About Pace Capital
Long-term owners, not dealmakers.
Pace Capital is a permanent capital holding company that buys and holds South African small and medium businesses as their owners move on.
What we believe
We don't break businesses apart
A business is its people, its customers and its reputation. We keep all three together and build from there.
The operator runs the business
The person closest to the customer makes the daily decisions, with a real stake in the result. We back them rather than second-guess them.
Simple systems beat complexity
Clear routines, clean numbers and a few habits done consistently. That is how good businesses stay good when the founder steps back.
Fair deals where everyone wins
The seller, the operator, the team and our investors should all be better off. If a deal only works for one of them, it isn't a deal we want.
Cash is the measure
We judge a business by the cash it produces and the capital it needs to produce it, not by what it might one day be worth to someone else.
Patience is an advantage
Because we never have to sell, we can make decisions that pay off over a decade and ignore the ones that only look good this year.
How we think about ownership
We go into every deal with a forever mindset. If we wouldn't be happy owning a business for the next twenty years, we don't buy it.
Pace Capital is built on permanent capital. We are not private equity, and we have no intention to sell, so decisions are made for the long run rather than for the next exit. We are a lean holding company by design. The businesses are run by their operators, and Pace stays focused on capital, systems and oversight, and long-term strategic leadership.
Our first acquisition
MEGA Laundry
MEGA Laundry has supplied commercial and industrial laundry equipment since 1992. Based in Durban with a nationwide footprint, it keeps laundries running for hotels, hospitals, aged care homes, mines, food producers and laundromats. It is the sole South African importer of Electrolux Professional laundry equipment and also represents LG, Milnor, GMP and Pony. MEGA does not sell a machine and walk away. It backs every installation with a very strong service offering, and more than half of its sales go to customers who have bought from it before.
MEGA came to us at a moment many owners will recognise. One owner was ready to step back, and the partner who runs the business day to day wanted to stay and keep building. That is the kind of succession we are built for. He saw the value of co-owning MEGA with a long-term partner, and we completed the acquisition in late 2025. Nothing that customers rely on changed: the name, the brands, the team and the service all carried on, now with long-term backing behind them.
MEGA is exactly what we look for. It has traded for more than thirty years, is consistently profitable with steady margins, and runs on a model you can explain in a minute: bring in world-class equipment, fit the right solution, then keep it running. Laundry is unflashy, but hotels and hospitals need it every day. Its strength is in its people and its service. The systems we are building alongside its team will travel with us to every business that follows.
A note from our founder
Small and medium-sized businesses are the unsung heroes of our economy. They employ a significant part of our population, putting food on the table and providing livelihoods in every part of the country. They also happen to be very good businesses: profitable, resilient and built on real relationships.
I've been fortunate to see business from two sides. My dad ran a small business that provided for our family, and I saw what it takes to build something from the ground up. Later I worked in a larger, established family business on my mother's side, started by my grandfather, where I learnt how systems, disciplined sales processes and simple operating routines can turn a good business into a great one. Pace Capital brings those two experiences together.
Every year, thousands of South African owners reach the point where they want to step back and find that there is no obvious succession plan. Too many good businesses are sold to the wrong buyer, broken up, or quietly wound down. I started Pace to be a different kind of buyer: one that holds for the long term, keeps the people and the name, puts a capable operator in charge, and grows the business using proven, hard-learned business practices.
I am a chartered accountant by training, and I'm as interested in the numbers as you would expect. But what I enjoy most is helping people run a business well and achieve something they may not have believed they were capable of. That goes for the owner who wants to leave well, the operator who wants to build, and the team who want to know the place they work will still be there in twenty years.
If you own a business and you're thinking about what comes next, I'd love to have a conversation.