Chris Grant, President of IHT Group, epitomizes resilience and seizing opportunities, influenced by his parents’ enduring mantra: “If you are not happy, make a change.”

Grant, who is based now in Toronto, has built a career at multinational plastics manufacturers in Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto.

His journey reflects a steadfast commitment to embracing change, navigating diverse challenges, and investing in himself and his employees.

Having witnessed the corporate landscape evolve through private equity acquisitions, Grant made a pivotal decision in 2013 and bet on himself by acquiring a small Canadian business. Under his leadership and vision, he propelled the company to unprecedented growth and global sales expansion before its sale in July 2023.

“I’ve been on the acquisition side. I’ve been on the selling side. Entrepreneurial. That type of thing,” said Grant, who was a speaker earlier this year at the Business Transitions Forum in Toronto.

Grant was a panel member on the topic Growth by acquisition: What you need to know before buying a business.

Decisive Dividend Corporation (DDC) bought Grant’s company IHT.

“I wasn’t even looking to sell. It’s one of those things when you look at the future a lot of things were happening. I had a personal mentor who was going through a lot of difficulties in his life. Health challenges in that. It really makes you look at life in a different way and it gave me an opportunity to diversify some of my assets. Sell the company,” said Grant.

“But the way Decisive buys companies it’s more based on a buy and hold method. They don’t sell companies. So it’s kind of my legacy. It’s a legacy minded thing. They bought our company but I’m still running it. It allowed me to diversify, take money out of the company yet keep money in, and now I don’t just own part of IHT, I own part of 12 companies because there’s 12 companies as part of a portfolio. It kind of worked out the best of both worlds for me.

“I was seeked out by many different companies. I’ve had people poking around at the company for years, looking at buying it. I’ve had a bunch of people come around and say ‘hey would you be interested in selling?’ My answer was I’m always open. I’d always be interested because I know eventually every entrepreneur knows that there is an end game. The point of growing a company to a certain size is to sell it. You built it but a lot of it comes down to ‘hey do you want to sell it for the best price, what do you want to do? Do you want your legacy? Do you want the company to continue on in the same city? What’s your feeling towards employees?’”

DDC was one of the companies that approached him and it took about a year and a half to get the deal done.

“I got to interview all the other companies of DDC and the actual owners . . . I got to kind of walk the walk with them and I spent a lot of due diligence before I was going to do this because I’ve been through it before where it wasn’t as much fun. Didn’t enjoy it and then that’s when I went off and did my own thing again,” said Grant.

“You have to look internally at what you want first. If you own your company, do you want it to be staying in the same city? Do you care about the company after it’s done or do you want the legacy side? Is that really something that interests you? For me it was. I built this thing. This is my baby. I look at building a business as an entrepreneur as like a family. I look at the company like your child. You’ve raised this child, you’ve built it up and you want the best for your child moving forward. It’s basically a family to you. So you don’t just abandon that and throw it out. I want the best for your family, the best for your child, the best opportunity. To me, that’s the way I look at it.”

In the process of a sale, Grant said it’s important to interview the potential buyer to make sure it’s the right fit for you, the company, the market and what you want to do.

Three Business Transitions Forums are scheduled for the fall - September 24 in San Diego, October 16 in Winnipeg and November 6 in Vancouver.