaves tomorrow?
✅If “Key Person X” gets hit by a bus, will the trains still run on time?

If the answer to any of these questions is shaky, the opportunity goes into the “too hard pile” - regardless of how good it looks on paper.

For those deals that survive first-pass filtering, we then ask: what’s the return on hassle?

It’s our shorthand for opportunity cost. Just because a deal will make money doesn’t mean it’s worth doing. Traditional funds often ignore this because they face an institutional imperative to deploy capital. AUM gatherers just need to deliver acceptable returns to keep LPs relatively happy.

But at Arbor, we’re playing a different game. We subscribe to Buffett’s punch card analogy - we want to make every investment count.

A deal might look fine financially, but if the operational headaches, people issues, or complexity far outweigh the reward - we gladly pass. 

The best opportunities are the ones where both the numbers and the nights of sleep line up.

Getting a bunch of DMs about investing in Arbor Permanent Owners.

We're not raising right now, but you can join our waiting list and keep up to date on our progress.

The first update will be our annual letter will be released in a few weeks from now.

You can register your interest via the link in the comments (wholesale investors only).

At Arbor Permanent Owners, our strategy targets the awkward middle - businesses too large for private investors and trade buyers, yet too small for traditional private equity. Within that space, we look for the “orphaned” one or two market leaders in a niche.

The Australian economy has its own nuances that shape our approach. Many industries naturally consolidate into duopolies over time. Australia is geographically removed - not isolated, but distant - from much of the world. Combine that with a relatively small domestic TAM, high regulation, and a robust corporate tax regime, and you have barriers that can serve as strategic assets for incumbents.

For many outsiders, “it’s just not worth it.”

In recent years, high housing costs in major cities have added another deterrent for domestic competition, making it harder for new entrants to gain a foothold. While capital alone isn’t a moat, it remains scarce in the SME landscape we operate in. And when a young entrepreneur has to make the choice between investing $500k in CAPEX to open a second warehouse versus a 15% down payment on a basic three-bedroom family home in Northern Sydney, it tends to reshape their appetite for risk.

The result: resilient, profitable businesses that may lack scale to attract institutional capital, yet remain essential to their customers. 

These are the types of companies we want to own - permanently.

got a backyard sauna, just in time for another QLD summer.

AMA.

𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗮 - 𝗮 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻

If you thought that the ‘Founder problem’ fit matters – think again. 

60 year old Brett Blundy has made a killing selling trendy jewellery to 20-30 somethings looking to glam up their accessories. 

Earrings, necklaces, rings - you name it.

Where most blokes would see female fashion and run away, Brett leaned in. 

His insight?

“𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙫𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙟𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙪𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙪𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧.”

His words - not mine...

Amidst a sea of other fast fashion giants like Fashion Nova, Shein and Temu, Lovisa has become an Aussie homegrown retail powerhouse. 

With a market cap of ~$3.0bn, the business is on track to hit 1,000 stores this year. And there’s still a lot of room to run.

Let’s break down the story of Lovisa.

Link in the comments

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫-𝐦𝐢𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐲-𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬

The investable universe can broadly be split into two worlds: public and private markets.

Public markets are, for the most part, efficient. The best businesses on Earth are scrutinised by thousands of analysts, funds, and algorithms every second. Information is abundant - although some have better information than others - and capital flows freely. And therein lies the problem: you're competing with the index, with hedge funds, and with supercomputers. 

At Arbor, we don’t compete in games we can’t win. That’s why we don’t invest in public equities.

Private markets, by contrast, are far less efficient - but not uniformly so.

Most private equity capital flows uphill - towards bigger deals, larger funds, and heavily intermediated processes. At that end of the market, competition is fierce. Multiples are high. Businesses are polished, corporatised, and well-known. Over the long-term, the only real edge a firm has is its cost of capital - and its appetite for leverage.

That’s not the game we’re playing.

We operate downhill - into the overlooked and undercapitalised shallows of the lower middle market. Here, businesses are smaller, less polished, and often owned by founders approaching retirement. It’s fragmented. It’s messy. And in our view, it’s where inefficiencies - and opportunities - still exist in abundance.

With the right approach, we believe this part of the market offers better and more consistent returns, a broader pool of acquisition targets, and far less reliance on financial engineering than any other segment of private equity.

This isn’t magic. It’s just math.

Entry multiples are lower. The businesses are simpler to understand. Growth is often easier to achieve. And - critically - competition is far less intense.

There’s a reason this market is less picked over: it’s hard work. But we’re building Arbor Permanent Owners specifically for that work.

Taplio

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