Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - This Dairy Farm Makes $2.6M EBITDA… But in Romania

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

In this episode, the hosts debate the acquisition of a €20M dairy farm in Romania, balancing its EU certifications, solar power, and commodity risks against complex operations and geopolitical uncertainty.Business Listing – https://mergerscorp.com/property/profitable-exclusive-dairy-farm/Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous – the #1 podcast for small business M&A. Every week, we break down businesses for sale and talk about buying, operating, and growing them.💰 Sponsored by:Acquisition Lab — founded by Harvard MBA Walker Deibel, the Lab helps aspiring business buyers navigate search, diligence, and acquisition with expert support and community. Head to https://www.acquisitionlab.com💼 Sponsored by Viso Business Capital — Get the right SBA loan tailored to your acquisition needs with Heather Endresen’s firm. Sign up for a free live Q&A on SBA loans at https://www.visocap.net and click “Zoom Sign Up” in the top-right corner.Today’s deal takes the pod international with a €20 million dairy farm in Romania producing over 12 million liters of milk annually. With €7M in revenue and €2.6M in EBITDA, the farm operates with 2,000 head of cattle, state-of-the-art EU-compliant systems, and generates 40% of its electricity from solar. It even includes 600 hectares of farmland to feed the herd.Key Highlights:- €20M price tag, €7M revenue, €2.6M EBITDA- 600 hectares of feed-crop land, 2,000 cattle, 40% solar power- Located near Moldova and Ukraine with geopolitical risk- EU certifications provide a rare operational moat- High fixed costs and no hedging make milk price volatility a huge riskSubscribe to weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking here Do you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show! Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations. For inquiries or suggestions, email us at [e-mail]

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. This is the internet's number one podcast on buying, selling, and operating small businesses. I am one of your hosts, Bill Alessandro, and today I am with my other three co-hosts, Michael, Mills, and Heather. And this is an off-the-wall one, Mills found and is enthused by a dairy farm in Romania, running over a thousand cattle. And while this does seem off the wall, it's pretty interesting. because this is a commodity leverage business with fixed costs. So we talk a little bit about

how to diligence a business where the revenue is very based on commodity prices. We also talk about international deals. So this was a fun one. If you have ever thought about moving to Romanian buying a dairy farm, you will love it. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. Hello, another episode of Acquisition Anonymous. anymore. And thumbs downing on just the plus inventory line. Are you ready to take a leap into business ownership but you don't know where to start? Well, look no further than Acquisition Lab, the premier resource for entrepreneurs seeking to buy

their dream business. Founded by Harvard MBA and acquisition expert Walker Dybul, the Lab is your fast-tracked success in the search diligence and acquisition process. With hands-on support, world-class resources and a community of like-minded entrepreneurs, Acquisition Lab gives you the tools and confidence to navigate every step of the journey. And we're proud to call Walker and Chelsea, the Labs director, longtime friends of the podcast. They're passionate about helping entrepreneurs like you take the next big step. So don't wait to make your business ownership dream of reality.

Visit AcquisitionLab.com today to learn more and schedule your free consultation. And when you do, be sure to tell them the Acquisitions Anonymous podcast sent you. So I think people should understand the pre-show prep for this is three minutes of somebody being like, what deal do you have? Oh, I have a dairy farm in Romania. And then somebody else is like, I have a helicopter business. And then somebody else like, I have a drug trafficking operation. Check this out.

And then we'd pick the dairy farm in Romania. So, Mills has the dairy farm. And then here we go. If you ever doubted that this show is live, it is. These are hot take reactions. So, I mean, this just really caught my attention for a bunch of different reasons. I've never looked at a business in Romania before. I wouldn't even know how to buy a business in Romania, to be honest.

