Common questions

Private equity firms typically acquire businesses with the intention of selling them within three to seven years. Saha acquires businesses to hold them permanently. There is no exit timeline, no pressure to restructure for resale, and no incentive to extract short-term value. Our model is built around continuity, not transactions.

Preserving the team you have built is central to our approach. We do not acquire businesses with the intention of restructuring them. Any decisions affecting people will be made for the long-term health of the business, with transparency.

That depends on where you are in your thinking. Succession is often a years-long reflection before a founder is ready to act, and that is entirely normal. Once you have decided to move forward, a typical transaction process from first serious conversation to close takes three to six months. There is no pressure to rush either stage. Many founders find it useful to begin a conversation with us well before they are ready to sell, simply to understand the options. Everything is confidential and carries no obligation.

Yes. We preserve the identity, brand, and local presence of each business we acquire. Your company continues to operate under its own name, in its own market, with its own team. Saha provides support from behind the scenes.

That is entirely up to you. Some founders prefer a clean transition, while others choose to stay involved in an advisory or part-time capacity for a period. We design the transition around your preferences and your timeline.

We focus on profitable, founder-led Swiss businesses generally below CHF 10M in annual revenue. The most important factors are the quality of the business, the strength of the team, and whether the business can realistically continue to thrive after the founder steps away.

Our first job, for roughly the first twelve months, is continuity: keeping customers, team, and operations stable through the founder handover. In the twelve to twenty-four months that follow, we work with the local team on a focused strengthening agenda: sharper financial reporting and pricing discipline, digitising recurring workflows that still run on paper or spreadsheets, support on one or two key hires (often the person taking over from the founder), and capturing the institutional knowledge that used to sit in the founder's head. The local team stays responsible for running and growing the business. What we add is selective, measured against whether it actually helps, and refined with every acquisition.

A holding company with patient capital is a positioning claim. Saha is building the sourcing, transition, and operating infrastructure that makes smaller succession deals genuinely viable, not just fundable. The model is designed to compound: each acquisition improves our process, strengthens our operator network, and reduces friction on the next deal. That is the difference between owning a collection of businesses and building an acquisition and operating engine.

Saha is a permanent holding company, not a traditional fund with a fixed life. Capital is deployed into acquisitions that are held indefinitely. Returns are generated through the long-term cash flows, organic growth, and compounding operational strength of the portfolio.

Returns are generated through the operating cash flows of the businesses we acquire, reinvested or distributed as the portfolio matures. We target entry at 3–5× EBITDA in cash-generative businesses. Investor liquidity is provided through a combination of cash distributions, portfolio refinancing over time, and selective secondary mechanisms, not through a single exit event. We do not optimise for a single IRR figure. We optimise for durable, compounding value. Full return documentation is shared in direct conversations.

We aim to compound portfolio value steadily over the long term through acquisition discipline, operational improvement, and organic growth. We are structuring Saha for a small number of aligned long-term investors and share full documentation in private discussions.

Risk is managed through diversification across industries and geographies within Switzerland, disciplined entry valuations, structured transition processes, and shared financial oversight with early warning systems. Each business operates independently, limiting contagion risk.

We are structuring Saha for a small number of aligned, long-term investors. At this stage, selectivity and structural fit matter more than scale. Minimum commitments and terms are discussed directly.

This segment is structurally underserved. Most institutional buyers, advisors, and M&A datasets focus above CHF 10M. Below that threshold, profitable succession-driven businesses exist in large numbers but lack a purpose-built buyer. That is the gap Saha is designed to fill.

Three compounding sources. First, disciplined entry: we buy in a segment that is structurally underserved by institutional capital, where multiples reflect the absence of buyers rather than the quality of the businesses. Second, deliberate strengthening after close: sharper reporting and pricing, digitised workflows, leadership continuity, and knowledge capture, applied selectively where they raise the earnings power of each business. Third, a platform that gets sharper with every acquisition: sourcing relationships, transition playbooks, leadership networks, and internal systems that reduce the friction and cost of each subsequent deal. The upside is not a single exit event. It is the widening gap between what these businesses are worth inside Saha and what they would have been worth to any other buyer.

Technology at Saha is about the holdco's own operating infrastructure, not about applying software to the businesses we acquire. We are building an internal platform (sourcing intelligence, diligence workflow, transition tooling, and portfolio reporting) that makes permanent ownership of many small businesses viable at scale. This work is led by Stefan Vaninetti, whose background is enterprise IT architecture and data governance across a regulated, multi-entity Swiss organisation (HOCH Health Ostschweiz). The platform is how a lean central team stays close to a growing portfolio without creating overhead that the businesses themselves cannot justify.

We look for people who think in decades, care about craft, and want to build something that endures. Relevant backgrounds include operations, finance, M&A, general management, and technology, but disposition and alignment matter more than a specific title or pedigree.

We are at the formation stage, before our first acquisition. We are always open to hearing from exceptional people. Even without a formal opening, we welcome introductions from anyone who feels a strong alignment with what we are building.

Saha is based in Switzerland. Our team works across the country, close to the businesses we acquire and support. We value presence and proximity: being near the teams and communities we serve.

Saha is a word rooted in patience, endurance, and the capacity to bear with care. It reflects the long-term mindset at the heart of everything we do: acquiring and stewarding businesses not for a cycle, but for a generation.

Saha is a permanent holding company. Unlike a fund, there is no predetermined exit timeline. Businesses we acquire become part of the Saha family permanently. This structure aligns our incentives with the long-term health of every company we own.

We are deliberately building the foundation (team, processes, and capital) before making our first acquisitions. We believe that getting the model right is more important than moving quickly.

We welcome conversations from founders, investors, and prospective team members. You can reach us through our contact page or by emailing hello@sahaholding.ch. Every inquiry is treated with confidentiality and respect.