Carlo Santelli: Closing A $3.5M EBITDA Deal With Zero Equity Magic

Carlo Santelli operates in a world that few searchers dare to enter. While most aspiring business owners chase small service companies with SBA loans and personal guarantees, Santelli has acquired a $3.5-million EBITDA manufacturing firm with zero money down and no personal guarantees.

His secret: a relentless, blue-collar approach to proprietary deal sourcing and a sophisticated use of financial engineering that he honed over a decade in investment banking and private equity.

Santelli’s path to deal-making was anything but linear. After high school in Clifton, New Jersey, he took three years off, spending time working for a nonprofit and eventually living in a van in Alaska. This period of "door-to-door sales and fundraising" taught him resilience and how to handle rejection. These kills would later define his acquisition strategy.

"I think that kind of forms my life experience... getting a lot of NOs from strangers just walking around door to door," Santelli admitted in one appearance on the Acquiring Minds Podcast.

A proud Italian-American, Santelli’s grit is rooted in his heritage; his father hails from Rome, with his family based in Italy's Puglia region. Santelli had a brief stint in 1960s New York (at least on screen). He played a background role in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, appearing in several scenes alongside Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.

Determined to attend the best school in his area, he applied to Columbia University three times. He was rejected twice. On the third try, he was in. He graduated in three years with a degree in Economics and launched his career in investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Cantor Fitzgerald.

However, Santelli admits he was a bad analyst. Not because he couldn't do the work, but because he chafed against the rigid, order-taking culture of bulge bracket investment banks. He wanted to be a dealmaker, not a cog in the machine.

His "aha moment" came on December 15, 2015, when he saw an online listing for a back pain device business doing $3 million in EBITDA, selling for just $9 million; a 3x multiple. Accustomed to above 14x multiples in corporate banking, Santelli realized this:

Santelli operates under the banner of Cortina Capital Partners. His firm’s name reflects his roots: the town of Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Italian Alps—one of the host cities for this year’s Winter Olympics.

Cortina is essentially a one-man private equity firm. His strategy is defined by what he won't do. "If there's a bank on it, there's a broker on it, [it’s] not interesting to me. In fact, if there's a CIM or a data room... It's an instant desk kill for me," Santelli reveals.

Santelli chases only proprietary deals, i.e., businesses not listed for sale. He believes that brokered deals are efficient markets where you pay fair prices. Proprietary deals are inefficient markets where you can find "below market" pricing.

His outreach is aggressive. He uses offshore teams to send tens of thousands of cold emails. But once he gets a bite, his approach shifts from corporate to personal. He flies to meet owners, sits in their offices, and even helps them build their own financials from scratch because they often don't have them ready.

In October 2024, Santelli closed a transaction that exemplifies his playbook. He acquired two sister manufacturing companies, Triem Industries and Stillwater Fasteners, which make custom metal components.

The Stats:

The Structure:

Santelli engineered a "no money down" deal using three levers:

The Math: $16M (Price) - $2M (Seller Note) - $10.75M (Real Estate Sale) - $3.25M (Asset Loan) = $0 Equity Check.

Effectively, Santelli bought the operating business (excluding real estate) for $5.25 million. With $3.5 million in EBITDA, that is a purchase multiple of 1.5x EBITDA.

"I paid 1.5 times EBITDA for that business... definitely below Market," Santelli says.

Santelli’s edge is his ability to walk into a dusty manufacturing plant in jeans and a t-shirt and connect with a blue-collar owner in a way that a "Patagonia vest" private equity associate cannot.

He positions himself as a partner, not a buyer.

Santellelli admits that he focuses only on the "consequential stuff." This means: due diligence items (customer concentration, employee retention, owner involvement). He moves faster and demands less from the seller than a traditional firm. To him, this speed and simplicity are often worth more to a seller than a higher headline price that comes with a grueling six-month audit.

Santelli hasn’t stopped at one deal. He has closed many other transactions—including 4 in 2024 and 12 preferred equity investments in a truck stop acquisition and sale-leaseback strategy in 2025. His goal is to build a portfolio of industrial businesses, not by operating them day-to-day, but by acting as the capital allocator and deal architect.

While he owns 100% of Triem Industries, he also owns majority and minority stakes in other businesses. Today, he seeks out both arrangements (owning 100% or bringing in an equity partner). His portfolio already includes majority ownership in Prestige Cleaners, one of Arizona’s largest garment care businesses, which operates 8 locations and processes roughly 1 million garments annually.

Santelli has also expanded into sell-side M&A advisory, helping other business owners navigate exits, a move that already resulted in two closed deals as an advisor last year, he says.