But this is on merger court, which I don't think I've merger. corp.com. I don't think I've ever been on this website, but I've just kind of stumbled on it the other day. And it's a profitable and exclusive dairy farm business in Romania. They're asking price is 20 million euros. The revenue is almost 7 million euros. And the EBITDA is 2.6 million and kind of change. So it says profitable, exclusive dairy farm for sale in Romania. The farm has an EU compliant waste management and animal welfare system. The business is managed and operated by a team of expert employees from various countries. Farm includes, next to the milking cows and heifers, arable land cultivated to produce self-feed. Business uses state-of-the-art innovative high-tech to monitor and manage the herd's welfare and yield. Their operation is 2,000 head of cattle, nursery, heifers, and milking cows. They have a feed center, a milking parlor, veterinary and herd man. management, maintenance and construction.

I don't really know what that means. Secondary activity is cultivating 600 hectares to feed the herd. So they plow, seed, fertilized, do herbicide, and combine harvest and transport all the feed. The key data here is that they created, they produced 12.3 million liters of EU quality milk sold in 2022. I think that's an interesting kind of clue. And then they have 630 hectares of total land, including agricultural terrain, leased under cultivation, 40,000 square meter total building,

including Animal Housing Feed Center, milking parlor, and other facilities. And between 2018 and 2022, their average annual increase was 16% per year on average. and they reached 39.2 kilograms per cow per day. I have no idea if this is good or bad or impressive. But they also produce 40% of their own electricity through solar panels on premise, and they have 150 milking cows.

So they're asking price here. They kind of repeat the financial information. Asking price is 2.89 times revenue and 7.6 times. EBA. And it looks like this was originally listed back in October of 2023, but I just, I couldn't, I couldn't stay away. So what do you guys think about this? It's a, it's a dairy farm in Romania? Yes. Do I have to move to Romania? You had to be at hello. I think so. Yes. What? Okay. So, Mills, I'm curious. What part of you was like, you know what I really should do today? I should buy a dairy farmer Romania. Like, walk me through your, because I, I've noticed a pattern here. For those of your longtime listeners, you remember Mills a couple months ago. The first deal I've ever seen Mills pursue was a Wisconsin cheese farm. And I'm like, bro, you live in South Carolina. You work on Roos. You work on Roos. oops like you know nothing about cheese. I'm also lactose intolerance. So what is to do with you and milk?

Like what's going on here? I don't know. I mean, this, to me, this is interesting in a few different ways. One, I like looking at something new. So I've just never looked at, I don't think I've ever even looked at a dairy farm. I've looked at some different farming operations, but I don't think I've looked at a dairy farm. I don't think as far as dairy farms go, this is very large in terms of like industrialized farming. This is probably on the kind of small to medium size. Plenty of mom and pop, but I think this is kind of medium size. But when you think about all the compliance and the hurdles and regulations to doing business in Europe and in the EU specifically, a business like this that gives you a huge head start is really, really interesting to me.

The certifications, the credentialing, the land. I don't know. I mean, this is obviously in a somewhat rural area to have 600 hectares. But there's just a lot about this that. really just piqued my curiosity. So is there something special about the EU certifications? Is that like a moat here? Because I mean, I think they're selling it at 10 times earnings.

Is that right? 7.6, I think so. 7.6. Oh, it's a bargain for a farm. Anyway. Well, so, but you got to, so take out the land value, though, right? In a way, I'm assuming, they don't tell us this, but I'm assuming that the land is included. So let's just say there's, you know, they're asking 20,

million dollars. Let's say the land's worth five million, or euros. Let's say the land's worth five million euros. Just like you would any farming operation, you know, or any asset really intensive, the problem is, is that a lot of times these businesses, especially ag-focused businesses, are so asset inefficient. I looked at this fish farming business like 10 years ago, and they wanted like $200 million because the land was so valuable, but they only generated like a million and a half dollars in eBay. And it's like, well, okay, you know, you can have it one way or the other, but not both. Well, it's kind of like Arizona farms, right?

Like a lot of them are worth, you're not buying the land. You're not buying the agriculture production. You're buying the water rights, right? It's just like, oh, well, our expected value is $5 million for the water rights and negative a million for the farm, right? That's what, that's where it's for four. But if you're going to keep running the farm, you're not going for the highest and best use, so you've overpaid.

