Andrew Stordeur·March 28, 2024

$700k EBITDA with No SBA No Money Down | Andrew Stordeur Interview

Andrew Stordeur, a Calgary-based CPG and cannabis-industry executive (Kellogg, Mars, Molson Coors, and president/COO of NASDAQ-listed SNDL), left corporate life in January 2023 to search for a business to buy rather than start another company from scratch. After a self-funded search that included nearly co-buying a deal as a minority investor alongside a former PE professional, he instead took the deal down himself: All Things Cedar, a 25-year-old Redwood Cedar outdoor furniture manufacturer near the Montana border generating about $3 million in revenue and $700,000 in EBITDA, sold 80% into the US via Amazon, Wayfair, Walmart and its own DTC site. Operating in Canada without access to SBA financing, Andrew negotiated a deal (roughly a 4x EBITDA multiple, plus real estate) structured with a 35% seller note and an EBITDA-gated earnout, which Canadian bank RBC agreed to count as his full capital injection — letting him close with no personal cash beyond closing costs, albeit with a personal guarantee and a heavily backend-loaded repayment schedule. The episode is a case study in structuring a no-money-down acquisition outside the SBA system, alongside the operational thesis of professionalizing sales, marketing, and brand consistency for a niche manufacturer whose founder had never invested in those functions.

Deal facts

purchase price: ~$4-4.5m CAD total (business + real estate)
multiple: 4x EBITDA on the operating business (plus ~$1m+ real estate included in the share purchase)
sde ebitda: ~$700,000 trailing 12-month EBITDA
revenue: ~$3 million (2023, normalizing back to pre-pandemic levels after nearly tripling during COVID)
financing structure: No SBA (Canadian deal): 100% financed with no personal cash into the deal beyond closing costs. Bank (RBC) senior debt counted a 35% vendor takeback (seller note, 6-year amortization, backend-loaded principal) as the buyer's equity/capital injection. Additional ~$550,000 earnout capped over 4 years, tied to an EBITDA threshold of ~$700k, excluding new business/customers the buyer brings in. First-year principal holiday negotiated with the lender.
notes: Real estate (~$1m+) was included in a share purchase deal at the seller's insistence, even though the buyer's original preference was not to buy real estate. Buyer went out to 8-9 lenders via a Calgary-based debt advisory firm (Village Wealth / Airwell), received 7 term sheets, 5 serious offers; 2 lenders were willing to count the seller note as full capital injection with zero cash from the buyer. Went with RBC (Royal Bank of Canada).

Why this business

Andrew was a mid-career CPG/beverage/cannabis executive (Kellogg, Mars, Molson Coors, and president/COO of NASDAQ-listed cannabis company SNDL) who left in Jan 2023 wanting to apply his skills to an existing platform rather than build zero-to-one again. He targeted a self-funded search around Calgary. All Things Cedar, a 25-year-old Redwood Cedar outdoor furniture manufacturer near the Montana border with 80% of sales in the US, fit his thesis: a niche manufacturing business with strong product/supply moats but zero sales-and-marketing investment ever, which matched his exact skill set (make a great product, then sell and market it better). He also liked the large ($9B) outdoor furniture TAM, the de-globalization/domestic-manufacturing tailwind, and heavy pre-existing exposure to the far larger US market.

What's working

Niche, hard-to-replicate manufacturing capability: 25 years of hand-built product templates, sourcing relationships with Redwood Cedar mills in British Columbia, and a teak supplier in Indonesia
Strong, decades-old logistics/3PL relationships letting a Canadian drop-shipper deliver to the US East Coast in 6-8 days, sometimes faster than Amazon shipping from the US
Organic SEO and backlink equity from a website built in 1999, ranking top 5-6 organically for category keywords with zero marketing spend
Sells across Amazon, Wayfair, Lowe's, Rona, Walmart plus direct-to-consumer (currently ~20% direct), giving multi-channel reach most single-owner competitors lack
Aligned deal structure: large seller note plus earnout tied to an EBITDA floor gave the bank comfort to count seller financing as the buyer's capital injection, avoiding outside equity
Seller stayed on as a highly engaged, weekly-meeting resource with a 25-year relationship history and strong incentive alignment via the earnout

What's hard

Deal nearly fell apart / was restructured mid-process after Andrew declined to take a minority stake alongside a PE-background investor who first brought him the deal, then had to renegotiate the LOI himself when trailing financials moved more than 10%
Business is highly seasonal, which complicates cash flow and personal compensation timing
Backend-loaded financing structure (seller note principal deferred to years 6-8) increases risk if growth doesn't materialize, leaving little room for setbacks
Andrew took no salary for the first five months and capped his compensation at 70% below his old corporate pay, with a personal guarantee on all his assets
Brand and pricing were inconsistent across resellers and marketplaces prior to acquisition, needing active cleanup
Product line sprawl (~200 SKUs, many low-volume) with no clear plan yet on portfolio rationalization
Brick-and-mortar retail (despite being sold in Lowe's, Walmart) was never actually stocked in-store after 25 years, an unexploited channel requiring buildout
Being a solo breadwinner for a family of six added significant personal financial pressure to the search and to post-close risk-taking

Notable quotes

I'm a big believer in leverage and not leveraging yourself to the point where you can't breathe, but this opportunity around how I structured it was... I've absolutely backend loaded this transaction for sure, that was intentional, that was purposeful.

This is where I say that buying a business is way riskier actually than starting a business from scratch because you got lots of obligations on your shoulders.

I don't take a salary from the business, I haven't, you know, I'm five months in.

We love the way you're structuring this, we think you've got tremendous skin in the game, but what we like even more is the interests are aligned with this seller that's been around for 25 years, they're not just going to pick up and leave.