Main Street Auto: the Rambo of car repair rollups

Disclaimer: Unless noted otherwise, views and analysis expressed here are the author's own and based on public sources. The article is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional for investment decisions.

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Hey guys, ever thought of rolling up auto repair shops?

OK, I can see some of you wincing at the idea. Small, mom & pop type operations. Questionable tax practices. The real estate piece. 

Why bother, when there are dozens of other business services verticals to go after?

Maybe. Consider the attractions though.

Few independent sponsors: hotshot MBA searchers are fixated on HVAC.

Revenue profile is not necessarily recurring - but it is highly non-discretionary nevertheless. Who in their sane mind would keep driving a defective vehicle? 

Massive TAM. Every G7 economy has tens of thousands of car repair shops. 

The owners are grappling with succession. In 2019, 49% of US auto shop owners were aged 60+. Another 1/3 were in their 50s (source). 

What else? Oh yes, the tariffs! Likely not as big of an impact as consumers will hold on to their existing cars for longer. 

I am here to tell you about Main Street Auto (MSA) - a top 5 aggregator of US car repair shops. MSA was founded and is led by Logan Leslie, a Harvard Business School MBA and a former “Green Beret” with combat experience from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here’s MSA’s crazy timeline:

• 2018: Logan graduates from HBS and starts Northern Rock, a search fund 

• 2021: after several setbacks (more on that below) Northern Rock settles on the car repair industry. Acquisition 1 is completed. Main Street Auto (MSA) is born

• 2025: MSA network includes c.100 shops servicing 400,000 customers / year - plus another 40 (!) under LOI 

Bottom line: in 4 years, Logan built a $200M+ revenue rollup.  

In a way, MSA is like Teamshares - which also has 100 businesses in the portfolio - but with a real plan to make money. 

Further reading: Admired, copied, misunderstood: the incredible story of Teamshares

Read on to learn about:

1. Logan’s background and hardcore work ethic as key success factors

2. How Logan came around to the hyper-focused rollup idea 

3. What does MSA’s typical target look like? A deep dive into US car repair shop economics

4. MSA’s M&A playbook - summarised in 5 crisp insights

5. Logan’s hiring philosophy - and why he doesn’t skimp on the central team

This article draws on 3 key sources:

• Leslie’s fireside chat at the HoldCo Conf 2025 (see the full writeup here)

• Leslie’s interview to a Harvard Business School podcast

• Trade publications, such as Tire Review and Aftermarket Matters

Ready? Let’s go! 

1. Logan’s background and hardcore work ethic as key success factors

Logan grew up in a blue-collar family in Connecticut. His dad was a machinist and his mom worked in hospital administration. 

At 17, Logan followed his brothers to the military, right out of high school. Not just any military - he trained as a combat diver in the US Special Forces, aka the “Green Berets,” followed by deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Aged 25, Logan put a pin into his active military career and enrolled into an undergraduate programme at Harvard. Of course, that was too easy, so 3 years later he continued with the JD/MBA programme. According to a glowing Harvard profile, while in the grad school, Logan  “was hand-picked by General Mark A. Milley, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army to serve as a special projects officer on his staff”. 

You don't see Green Berets sticking it out in consulting or investment banking jobs, do you?

Green Berets do rollups.     

2. How Logan came around to the hyper-focused rollup idea 

Logan does not like industry agnostic HoldCos. His rationale: 

• People get distracted by chasing deals in different industries;

• People do not maximise operational efficiencies; 

• And, at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, “There is no replacement for track record”.  

These opinions are the direct outcome of a 3-year struggle to get a search fund off the ground. Logan got going in 2018. Raised a couple hundred thousand dollars to pay the interns and the DD providers. Initially, Northern Rock - the search fund - did not have an industry thesis. Northern Rock kept bidding, and losing out on red-hot deals in the industrial maintenance space. 

Logan’s response? He took a break from searching. No, not that kind of break. He moved the team to Atlanta and ran a security firm for a year. By late 2020, Logan resumed Northern Rock as a hyper focussed rollup. Main Street Auto was born.

Acquisition 1 - a car repair shop in suburban Atlanta called Alpha Automotive closed in May 2021. 

Acquisition 2 followed in September. 

The following year, MSA closed 18 deals. 

3. MSA’s typical target…

…comes with $1M to $3M in revenue - and a 35-45% gross margin. EBITDA margins are in the 15-20% range, adjusted for rent and maintenance capex. Since many of the businesses own their real estate, MSA would buy it too, and do a sale-and-leaseback. 

A big unlock in MSA’s early days was cap rate arbitrage. This is a BIG DEAL for all acquirers of real estate heavy businesses. 

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