Tree service, HVAC, machine shops, contractors, trucking — businesses that run on crews, trucks, and one person carrying all of it. If that person is you, and you're doing the math at 2am and it isn't working anymore, this is who you call. We don't send a deck and we don't bill hours. We get into the operation and take the problem on ourselves — earning our way in, or buying the business outright at a price that reflects where it actually is.
No fees. No consultants. We only make money if the business does. Call or text (516) 640-6644.
Some of the owners who call us aren't planning a graceful exit years out — they took over a business, and it's failing now. Debt is stacking up, a lender is calling, payroll is close. If that's where you are, we're not here to lecture you about how you got here. We're here to talk about what happens next.
No investment committee, no six-month process. A first confidential call can happen this week, and a real path forward — sale, recapitalization, or structured wind-down — can be on the table fast.
Employees, customers, and lenders don't hear a word until you decide it's time. An NDA comes first, always.
Sometimes the right move is a full sale. Sometimes it's a recapitalization that keeps you in. Sometimes the honest answer is that the business can't be saved and the goal becomes getting you out from under it cleanly. We'll tell you which one we actually see — not the one that's easiest to pitch.
One group just bought a business and is drowning in it. The other built one and is aging out of it — often leaving it to someone who isn't ready. Almost no buyer is set up for the ones who are scared. We are.
Sources: SBA 7(a) portfolio performance analysis, Lumos Data (March 2026); Project Equity / Exit Planning Institute succession survey data (2024–25).
From 2021 to 2024, thousands of people bought blue-collar businesses — many for the first time — with 10% down and a variable-rate SBA loan behind them. Then prime went from 3.25% to 8.5%, the seller's numbers turned out to be rosy, and a thin margin for error became none. Those loans are now defaulting at roughly twice the pre-pandemic pace. Behind every one is an owner with a personal guarantee, a crew depending on them, and nobody to call.
Baby Boomer owners are leaving the trades businesses they built — often with no buyer lined up, no successor ready, and no plan beyond "figure it out later." Half have no succession plan at all. The businesses don't stop when the founder does; they limp — under a son-in-law, a foreman, or a buyer who paid too much — until someone has to make the call. We'd rather get it early.
Private equity has spent a decade rolling up HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, and tree care into platforms with call centers, pricing software, and marketing budgets. The independent shop competes against them with a whiteboard and the owner's memory. AI widens that gap every year — but only for the operators who use it. That isn't a reason the trades are dying. It's the reason a well-run one wins.
A consultant bills you whether or not it works. A lender wants a business that's already healthy. We're neither. Depending on how deep the hole is and what you want on the other side, a deal lands somewhere on this spectrum — from us earning our way in, to us buying the whole thing at a price that reflects where it actually is. Here's how each one works, including how we get paid, because you're going to wonder.
You keep ownership. We take operating control and run the turnaround day to day. Our compensation is an equity stake that vests against results — margin, cash, debt paid down. Hit the targets, we've earned it. Miss them, we earn less. Nothing up front.
When the debt is the problem but the business isn't dead. We take a majority stake at a valuation that reflects where the business is today — often with little cash, because the real consideration is us restructuring the loan with your lender and taking the weight off you. You keep a minority stake plus an earnout tied to the recovery.
You're done, or the debt is bigger than the business. We buy it outright, priced the way lenders and courts actually value a distressed business — its assets, or a steep discount to what it earned when it was healthy. The consideration is mostly us taking on or restructuring the debt, plus an earnout if it recovers. You walk away with the crew still working.
The levers in a trades or field-service business aren't in a spreadsheet — they're in estimating discipline, crew utilization, route density, receivables, equipment, insurance, and a sales pipeline that lives in the owner's head. We've been inside one of these when it was losing half a million dollars a year and brought it back. We know where the money leaks, and we know what the crew needs to hear on day one.
And here's the part about AI that most people get backwards: it can't climb a tree, sweat a pipe, or run a lathe. What it can do is quote, dispatch, collect, and market — the back office most owners never had time to build. The trades are among the last things software can't replace. That's why we buy them, and it's how we run them better than the founder had time to.
A private equity group owned a large outdoor services business that was bleeding — roughly $500,000 a year in losses, on a trajectory to lose $1 million. The customers were real. The crews were real. The operation underneath them had gotten away from everyone.
We structured a non-cash deal to take it over. No check written; our upside tied entirely to fixing it. Then we did what this page says we do: got into the operation — the crews, the schedule, the estimating, the receivables — and rebuilt it from the ground up.
Within twelve months the business was profitable, margins were where a well-run outdoor services company's should be, and revenue had grown from $3 million to $7 million.
That deal is the reason "we dive in for equity" is on this page. It isn't a theory we'd like to try on your business. It's the model we've already run — on a business bigger than most of the ones we're describing here.
Details and references available to serious counterparties under NDA.
Roslyn Ridge Holdings is run by three managing partners who served as Marine and Army officers before building careers in operations, M&A, and private equity. We work with military precision because it's the only way we know how — and we've taken a business through a turnaround ourselves, not advised on one from a conference room.
No broker required. We sign an NDA early and talk through the business, the owner's goals, and whether there's a fit — before anything else moves forward.
We get into the numbers and onto the floor — the trucks, the schedule, the receivables, the crew. We tell you what we actually see, including the parts that aren't fixable. That's the read most owners never get.
A buyout, a partial sale, or an equity-for-turnaround partnership — structured around what you need and what the business can carry. Financing, where it's needed, comes through SBA and independent-sponsor channels we already work with.
