Making a sound investment

ROVIS owner Bill Kenney with Bizerba slicer ready for return to local Metro’s deli

Bill Kenney’s friends told him not to buy a business.  But he did. And that worked out so well he bought another, three years later.

Bill, you see, had just retired after 35 years in scientific instrument sales, much of it on the road, covering accounts in Canada and the New England states. At 66, he wasn’t about to “sit home and read newspapers.”

“My friends thought I should just take it easy, but that wasn’t my modus operandi,” he recalls.

“I retired on Thursday, flying in from Boston,” he continues. “Driving down Riverside Drive (Ottawa) early the next week, I saw the Sunbelt Business Brokers sign and went in.”

Local broker Olga Nadjakova became his guide to locating and buying the business that met his needs.

I went to seminars and looked at franchises first, says Bill.  “But what I wanted was an established business that was locally owned.”

Olga connected Bill with ROVIS and it fit the bill.

“I knew nothing about the food service equipment repair,” says Bill. “But I was attracted to the business—it’s relatively recession-proof. Equipment still breaks. And companies may delay the repair but eventually they get it fixed.”

Bill saw the business as a sound investment—much less risky than the stock market.