The Genesis of a Global Family Office with Leanne Carling

Speaker 1 (00:00:02) - Good day, everybody. Welcome back to the deal, Scout. Now, if you're if you're tuning in to this episode, you might have seen the seven minute story, the seven minute deal scout story with Leanne. And now we're coming back to kind of go through more in detail her journey as deal maker, her and her family and what they're doing in a global acquisition group. Right. They're going around the whole world looking for really cool deals. So I wanted to share their story because I think it's important. We've interviewed her husband multiple times, but I think it's time to get the the real brains of the operation and hear from Leanne. Welcome to the show, Leanne.

Speaker 2 (00:00:36) - Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks. Sure. Um, okay, so I'll take you back. I was born in Glasgow, um, raised by my mum and dad and had a brother, and I felt I was pretty rich. Um, but it was more rich and family. And we lived in government housing.

Speaker 2 (00:00:53) - My mum and dad worked hard, so we didn't really know we were poor. Um, because, you know, we we lived. We lived well, we, you know, we went on one summer holiday per year, but my mum and dad really, really worked hard. Um, and my dad used to teach us, you have a job for life with the government or with a company that will look after you. And, um, I left school at 16. Um, no qualifications and then university, but was very, very hungry. And I started working for a distribution company similar to my dad, um, with logistics. And I just loved the hustle and bustle of, um, solving problems, um, earning my own money. And then I moved out at 17 and bought my own personal residential property. And I was just really independent and wanted to make good in my life and be successful. I didn't know what that meant. So for years I worked my way up the corporate ladder, um, always getting promotion, but always working for different companies and, you know, big food chains.

Speaker 2 (00:02:02) - Um, and, um, my father used to say to me, Leanne, you become unemployable soon because people will be asking, why do you keep leaving these really good jobs? Yeah. Um, so anyway, I eventually started working in a company where I met my husband, Graeme, and that was in 2005. And, um, we clicked immediately and he bought me Rich women, um, by Kevin Cusack. Yeah. And I was like, less and, um, I mean, a rich dad, poor dad, etc.. So then the light switch went on for me. You know, what I had learned in school and growing up was completely different to what this book was telling me. So I had to quickly unlearn and learn the principles of, you know, what Rich dad was teaching us? Um, Graham had been studying the market for the property market or the real estate market for, for a few years before he met me. Um, and we just as I say, we really clicked and, and were really go get people that, you know, will take the challenge, will take the step, you know, um, we'll just do it, you know, and we'll, we'll, we'll study, will educate ourselves, but then we'll take the leap of faith and we'll go for it.

Speaker 2 (00:03:21) - And, you know, if it doesn't work out the media value and we start again. Yeah. So we're very, very, very similar in that respect. Um, we both quit our jobs in the same day in 2007. Oh, I was pregnant with our son, um, who's now 16. Um, and we had just bought a huge house. So if there wasn't a time to quit our jobs and take that leap of faith, that was it. Our parents thought we were absolutely crazy. Our friends thought we were crazy, but we knew that if we didn't start this journey together and stay in the same page, it wouldn't work for us.

Speaker 3 (00:04:01) - Yeah. I want to.

Speaker 1 (00:04:04) - Peel back for a second, go back to the you know, part of the story is as you were growing up, you felt you were rich, right? You didn't know, you didn't see anything different. You had a family that loved each other. You you had a house, a roof over your head.

Speaker 1 (00:04:19) - And you went on vacation once a year. At some point, your eyes open and you didn't even know you were poor, is what you said. And and then you started experiencing these different types of deals. So like, your eyes became open, but in what way was that challenging or scary? Because you had to go against what you knew and what was safe in the past? Job for life.

Speaker 2 (00:04:42) - Completely like my dad, I never had a credit card until I was 24. My dad used to say, if you can't afford it, you don't get it. But then when you when you when we read the Rich, that's dad's book, it totally changes your context and your emotional bank account. It's not all about your financial bank account. It's about your emotional bank account. Also, what can you deal with? And as I said, I had to unlearn that. That was a safe, secure job for life, which we know that's not the case. Yeah. You know everyone, um, and like my dad would say, never, ever.

