Investors
Small businesses. Great companies.
Pace Capital is a permanent capital holding company. We buy established, cash-generating South African businesses at sensible prices, put strong operators in charge, and hold them for the long term.
The opportunity
Small and medium businesses are the unsung heroes of the South African economy. They employ a large share of the workforce, support families and communities, and many of them are quietly, consistently profitable.
They are also, on their own, high-return and high-risk. Owner dependence, thin systems and succession gaps make the right ones hard to find. Our work is to find the diamonds in the rough: careful selection, proven operating principles and disciplined systems turn a high-return, high-risk business into a high-return, medium-risk investment.
We focus on cash generation above anything else, closely backed by strong and steady long-term growth. The businesses we buy produce cash today, and under good ownership they keep producing it for decades.
How we invest
Permanent capital
We are not private equity. We go into every deal with a forever mindset, so the businesses we own are run for the next decade, not the next exit.
Our capital alongside yours
Investor capital never makes up more than half of our total investment base. We have our own money in every deal and we carry the same risk you do.
Operators, backed by hands-on ownership
Each business is run day to day by an operator with a stake in its success, and they don't do it alone. Pace provides hands-on oversight and long-term strategic leadership through our own operating system. We are not a management company, and we are not a passive investor with a seat on the board.
Different investment levels
Invest alongside Pace Capital for long-term compounding returns, or co-invest in a specific acquisition that suits you.
Who we work with
We are not a mass-market fund and we don't run public fundraising rounds. We work with a small group of private investors, family offices and fellow business owners who share a long-term view and want to own good businesses rather than trade them.
If that sounds like you, we'd welcome a private conversation about how we invest and what we are working on.