For distributors pursuing growth through mergers and acquisitions, the temptation is often to focus first on scale — how quickly revenue can be added, how much geographic territory can be covered, or how aggressively competitors can be leapfrogged. But for Singer Equipment, one of the largest foodservice equipment and supplies distributors in North America, the last decade of acquisition-driven growth has been guided by a different North Star: culture.

That principle was front and center during my 1-on-1 conversation in MDM’s Dec. 3 Virtual M&A Summit with Seth Feldman, Chief Financial Officer of Singer Equipment Company. Feldman has overseen all of Singer’s acquisition activity over the past decade — seven completed deals that helped grow the Pennsylvania-based company from roughly $250 million in revenue to nearly $1 billion today — and has also helped steer the company away from dozens of potential deals that never made it across the finish line.

Singer’s experience offers a practical, grounded look at how distributors can use M&A not just to get bigger, but to build stronger, more durable platforms.

Recognizing When Organic Growth Isn’t Enough

Singer’s M&A journey began with a clear-eyed assessment of its growth ceiling.

When Feldman joined the nearly century-old, family-owned distributor in 2016, Singer was already well-run and respected in the market — but leadership recognized that organic growth alone would not get the company where it wanted to go.

The foodservice equipment distribution market, Feldman explained, is fragmented and does not grow fast enough organically to support rapid scale. To reach Singer’s long-term objectives, acquisitions had to become a core strategic lever, not a side project.

From the outset, Singer pursued a dual-track strategy: continue to grow organically while simultaneously building an acquisition engine that could expand geographic reach, add talent, and deepen customer relationships. That mindset has remained consistent as the company has scaled.

Letting Strategy Guide the Map — Not the Other Way Around

Singer’s early acquisitions were intentionally close to home. Headquartered about an hour west of Philadelphia, the company initially focused on targets within a manageable geographic radius to reduce execution risk and allow leadership to stay closely involved.

Over time, a pattern emerged. As opportunities arose, Singer steadily expanded north and south along the I-95 corridor, building density in markets it understood well.

But Feldman emphasized that Singer never tried to force deals into a rigid roadmap. In M&A, timing rarely cooperates.

“You can’t plan exactly when you’re going to do a deal in a specific market,” he noted. Deals happen when sellers are ready — not when buyers want them to.

Repeatedly, Singer found that deals it expected to close didn’t materialize, while unexpected opportunities did. Flexibility, rather than rigid sequencing, became a competitive advantage.

The Real Constraint Isn’t Capital — It’s Leadership Bandwidth

One of Feldman’s more contrarian observations resonated strongly with summit attendees: capital is rarely the limiting factor in acquisitions.

Instead, the true constraint is people.

“Doing a deal is easy,” Feldman said. “Integrating a deal and having it be successful — that requires leadership.”

Singer is deliberate about pacing its acquisitions to ensure it has the management capacity to integrate each business thoughtfully. Leadership bandwidth, not access to financing, dictates how many deals the company can pursue at any given time.

This discipline helps prevent the common trap of deal overload — where too many acquisitions stretch teams thin, erode focus and ultimately destroy value.

Culture Comes Before the Numbers

When a potential acquisition lands on Feldman’s desk, the first question he asks is not about EBITDA margins or revenue growth.

It’s about culture.

For Singer, cultural fit is the most important determinant of whether a deal moves forward. Financials matter, but they are secondary. Feldman is candid that some of the best “deals” Singer has made were the ones it chose not to pursue — because the cultural mismatch could have negatively impacted the organization.

Feldman is unequivocal about the stakes. “People often ask me what’s the best deal we’ve ever done,” he said. “And I have a consistent answer — it’s the deals that we haven’t done, because I believe those would have been misaligned with our culture.”

For Singer, protecting culture is not a soft concept — it is a value-preservation strategy. Feldman repeatedly emphasized that people are the company’s biggest asset, and that no amount of financial upside can compensate for a deal that undermines trust, engagement or leadership credibility.

Evaluating culture isn’t formulaic. Singer spends months — often six to 12 — getting to know leadership teams, employees, customers and vendors. The company gathers external perspectives on how the target is perceived in the market and uses extended diligence to assess whether values, decision-making styles and people practices align.

Culture risk, Feldman noted, is also the hardest to quantify — which makes it the most important area for rigorous scrutiny.