Whether we own it outright or we're earning our stake, the work starts the same way: the first ninety days are about stabilizing cash, tightening operations, and making sure the crew knows exactly who's in charge and what changes.
Roslyn Ridge Holdings is a Philadelphia-based firm that acquires and turns around blue-collar and skilled-trades businesses — tree service, HVAC, contractors, machine shops, trucking, and similar — typically with $750,000–$3.5 million in adjusted EBITDA, across the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and the Carolinas. It either buys the business outright or steps in as an operating partner in exchange for equity.
It means we come in and run the turnaround ourselves — operations, cash, crew, customers — and instead of charging you a fee, we're paid in an ownership stake in the business. There's no retainer and no consulting invoice. If the business doesn't recover, we don't get paid. It's built for owners who can't afford to hire help but have a business worth saving.
No. Some owners want a clean exit and we buy the business outright. Others want to stay in — those owners keep their stake while we take the wheel operationally and earn ours. Once the business is healthy again, you can sell to us, sell to someone else, or keep running it with a real operation underneath you.
Because that's what we know how to fix. Trades and field-service businesses fail in predictable ways — estimating that doesn't cover costs, crews that aren't utilized, receivables nobody chases, equipment financed badly, and a sales pipeline that only lives in the owner's head. We've run these businesses and turned them around before. We know where the money leaks.
No. We specialize in businesses at an inflection point — most often a retiring or burned-out owner, a company that has plateaued, or operations that haven't kept pace with the industry. Many of these businesses are fundamentally healthy; they simply need focused, hands-on ownership to get to the next stage.
Yes. We took over a large outdoor services business from a private equity group in a non-cash deal — the business was losing roughly $500,000 a year and headed toward $1 million. Within twelve months it was profitable with healthy margins, and revenue had grown from $3 million to $7 million. Details and references are available to serious counterparties under NDA.
Three managing partners — Hunter Harrison (Marine Infantry Officer, former McKinsey, private equity), Kris Peck (Army Combat Engineer; sales, business development, and M&A), and Patrick Zagarino (Marine Officer, former M&A consultant at Parthenon-EY). All three are veterans and operators, and the firm is based in Philadelphia.
Almost never. If you took over a business — through an acquisition, an SBA-financed deal, or an inheritance — and it's underwater now, that's exactly the call we want. The earlier you reach out, the more options are still open: a full sale, a partial recapitalization, or a structured transition that protects you, your employees, and your personal guarantee. Waiting rarely helps.
Reach out anyway. We'd rather have that conversation with you now, confidentially, than have you go it alone until there are no options left. There's no obligation, and nothing moves without your say.
It refers to the large wave of Baby Boomer business owners reaching retirement age without a clear succession plan. Roughly 2.9 million U.S. businesses are owned by someone 55 or older, and about half of owners nearing that transition have no detailed plan for what happens next. That gap is one of the two situations Roslyn Ridge Holdings is built for.
From the recovery, not the closing. In an earn-in we're paid only in equity that vests against results. In a hybrid or a distressed buyout we own more of the business, but we've bought it at a distressed price, so we only come out ahead if we fix it. In every structure, we fix the valuation formula and your exit terms before we take operating control — you should never have to wonder whether the person running your business wants it to look worse.
The way lenders and courts do: by what the assets would bring, or by a steep discount to what the business earned when it was healthy — whichever is more relevant. That's a hard number to hear if you anchored on what you paid for it. But it's the honest one, and it's usually higher than what you'd get in a liquidation, because we're paying for the crew and the customers, not just the trucks. Where the debt exceeds that value, the consideration is mostly us taking on or restructuring the loan.
It's earned, not granted. We agree the targets up front — margin, cash, debt paid down — and our stake vests as they're hit. Miss them and we earn less. The valuation formula and your buyout and sale terms are fixed on day one, so nothing about the stake depends on how the business looks after we've been running it.
Then an earn-in doesn't work — a stake in an underwater business is worth nothing to either of us, and we'll say so. The conversation becomes a hybrid or a distressed buyout, and the first person in the room is your lender. Lenders generally prefer a credible operator and a restructured loan to a default and a liquidation. The realistic goal is getting you out from under the personal guarantee with the business — and the crew — still standing.
Not to the work itself — AI can't climb a tree, sweat a pipe, or run a lathe, and the trades are among the last things software can't replace. The threat is competitive: PE-backed platforms are using modern quoting, dispatch, marketing, and collections against independents still running on a whiteboard. That's the gap we close when we take over operations. It's an edge for whoever uses it, not a reason the business is doomed.
We're not a consultant — we don't bill hours or leave you a binder. We're not a lender — we don't add debt to a business already carrying too much. We're not a bankruptcy firm — if that's what you need, we'll say so and point you to a good one. And we're not a roll-up — we're not buying your business to strip it into a platform. We take businesses on to run them.
Most private equity firms compete for businesses that are already performing well, and most won't touch one that can't be financed with a clean SBA loan. That rules out nearly every business in real trouble. We built Roslyn Ridge Holdings to go exactly there — where the opportunity is in the turnaround, not the multiple — and to earn our way in operationally when a straight purchase doesn't work yet.
Call or text Patrick directly at (516) 640-6644, or email patrick@roslynridgeholdings.com. We can sign an NDA before any details are shared, and there's no obligation — brokers and business owners are both welcome to reach out.
Yes. We regularly work with brokers and intermediaries representing sellers in our target criteria and respond quickly to teasers and CIMs that fit our profile.
Every conversation starts confidentially. If your business fits our criteria — or you're not sure and want a candid read — reach out directly. No broker, no obligation.