Most founders who call Good Hope Advisors are not in trouble. They built something that works. They have customers who trust them, employees who have been with them for years, and a business that runs without them having to reinvent anything. They are calling because they are done. Not burned out. Done. They earned the exit and they are ready to take it.
Pat Quinlan was exactly that long-time owner.
He and his wife started Coffman & Co. Heating & Cooling in Denver, Colorado in 1991. They grew it from a startup into a business with 65,000 customers, four locations at its peak, and a reputation for service that held through a recession that pushed a lot of their competitors out of the market. By the time Pat was ready to sell, Coffman was doing $3.5M to $4M in annual revenue with $550K to $600K in normalized EBITDA. The business was healthy. The employees were stable. And Pat had someone on his team who was ready to step into a leadership role the moment a new owner walked in.
He did not need rescuing. He needed the right buyer.
He did not need rescuing. He needed the right buyer. Finding that buyer is exactly the work Good Hope Advisors is built to do.Eric Seifert, Good Hope Advisors
What Coffman Built
The Quinlans took over with nothing exceptional except the willingness to work and the discipline to do it correctly. Revenue hit $500K in year one and climbed steadily. By 1997 they were over $1.7M. By 2004 they had expanded to four locations across the Denver area.
Then 2008 hit. The housing market froze. Contractors who had stretched thin on multiple locations found themselves unable to sustain the overhead. Coffman consolidated to one location, kept its core people, and held on. They came out the other side with their customer base intact and their reputation stronger for having survived while others did not.
By the time Pat reached a stage of life where he was no longer willing to make the capital investments that a major growth phase would require, the business was running well. No drama. No distress. Just a long-time owner who had reached the natural end of his chapter and was honest about it.
He had no children in the business to take over. No partner who was angling for control. He had a loyal employee who was ready to lead, and a customer base that had trusted Coffman for thirty years. What he needed was a buyer who would honor both.
The Coffman Timeline
The GHA Process
Good Hope Advisors started where it always starts: the financials. The team analyzed Coffman's books, built the valuation framework, and set a pricing range with a clear target at the top of it. Not the middle. The top.
Then came the outreach. GHA does not blast a deal to a mass list and wait to see who responds. We maintain a curated network of private equity investors and strategic buyers built from years of active work in the home services sector. We know who the serious buyers are, how they think about platform acquisitions, what kind of seller relationship they value, and which ones are worth putting in front of a long-time owner like Pat Quinlan.
For Coffman, that meant screening dozens of potential buyers before introducing a single one. Tire-kickers were filtered out early. Buyers whose operating model would not fit a tight-knit service business were passed over. The process was designed to protect Pat's time and to make sure that when a buyer sat across from him, they were already qualified to be there.
The Seer Group
GHA first connected with Pat Quinlan in 2017, and after building the relationship, introduced Coffman & Co. to The Seer Group, which acquired the business in 2020. The fit was clear from the first review. Seer was building a platform of residential home service companies across the western United States and had the infrastructure and the operator mindset to absorb a business like Coffman without breaking what made it work.
The deal moved through initial reviews, in-person meetings, and full due diligence without falling apart. Deals fall apart when the wrong buyer is in the room. When the right one is there, the process moves. This one moved.
The transaction closed at a value that exceeded initial expectations, with terms favorable to the Quinlans. The longtime employee who had been waiting for his moment stepped into leadership. The customers kept their service. The business kept its identity inside the Seer platform.
What Came Next
Today, The Seer Group covers most states west of the Rockies and the entire West Coast. Coffman & Co. is a significant part of that platform.
Pat and his wife are traveling. They are spending time with their grandchildren. They are not thinking about fleet maintenance schedules or technician turnover or what the summer demand forecast looks like.
That is the outcome Good Hope Advisors is built to deliver. Not a transaction. An ending that was worth the thirty years it took to earn it. Pat Quinlan built something real in Denver. He sold it to someone who would keep it real. And he walked away clean.
That is the call GHA is waiting to take.