A Repeatable Playbook — Without Cutting Corners

While Singer avoids rigid deal timing, it does not improvise on process.

The company uses a standardized M&A playbook for every transaction. Finance, HR, operations and sales all move through diligence in parallel, with no single function prioritized above another. The goal is coordination, transparency and consistency — deal after deal.

This repeatability reduces execution risk and helps internal teams understand what’s expected of them, even as each acquisition brings its own nuances.

Integration: Move Fast Where It Matters — Move Carefully Where It Doesn’t

Post-close integration is where many acquisitions stumble. Singer’s approach reflects hard-earned lessons.

Finance is integrated first. Acquired companies are quickly brought onto Singer’s financial systems, reporting and controls. HR follows closely to align people practices and support employees through change.

Sales and operations, however, are handled more cautiously.

Customer relationships are treated as sacred. Singer avoids disrupting sales teams early, allowing them to continue operating as they have while looking for opportunities to add value incrementally. Operational changes — warehouses, trucking and logistics — are approached later, once Singer has a deeper understanding of how the acquired business runs.

The underlying philosophy is simple: don’t fix what isn’t broken.

The CFO’s Role: Be the Naysayer — And Be Willing to Be Wrong

As CFO, Feldman embraces his role as the voice of skepticism.

Out of more than 50 potential acquisitions Singer has evaluated under Feldman, seven have moved forward. Pushing back — even when others are enthusiastic — is part of the job. That pushback is grounded in data, risk assessment and fiduciary responsibility.

Feldman is comfortable playing that role — even when it creates tension. “I am the naysayer in the room,” he said. “That’s a role you have to take on when you’re the CFO. We have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure we’re deploying capital in the most effective way.”

He added that the challenge is pushing back without ego. “When I’m against something, I want to be wrong,” Feldman said. “But I’m concerned that I’m right. That’s the balance you have to strike.”

At the same time, Feldman is candid about fallibility. Some deals he initially opposed turned out to be among Singer’s most successful. Acknowledging those misses, he said, is essential to maintaining credibility and improving judgment over time.

Managing Deal Fever Without Losing Focus

As Singer’s acquisition experience has grown, so has the risk of “deal fever” — the excitement that can distract leadership from running the core business.

To manage this, Singer relies on a small internal deal team supported by third-party advisors who act as a first line of diligence. This structure allows Singer to evaluate opportunities efficiently without overwhelming internal resources.

Feldman cautioned that enthusiasm can quickly turn into distraction if left unchecked. “Deal fever is real,” he said. “There’s nearly a billion-dollar business to operate in the background, and you can’t forget about that.”

Still, Feldman emphasized that M&A never gets easier from a time perspective. The company simply gets better at spotting red flags and opportunities faster.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better — But Fit Always Matters

Singer evaluates deals across the size spectrum. The company has completed acquisitions as small as under $10 million in revenue and as large as $130 million — sometimes back-to-back.

Larger deals may move the needle more from a scale perspective, but smaller tuck-in acquisitions can be highly accretive and strategically valuable, especially when they open doors to new customers, talent or geographies.

Once again, culture and strategic fit outweigh size.

From Scale to Platform: The ERP Question

As Singer’s acquisition footprint has grown, so has the complexity of its systems landscape. Feldman acknowledged that operating across multiple ERPs creates friction — for employees, customers and decision-making.

While Singer initially prioritized acquiring the right companies over system standardization, it is now confronting the reality that true platform value requires unified data and systems. Moving to a single ERP is expensive and risky — Feldman likened it to “open heart surgery” — but necessary to unlock the next phase of value creation.

The Key Takeaways

Singer Equipment’s M&A journey offers several lessons for distributors looking to sharpen their acquisition strategies:

• Let culture lead. Financial engineering can’t fix cultural misalignment.
• Pace deals to leadership capacity, not capital availability
• Use a consistent playbook, but remain flexible on timing
• Protect customer relationships during integration
• Empower CFOs to challenge deal momentum — and reward candor
• Avoid doing deals out of pressure or fear of missing out
• Think beyond scale to platform strength and long-term integration

For Singer, M&A has not been about chasing growth at all costs. It has been about building a family of businesses that can grow together — deliberately, sustainably and with culture as the foundation.