Most buyers have an exit strategy. That's not a criticism — it's just the structure. A PE fund has a lifecycle. A trade buyer has a consolidation thesis. PermaTech is built differently. No external investors. No fund cycle. No exit plan.
The model
What PermaTech is
PermaTech is a permanent home for excellent businesses. We're not a private equity fund — we don't have an exit mandate or a fund life. We're not a trade buyer looking to integrate your operations into ours. We're a holding company in the true sense: we acquire, we hold, we support, and we compound.
Our focus is niche industrial and commercial businesses in New Zealand and Australia: the kinds of businesses that are hard to find, hard to replicate, and quietly excellent. When we acquire a business, our intention is to own it forever. That is not a figure of speech.
Not PE. Not a trade buyer. Something different.
There are really only a few options for a business owner thinking about the future.
Private equity
Buys your business, brings in a management layer, runs an improvement programme, and sells in three to five years. Some businesses suit this. Most owner-led businesses with strong culture and long customer relationships don't.
A trade buyer
Your business becomes a division of something bigger. The brand gets retired. The team gets restructured. Your customers deal with someone new. The thing you built disappears into a larger entity.
A business broker
Lists your business, runs a process, finds the highest bidder. Sometimes that works. Often the highest bidder turns out to be neither the best operator nor the most committed long-term owner.
PermaTech
We buy your business at a fair price. Your management team continues to run it. Your brand stays. Your people stay. We provide stable, permanent ownership and the occasional resource — financial, strategic, or operational — when it's useful.
We don't have an exit plan for your business because we don't intend to sell it.
Where the model comes from
A model that's been working for thirty years — somewhere else
In Scandinavia, a handful of listed holding companies have spent the last three decades quietly building portfolios of niche industrial and commercial businesses. Lifco. Addtech. Lagercrantz. Indutrade. Judges Scientific in the UK. The pattern is consistent: acquire excellent businesses at fair prices, give them permanent supportive ownership, let management run the show, and compound.
The results speak for themselves. Companies acquired in the 1990s are still operating under the same name, the same management philosophy, and the same customer relationships today. The businesses compound. The portfolios compound.
We studied more than 500 companies built on this model. We understand what makes it work. PermaTech is built on the same principles, applied to the New Zealand and Australian market.
The team
The people behind PermaTech
Joel Surges
Managing Partner & CEO
Industrial OperationsInvestmentsBusiness Development
Joel has worked in New Zealand and the UK in a range of roles across industrial services, renewables, investments, and business strategy.
Chuck is an entrepreneur, having started multiple successful technology and financial services businesses in New Zealand. His focus is on business improvability and governance.
"Joel and Chuck are passionate about the unsung heroes of New Zealand; the companies that keep the lights on, the streets lit, and supermarkets stocked. We're passionate about supporting the long-term sustainability of the businesses that ultimately keep New Zealand running."
Chuck Slogrove & Joel Surges Co-founders, PermaTech
Want to understand the model better?
If you're curious about how we operate, what we look for, or what working with us actually looks like — we're happy to have an open conversation.