Speaker 2 (00:05:18) - And today and whereas you're getting taught to to have good day and then and it was learning the principles of good debt and, and actually putting that into practice.

Speaker 4 (00:05:29) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:05:30) - Yeah. The that that's so scary to unlearn something because for me, I grew up swinging hammers on a construction site, digging ditches and swinging hammers. So if we wanted to have more money, we needed to work more hours, do more jobs. And then when I started learning the world of investing, it really, really freaked me out because the idea that money could be made without me swinging a hammer. It took me a decade to unlearn some of these things, and I'm still struggling with it. Right. So you're going through this process. Here you are. You're pregnant. You and your husband are doing well in your corporate careers, and you both go in and you quit on the same day. Big house mortgage, baby on the way and you quit. What was it? What was the thing that that gave you enough courage to do that? And to step into the world that you guys dreamed about.

Speaker 2 (00:06:20) - Right. Okay. We are urging us to be financially free. And the plan was to be financially free within three years. And we we knew what we required to do that. And we. We had educated ourselves on what we needed so we weren't going out looking for cash flowing properties with some equity and enough capital that we could refinance. We used creative finance on on all our acquisitions. We had no money ourselves, and to start out with we had enough money to level for six months. But that was the level of support. Our house, our car, our food, um, you know, childcare, etc.. Electric, gas. So in six months time, if we hadn't any cash flow from our properties or investments, we were having to go back to work. But a mainstream employer aimed to meet the impending event. And I think in Graham and I work really well. We were under a bit of patient, and we've got these impending events or timelines that we need to work to.

Speaker 2 (00:07:22) - Yeah. Um, just worked really well for us. We quit our jobs in September, October and the last day in September 2007, and we bought our first property in March 2008. We were we were really scared because we were having to start looking for work because our money was running out. Yeah, but the way the way we structured the deal, you can't do it anymore. Um, we only done four of them because it was available at the time. So we bought the property below market value and the morning with a virgin loan, and we refinanced it in the afternoon, giving us, um, equity to put into another deal about capital, to put into another deal, a bit of equity for, you know, should the market change. And day one, we were cash flowing because it was a rental property.

Speaker 4 (00:08:11) - Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:08:12) - So come March you bought your first property. But it was it's getting close. The bank account is decreasing. And here's where a lot of dealmakers I think it get stage fright.

Speaker 1 (00:08:24) - Yeah. You're going. You make the leap of faith. You got the savings account or, you know, maybe you got a little bit of money put aside. And then when that money starts disappearing, your psychology changes. It goes into like, how do I preserve this? How do I protect it? And those are the things that keep me up at night when I see the bank account going low, if I'm if I'm chasing a big deal or something like that, and then I start. It could distract me where I start going. How do I make how do I make money? How do I make money? And then you start looking at smaller deals or deals that aren't as good. How did you guys keep true and keep going the direction.

Speaker 2 (00:08:59) - And we we really always work on our emotional bank account, you know, like they're the emotional part of our brain. And because as it can be tough, but the minute you start doing that, then you're going up the wrong path. Because we always say the deals you don't do are some of your best deals.

Speaker 2 (00:09:19) - Yeah. Because if you if you start scrambling and doing deals just for the sake of doing a deal, you're in trouble. And that's when you lose your time, your money. Um, and that's where problems happen. So it's about staying focused and keeping your emotions in check.

Speaker 4 (00:09:35) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:09:35) - How do you do that? Husband and wife working together in the family business. Baby's coming soon, right?

Speaker 4 (00:09:41) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:09:42) - House payments coming soon. Bank accounts going low. How do you mean? Emotional? Like stability and not freak out?

Speaker 2 (00:09:52) - I do. You know, I don't offer just that type of person, but we we support each other and we really speak things through. So if there's something bothering, we always get a flip chart out and we look at what's the problem. Flapjack and a glass of wine and, and and we get the, the big marker pens and we go through right where we are, where do we need to be. And we break it down into small chunks like small, small exercises or small processes that we need to implement to get where we need to be.