And that's the problem. Yep. So do you speak Romanian? Anybody here? No. No. The thing, too, about this is, it may not be immediately obvious,

milk is a commodity, right? You are producing a commodity and you have pretty significant fixed costs here, especially if you buy this thing with debt. The price of milk, dairy moves around, which means there is, much like oil,

like there is a break-even price of milk for this farm. You know, and if the price of milk drops below a certain level, every gallon that you milk, you are losing money. But you also kind of can't stop because you can't just shoot all the cows in the head, right? So you've got to keep it a lot. You've got to keep it going potentially at negative margin because it's not easy to turn

right back on when it becomes profitable. It's not an oil well where you just stop pumping and start pumping and turn off the cost. So I would want to understand sort of the dairy price versus EBITDA sensitivity curve and how that, you know, what is the range of dairy price? in which I'm making good money and what is the historical range of dairy prices and how much risk do I have? Hi, Heather here. When I'm not breaking down deals with these guys, I'm helping people get the right SBA loans for their business acquisitions. Because when you're buying a business, the best financing isn't one size fits all. There's the best rate, fastest to close, the specific loan structure

that you need, or a little of all of those things. That's why my company, Vizzo Business Capital, works with over 30 different lenders to find you the best funding in less time and with less friction so you can focus on the deal. Sign up for a free live Q&A session on SBA loans at VisoCAP.net, then click Zoom sign up in the top right corner. That's V-I-S-O-C-A-P dot net and click Zoom sign up. Wait, wait, Mills, you did research on historical milk prices before the episode? Research is a loose term. You're pulling up charts, dude. These are charts. That's preparation. I just did it in the last 30 seconds, but I might like this deal more than you think.

Okay, so Mills, you got it on the screen for our YouTubers, but you got to describe it for our podcast people. What are we looking at here? It seems like there's seasonality in dairy prices. The prices start the year, and I don't know what this is. This is price paid to the producer. I don't know what the, it's euros per 100 kilograms, But let's just say, regardless of the unit of measure, it starts out the year at like, and this was in 2024, 46.5, and it ends the year at 54.6. But there's kind of a trend where prices are relatively flat throughout the year. And then in September, prices go up pretty significantly, like almost 20 percent, 10 to 20 percent.

So what I noticed Mills about this chart, so there's three curves in this chart. The bottom curve is the average of dairy prices from 2020 to 2024. And it ranges between 42 and 47. Then the next curve is 2024's prices, which ranges between 46 and 54, significantly higher. And then there's 2025 prices, which the low end is 53. And it looks like if the trend holds, it will push north of 60. So what this tells you, and you could have probably guessed this when you realize that the dairy farm was for sale, you could probably, what this tells you is that dairy prices in Romania are at an all-time high, right? AKA profitability of this fixed cost leverage commodity play is at an all-time high.

So they would love to sell it to you right now. Yeah, because their fixed costs have probably stayed about the same, but because it's commodity, and this business is too small to really probably hedge, right? they're not, they're not buying, you know, commodity futures, you know, of EU milk and stuff like that. So they're going to ride the roller coaster, whatever it is. I worked for a couple of banks that had agricultural lending. And I would sit in loan committees and listen to the deals. I did see a few, you know, dairy farm deals. I retained absolutely zero information, unfortunately.

Because it's really its own unique sets of, you know, ratios and things that you look at. But this particular operation, this is very, complex. This is a lot to run. It's not just the animals, you know, husbandry or whatever you call it, you know, to take care of a herd like that and to milk them, but it's the growing of their own food. You know, you're not purchasing hay. You're farming the hay. And that is, this is just a really complex operation. It's probably, like you hear, farmers are exhausted because it's 24-7. It never ends. Animals are, you know, need medical care or they're giving birth or whatever. it may be. And yeah, they're probably, they're probably tired and they want to sell at a good time

where milk prices are high, but you really need to know what you're doing to buy a business like this. So why is it being marketed on a website for U.S. business buyers? Can I ask the- Well, so look at there, Michael, this actual, this website, there is all kinds of businesses and all kinds of different countries, you know, listed here. Is this big chain or are they aggregating these? I don't know. Mergers Corp. I have never seen this.

No, it's great fine. They're all on merger corp. There's some bangers in here we got to do because I really want to dig into the Japanese musician royalties rights. Yes. Wow. We just didn't rush.

