The private equity firm would buy Kids Unlimited today, on one condition: founder David Cordover had to stay and run it for three years. His answer was a question. Why would I just buy myself a job?

David founded Chess Kids at 16 with borrowed chess sets and a calico bank bag for gold coins. Kids Unlimited came later, after a Friday afternoon stuck in traffic doing the maths on a $16 swimming lesson. When private equity came knocking in 2019, due diligence ran straight into March 2020 and revenue that dropped to zero.

He rebuilt after COVID with a general manager in charge, then spent the best part of a year in Europe so that when the buyers came back the handcuffs would fit somebody else. The business sold in April 2023, to an acquirer he had never approached.

Then, on the day he signed, the celebration never came. David talks about the three years since, what emotional pain says about your model of the world and why the one thing nobody can take from you is what you have learned.

If a buyer wanted you to stay for three years, would you take the deal?

Today’s shout was a Super Brazil blend from Genovese Coffee in Coburg, Melbourne.

Genovese Coffee: https://genovese.com.au/

About David Cordover

Serial entrepreneur who started his journey as a technician, became a manager, ended up running a business and selling that business in order to emerge as an investor with ambitions to become a philanthropist. Ever evolving. Always learning.

Website: https://www.upscalesolutions.au/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-cordover/

If your kids don’t want the business, could another family carry it forward? Richard Boyce and I talk about selling to a family office.

Richard comes from generations of business owners. His own family’s investment portfolio is being shaped around his children’s interests and values, which brings a different perspective to the search for a buyer.

We talk about why regional jobs can matter to a buying family, what remains when a family sells the business but keeps the land and how patient capital shapes an investment. The family on the other side of the table has its own reasons for buying, and those can change with each generation.

What does carrying on your legacy mean when the buyer has a next generation of their own?

Today's shout was a coffee from Ageyo Coffee in Melbourne.

Ageyo Coffee: https://www.ageyocoffee.com.au/

About Richard Boyce

Richard is a family enterprise specialist with a unique blend of experience gained over 30 years, being a practising chartered accountant, tax agent, company director and 5th generation member of a family that owns businesses across Australia and the UK. Richard has worked as a specialist family business and family office advisor with many leading global business families to develop their generational family enterprise model and is a former Partner of EY Global Business Centre of Excellence. Richard is also a fellow and academic faculty member of the Global Family Firm Institute (FFI) based in Boston, a strategic consultant to Family Business Association in Australia & NZ (FBA), Chair of the University of Adelaide Family Enterprise Group (FBERG) and an independent board member to a number of generational family businesses.

Richard’s passion is family enterprises and providing the support structures and mentoring to see generational families succeed for future generations.

Website: https://www.boycefamilyoffice.com/executive

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/richardboycefb

When Tom Skotidas clashed with the brother he ran a business with, they could go weeks without speaking. Now a family business psychotherapist, he can see where that anger came from.

Tom brought his brother into his LinkedIn training agency when it took off. They were brothers, colleagues and co-owners at once, or as Tom puts it, three nervous systems in one. Years later, Tom chased his long-held passion for psychotherapy. His brother still runs the business, and their relationship is strong.

Tom talks Shane through why anger is rarely the first emotion, how patterns learned growing up get replayed in the boardroom and what an adviser should do when the next generation asks them to tell Dad. Shane also ends up answering a few of Tom's questions himself.

Next time an old argument flares up in your family business, it might be worth asking whose pattern is running the conversation.

Today's shout was Vittoria Coffee, a family-owned roaster in Sydney.

Vittoria Coffee: https://www.vittoriacoffee.com/

About Tom Skotidas

Tom Skotidas is a family business psychotherapist and the director of everpath. Working with individuals, key pairs and groups, Tom helps business families resolve entrenched conflict patterns, repair relationships and thrive as a system. He is also the author of the newsletter Family Business Therapy.

Website: https://www.everpath.com.au/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomskotidas/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/tomskotidas

General information only, not therapy or professional advice. If anything in this conversation brings up something difficult for you, you can reach Lifeline on 13 11 14 or at https://www.lifeline.org.au/