Speaker 2 (00:10:23) - And it just it just lifts that weight off your shoulders. Yeah. That you can manageable chunks that you can then do. So where do we are. Where do we need to be and what does it look like breaking it down into manageable chunks?

Speaker 1 (00:10:36) - Yeah, I love that. Here's a chance to earn some brownie points with your husband. What is he amazing at? So during this time you guys are going through this process. What? Where did he show up in his strength during that time? Where you look back and you're just so thankful he was there?

Speaker 2 (00:10:53) - Graham has a very, very creative mind and he, um, you know, the ways to finance things, the way to just pull deals together. Graham's very, very good at that. And, um, you know, and it just says things in it. And then how how would that work or would that work? And then it finds good partners and, and people that that can educate him or people that are doing it already.

Speaker 4 (00:11:21) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:11:21) - And then so that that's beautiful. And I could definitely see that from our time that we spent together. What is your superpower in business?

Speaker 2 (00:11:30) - Um, I love sourcing deals, negotiating them, um, meeting people and, you know, kind of holding their hand through the process and then handing out a clause when it's ready to be financed. And then I tend to meet the, the sailors at the other end, whether it be, you know, or the management side at the other end, just to make sure that it integrates well with what we currently have.

Speaker 4 (00:11:57) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:11:59) - When I talk, do I have a unique accent because I love your accent. You and Graham, you guys talk so cool. Do I sound like I.

Speaker 4 (00:12:07) - What do I sound like to you? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:12:11) - Very cool, very cool. All right. Sorry. Back to deals. So you're going through this process you guys started, you know, in properties, bought a cash flow in property, rolled rolled a little bit of the cash flow into the next one and the next one.

Speaker 1 (00:12:23) - And now you guys have amassed a portfolio. At what point did you go from real estate. You know, residential and commercial to businesses? Because that's a it's a it's a different leap going into that world.

Speaker 4 (00:12:36) - Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:12:37) - Yeah. Well we we always look at fragmented markets. And I think for me we're um, we've got businesses in building services. So they, they maintain buildings and, and government property and residential properties etc.. So for me, the link was there because I was forever using all these different contractors, different, you know, surveyors, you know, all, all the regulations that you're required to to run your business. So I just felt that when you were managing your properties, you were needing these types of businesses. So that was the reason I liked it. Um, and Graeme is the same. He's seen a huge opportunity to to consolidate the different sectors within the sector, if you like. So like plumbers, joiners, you know, it's so hard to get so many tradespeople on the one job at any one time.

Speaker 4 (00:13:30) - Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:13:31) - So you you.

Speaker 1 (00:13:32) - Were using these services, so you were familiar that you were you knew how much money you were handing over. Yeah. So you're like, why? Why not hand that money to ourselves, right.

Speaker 4 (00:13:44) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:13:44) - So what was the first business acquisition that you did?

Speaker 2 (00:13:47) - And I've got there's been there's been many way. But I remember I just did my daughter and I'm. So. So we had a huge portfolio of property. Residential, commercial. Student. And then we bought a soft play center, which was good. My daughter was 13, so she was two days old when we went and done the deal. And again we used finance to buy it. They had a loan we took on the loan, so we never used any borrowed money. Um, it's funny, my parents were like, drop the baby off. She's due these old and I was doing business deals. Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:14:22) - So here you are, carrying a baby, doing deals, knocking, you know, knocking on doors.

Speaker 1 (00:14:26) - What? What great memories. Um, you know, doing that and seeing the kids. Because now you you associate. You associate a deal with how old your kid was. Oh, yeah. She was two days old when we did this deal. And he was, you know, I was pregnant when we did this deal. So it's special, uh, to see that out of all the deals you've done. What is the most memorable deal you've ever done and why?

Speaker 2 (00:14:50) - Uh, awkward. There's loads. But if I go back to, um. So we first started buying property and it was like one, one single family home and they were buying to name over buy in smaller portfolios. And I can remember I'm meeting a lawyer, a new Christmas party, and he introduced me to someone and he says, what do you do? And this is about properties. And this is oh, okay, I'm selling a portfolio. And um, it was a 55 properties. And I'm seeing this was a way back, like 2010.