We've got six months of content here. 50-year-old Italian automotive manufacturing business. You can make parts for Ferrari. in Italy. The European accredited Ferrari Club in Italy. And also, look at all these banking licenses. A lot of this we talked about certain things.

Oh, there's a Ukrainian baking license. That's some good cuts in right there. I'm cutting you guys off. I'm cutting you off. I'm going to stop sharing the stream. We need to get on the road. Okay.

On that note, on that note, Heather, where are you on the cattle farm here? No, no thank you. This is way over my head, a very, very complex operation. Thumbs down. I'm hard no here because you're also dealing with like, you know, mad cow disease.

I mean, like anything agricultural, I mean, you're like have to cull the herd if something comes through. Like there are so many, this is so specialized. You do not just cannonball into buying and running a dairy farm. Like you will kill all your cows and probably some people with your. poison milk. Yeah. Go ahead, Millison. I'm going to tell you why you guys are all wrong.

Plus, your commodity exposed here at commodities at an all-time high. Like, you can't buy it on all-time high commodity prices. All right. Another thing that I like about this business in the face of so much animosity towards it is that right now globally, there is so much onshoreing happening, right? Across kind of any industry, any vertical, because people are so

concerned about tariffs and trade implications. Milk at the end of the day, rarely. is going to be produced in Romania or produced in the U.S. and shipped to Romania. Like, it stays close to home. It's refrigerated. There's a chain of custody. There's all kinds of things that really matter in this business. I think this is probably a really great, stable business. And I agree with Bill, there are a ton of risks. There's a ton of things that, but that's, that's farming in general. That's just the nature of the game. Nowhere near this price. But I think this is fascinating.

If I was independently wealthy and I didn't have any strings attached, I didn't have a family. I didn't have other things going on. This would be a really cool business. I'm going to tell your wife that you're leaving her and the children to move to Romania and run a dairy farm. This is Mills' Midlife Crisis. They're coming too, Bill. I mean, they're going to be there.

How do you think we're going to run the farm? It's all the child labor. Right. There you go. All right. So here's why you guys are totally wrong. and this is an amazing deal for Mills. All right.

What Mills needs to do is reach out, get the thing under L-O-I, and start the process of buying the thing. In parallel, you go to Netflix and you say, look at me, you want to reach the Gen Z, Gen X, South Carolina entrepreneurial. And Southern Cal. And SoCal, too.

Guess who's going to watch this show also, Heather. And you've seen what's happened with Clarkson's farm. You're just going to do it on steroids near a war zone. And it's going to be so much better. And you get this farm paid for by taking the $30 million production advance that you're going to get from Netflix to do the show to buy the farm. And you get to farm for free and you get to be TV famous. Michael needs to move to L.A.

I've just decided these ideas. Yeah, you belong here. As a promoter. I think what great TV it will be when the Romanian rogue guys show up with AKs to take your cows. Yes, that's great content. We didn't even talk about that this is right next to Crimea. We didn't even talk about that.

All of the cows are slightly radioactive. This is between Moldova and two parts of Ukraine. Like, that's what's going on. I'm exiting out the tabs. I'm getting rid of all my research. I'm clearing out. I'm done, okay. I just told you how to do this.

Just go. execute on the plan. We got this. I'll go with you to the meetings. I know a guy. You'll be his agent. His name is my guard or what? I know a guy. All right. On that note, I think we will finish up this episode. What call to action do we have for people today? Should they? Our apps are getting weirder. So if you like this stuff, tweet us on X or go to acqueu-unon.com. And we're also trying these a little shorter or like 16 minutes today. trying these more rapid fire quick hitting ones. So if you like this, tweet us and tell us, or if you'd rather us go deeper and longer like

we have in the past, we do that too. Let us know. Or send us a normal deal, please. Or someone says, you know, Mills can't keep doing this to us. Send us some normal deals. You guys are crazy. We're doing the Friday club next episode is going to be about Japanese music rights. So I'm in. Can't wait.

All right. We will see you guys on the next episode of Acquisitions Anonymous.