How to Finance Acquisitions Without Giving Up Equity

Bill Stone, Founder and CEO of SS&C

How do you keep buying companies without eventually losing control of the company you built?

SS&C Technologies founder and CEO Bill Stone has spent four decades avoiding exactly that. Rather than treating each acquisition as an isolated transaction, SS&C built a system around protecting ownership, using debt when the economics make sense, paying it down quickly, and creating enough value after close to preserve capacity for the next deal.

Bill walks through the decisions behind acquisitions including FMC, GlobeOp, and Blue Prism, his experience taking SS&C private with Carlyle, and the discipline that has allowed the company to keep acquiring across changing markets.

What You'll Learn

• How Bill Stone kept 15% of SS&C through 100 acquisitions
• The exact revenue-per-head and EBITDA thresholds SS&C screens for
• Why strategic buyers almost always outbid private equity
• How to tell a motivated seller from one just fishing for a premium
• When rollover equity can help retain the management team
• How Carlyle overruled Stone's own unanimous board vote
• The one rule that makes Stone walk from a deal every time

Every financing decision changes what you can do on the next deal. If you're financing an acquisition and don't have a hard leverage ceiling you actually stick to, DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, has the deal guidance layer to help you set one before you're over-levered on the next deal.

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This episode of M&A Science is presented by DealRoom.

DealRoom is the AI-powered operating system for Buyer-Led M&A™ — one connected system for pipeline, diligence, integration, and reporting. No tool-switching, no manual updates, no data gaps.

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Episode Chapters

[00:00] Intro and Guest Bio Check

[04:27] Protecting Ownership From Bankers

[07:32] Pivoting to the Buy Side

[12:12] Cutting a Client's Cost 91%

[12:32] Technology Cycles From Excel to AI

[15:14] First Acquisition and Going Public

[16:26] Balancing Investors and Founder Control

[20:08] The Carlyle Take-Private Story

[27:23] Screening Deals and Cutting Costs Fast

[32:02] Reading a Seller's True Motivation

[35:29] Winning FMC Under Canadian Rules

[42:10] Beating TPG for GlobeOp

[45:22] The Leverage Ceiling and Debt Paydown

[49:06] Topping Vista for Blue Prism

[53:17] Walking Away From a Lying Seller

[54:23] Diligence Speed and Trust But Verify

[54:58] Valuations and Capital Abundance