38 Acquisitions Generating $2 Billion in Revenue | Eric Wiklendt Interview
38 Acquisitions Generating $2 Billion in Revenue | Eric Wiklendt Interview  
Podcast: Buyers and Builders
Published On: Tue Mar 10 2026
Description: Mike Markus ( ⁠https://x.com/PrivatEquityGuy ) talks with Eric Wiklendt of Speyside Equity ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericwiklendt/ ) about Eric's journey and how Speyside has built a highly operational lower-middle-market private equity firm with $937 million of assets under management, 38 total investments, 20 platform investments, operations across 19 countries, and portfolio companies generating approximately $2 billion in revenue.Timestamps:0:00 Why Eric loves messy manufacturing deals1:40 From Detroit operator to private equity investor4:58 Building Speyside: Fund I, the continuation vehicle, and Fund II7:35 How PE firms decide fund size and portfolio construction10:24 Why Elliott backed Speyside's continuation vehicle12:43 What LPs want now, and why PE is going through a reckoning15:46 Operational value creation vs. financial engineering20:03 Why sellers choose Speyside for complex situations24:09 The red lines: positive EBITDA, size limits, and avoiding bad S-curves33:34 The “fix and build” playbook59:29 Independent sponsors, fund models, and the future of dealmakingSponsor:https://capitalpad.com/ - A deal-by-deal private equity investing platformThis podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.