Sequoya Borgman: How the Wealthy Quietly Buy Businesses (Not Stocks)

Today, I welcome Sequoya Borgman to the Investing Secrets Podcast. Sequoya’s path to running his own private equity firm spans two decades inside the industry. A CPA by training, he spent years at top PE firms working on M&A alongside the best in the business. He eventually made partner, but being one of a thousand partners meant he couldn’t drive the direction of the firm - so in 2017 he walked away from the W-2 and started fresh. Today, Sequoya is the founder of Borgman Capital, a lower-middle-market private equity firm that has acquired more than 20 businesses, buying older family-owned and founder-led companies in industrial manufacturing and food, where his team is often the first institutional investor. He’s also built an industrial sale-leaseback real estate arm and launched Pass the Hat, giving accredited investors direct access to his deals. We kick things off with Sequoya’s origin story - how walking away from a partnership, and surviving a first deal that collapsed, set the foundation for everything that followed. From there, we dive into the real mechanics of the business: how he structures leveraged buyouts, what actually drives the multiple you pay for a company, and the value-creation levers most people misunderstand about private equity. We close on where he sees the biggest opportunities heading into the second half of 2026 - the wave of aging baby-boomer owners who need to sell, why the best-performing funds were born in down markets, and the one investing secret he’s learned to live by. If you’re serious about understanding private equity, alternative investments, and how sophisticated investors buy and build real businesses for outsized, tax-efficient returns, this one delivers. Welcome, Sequoya, to The Investing Secrets Podcast…Follow Sequoya:Pass the Hat: https://www.passthehat.comBorgman Capital: https://www.borgmancapital.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sequoya-borgman-8a6057a/Follow Me:LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3L2sTc7Instagram: https://bit.ly/3soYxtW