Blue Mountain does not appear on Deale, Bizalia or any business-for-sale platform. That is a deliberate choice. We explain our off-market approach, how we find the best companies and why it is better for the seller too.
If you search for “Blue Mountain Capital” on Deale, on Bizalia, or on any of the platforms where businesses are listed for sale, you will not find us. Not as an active buyer, not as a section sponsor, not as an advertiser.
It is not an oversight. It is a choice.
Business sale portals have genuine utility for certain market segments: small local businesses, hospitality and retail transfers, companies below €1-2M in revenue where an informal process is the right one. For that segment, these platforms work.
But for the companies we are interested in — with revenue between €3M and €50M, with management structure, recurring customers and real continuity value — listing on a marketplace creates more problems than it solves.
Problem 1: Confidentiality. When a company appears on a sale portal, its entire value chain knows within days: customers, suppliers, employees, competitors. The business owner who posts on a platform that “distribution company for sale, €8M revenue, south-east Spain” has no control over who reads that listing. In markets as local as ours, information travels fast. Customers wonder whether to look for alternatives. Employees update their CVs. Competitors take note.
Problem 2: Price signal. A business publicly listed for sale sends a signal: the owner is in a hurry, or has a need. Sophisticated buyers know how to read that signal and use it in price negotiations. A business that has spent six months on a marketplace without finding a buyer negotiates from a weakened position.
Problem 3: Buyer quality. The enquiry flow from a generalist portal is frequently low quality: curious parties, consultants looking for mandates, intermediaries without real instructions, and occasionally a serious buyer who is simultaneously looking at thirty other businesses. The selling owner invests time and energy in conversations that go nowhere.
Problem 4: Competitive noise. The best buyers — those who offer the best price and the best fit — do not typically search business portals. They search through their relationship networks, their trusted advisers, their sector contacts. If your business is only listed on a portal, you are reaching the buyers that the best buyers have already passed on.
This may sound counterintuitive, but it reflects a middle-market reality that anyone with genuine experience in this space recognises: the majority of quality transactions in the Spanish middle-market never appear on a sale portal.
Why? Because the business owner with a quality company — profitable, with a solid market position, with recurring customers — does not need to list it. They have trusted advisers who know appropriate buyers. They have sector relationships that can connect them to the right parties. And if they do not, they have time to find a specialist financial adviser who can run a confidential and structured process without public exposure.
The businesses that appear on portals are, frequently, those that did not find the right door — or those with urgency for reasons that a sophisticated buyer will want to understand.
We do not wait for companies to find us through a portal. We go to them.
Our deal flow comes from three main channels:
Relationships with reference advisers. Corporate lawyers, company auditors, tax advisers specialising in family wealth and private banking managers are frequently the first to know that a business owner is considering an exit. We have spent years building trusted relationships with reference advisers across Spain. When a business owner tells their accountant “I’m thinking about doing something with the business”, they often think of us.
Direct outreach. We identify companies that fit our investment profile — sector, size, business model, geography — and approach the owner directly, even if the business is not for sale. In many cases, the owner did not know they had options. In others, they had already been thinking about it but had not taken the first step. The conversation is always confidential and pressure-free.
Reputation and referrals. Business owners who have worked with us — as sellers, as operating partners, as co-investors — recommend us to others. Transactions that have closed well speak for themselves. In a market as trust-based as ours, reputation is the best sourcing channel.
The off-market approach is not only better for us as buyers. It is better for the seller.
Total confidentiality. No one in your value chain knows you are exploring options until you decide it is time to communicate it. You can explore a sale for months without any employee, customer or supplier knowing anything.
A serious buyer. When Blue Mountain approaches a company or responds to a business owner’s call, we are genuinely interested. We are not gathering market intelligence or exploring theoretical options. We have criteria, we have capital and we have intent. Our investment philosophy guides every approach.
An efficient process. No open competitive process, no NDA rounds with fifteen interested parties, no information memorandums distributed at scale. The process is shorter, more direct and more efficient for both sides.
A fair price. There is a myth in the sector that a competitive process always maximises price. That is true in theory, but in practice a quality buyer who does not need to compete with thirty others can offer an equally attractive price, with greater certainty of closing and a lower cost — in time, emotional energy and money — for the seller.
Some businesses merit a broad competitive process. These are highly attractive businesses in very active sectors, where there are dozens of genuinely interested buyers and where competitive tension can generate an auction that maximises price. For those businesses, a specialist M&A banker running a structured process with multiple bid rounds makes sense.
But many Spanish middle-market businesses are not in that situation. They are good businesses, with solid numbers, in less glamorous sectors, where the universe of genuinely appropriate buyers is small. For those businesses, an off-market process with a quality buyer is frequently superior: faster, more confidential and with equally strong outcomes.
If you are thinking about doing something with your business — selling, finding a partner, structuring succession — and do not know where to start, we invite you to speak with us. We will not suggest listing on a portal. We will listen and explore whether there is a solution that makes sense for your situation.
You can contact us in complete confidence.
See also: Confidentiality in M&A: non-negotiable and Patient capital: the alternative to conventional private equity.
Founder of Blue Mountain
Over 15 years investing in Spanish companies with patient capital. Expert in business succession, corporate governance, and middle-market investment.
By Blue Mountain Capital
By Dirk Manuel Martens Jiménez
By Dirk Manuel Martens Jiménez
If you wish to explore a potential collaboration or present an investment opportunity, we invite you to contact us. We guarantee absolute confidentiality in all our conversations.