Buy-and-build

Overview

Buy-and-build combines two moves that are usually treated as separate problems. A buyer first takes control of a platform, meaning a business with enough management depth and systems to absorb others, and then acquires smaller firms in the same or an adjacent market and folds them in. Value comes from three places: the small firms are normally bought at a lower profit multiple than the enlarged group is worth, shared overhead and purchasing take cost out, and the combined customer base supports cross-selling that neither side could do alone. The decisions that actually determine the outcome are which company becomes the platform, how far integration goes, whether the seller stays through an earn-out or rolls equity into the group, and how much debt the platform carries between deals. One Belgian tech group runs the full sequence in public: axi, an enterprise IT and transformation group whose majority shareholder is IceLake, bought InterIT and ITP Group in 2023, Spikes, Datalink, Netleaf, Core ICT, Willux and Megabyte Infrastructure in 2024, and Teamtel and OQuila in 2025, with Bart Verhelst taking over as CEO from Paul Peeters on 1 January 2025.

Stated facts & numbers

• Entities tied to this concept on the wiki: 21, of which 15 are people and none are companies
• Videos discussing it in the corpus: 67
• Belgian merger notification threshold: Combined Belgian turnover above 100 million euro and at least two undertakings each above 40 million euro in Belgium, under Article IV.7 of the Code of Economic Law
• Belgian tech platform example: axi, an enterprise IT and transformation group, majority shareholder IceLake, previously held by Strada Partners
• axi add-ons named publicly: InterIT and ITP Group (2023); Spikes, Datalink, Netleaf, Core ICT, Willux, Megabyte Infrastructure (2024); Teamtel and OQuila (2025)
• axi leadership: Bart Verhelst became CEO on 1 January 2025, succeeding Paul Peeters, who moved to chairman of the board
• Destiny / Dstny scale: 250 million euro turnover, more than 1,000 staff, seven European countries; founded in 2008 by Samuel and Daan De Wever
• Channels carrying the operator reasoning: Ben's Mentors, BlackBird Business Events, The Harbour