Speaker 2 (00:15:24) - And, um, I said, I'll come and see you on Monday. And I don't think you thought I would go, but I did. I turned up at his office in the Monday, and I can remember, um, negotiating the deal and going back to Graham and saying, I've done this deal, you know, and I remember him saying, it's not over until the fat lady sings. And I remember the day it completed and I was like, this fat lady singing, um, so that was that was really good. That was brilliant. And then probably we bought a building services company throughout Covid. That was really tough. Um, cam was climbing Mount Everest at the time. Um, we were signing for the deal and then Covid hit. So I were trying to sign for the deal, get him off the mountain and get him back and, um, eventually through 11:00. Um, I remember the 15th of March, 2000, and that would be 2120. And, um, it was 11 p.m. at night.

Speaker 2 (00:16:26) - And we we always celebrate weddings. And, um, I kind of remember him saying, do you want to celebrate it? No. Not today.

Speaker 1 (00:16:34) - Celebrate tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (00:16:36) - Yeah, but but.

Speaker 2 (00:16:37) - Then a lockdown. But but what an amazing achievement. You know, all the things that we had to to go up against, you know, through Covid, you were stuck in the house, stuck up a mountain. I had to get them two helicopters off and then 2 or 3 flights back to the UK. Um, so, so to finally go through later than we expected, but still to go through all the hard work paid off.

Speaker 4 (00:17:01) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:17:02) - And that's such a cool story. Um, you read this book that changed your perspective? It's by Ken Kiyosaki, right? So you read this book and it changes your perspective. All right. So now your perspective has changed and you can never go back. You can never unsee. You can never go back. And you know, get a job for life.

Speaker 1 (00:17:23) - Right. You're you're you're that that part of you can never go back. Right?

Speaker 2 (00:17:27) - I am no unemployable. My father was right.

Speaker 4 (00:17:30) - He was right. He was right. You know.

Speaker 1 (00:17:33) - But, uh, Kim wrote this book, and, you know, Rich dad, Poor Dad came out and great, a great series of books that that was one of the books that changed my life. And it really affected me in a in a positive way. If you could go back and, you know, reread it today, what do you think would challenge you today? Because that that book was written in 2008. So if you reread it today.

Speaker 2 (00:17:56) - It looks like something maybe earlier than that. So sort of and. What would challenge me to do?

Speaker 4 (00:18:03) - Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:18:04) - The same book.

Speaker 2 (00:18:05) - The same book. And what way? What do you mean? Like, what would I be struggling with?

Speaker 1 (00:18:13) - Yeah. What do you what do you think? If you picked up that book again, or if you were sitting with Kim and you were and you were reading through that book and you go, oh, man, I've come so far.

Speaker 1 (00:18:21) - But this part of the book is my next level of growth that I need to do personally. Uh.

Speaker 2 (00:18:27) - I do, you know, I think that's really hard to say because we do. We've read the book loads of times. Right. And I actually make my children, I made my children read it in the summer holidays. Nice. And they every time you read it, you get another lesson. Yeah. Um, but but we don't only just read that book. We have other mentors, and we have had other mentors that take us to the next level of, you know, where we want to be for the for the growth. But it's the it's the mindset. It's the emotional bank account. It's the are you prepared for the changes that you need to make? Um, and there's things like I could ramble on there. How do you cut out the noise? You know, um, there's so much information and education out there. And how do you know what's right for you? So as your mindset, as your context, ready to take in what you need? Yeah, I think the context, you know, can you are you looking like this or are you looking like this.

Speaker 1 (00:19:32) - Yeah. That's super interesting. So you're going through this process now and you guys are now living in Dubai. You're bigger. So. Big fish, small pond. Now your big fish in a massive pond. What's different when you're walking down the road, or when you're showing up or taking the kids to school, or what? What's different from from those? Give me some perspective there because I don't know.

Speaker 2 (00:19:57) - Okay. So just to start with, when you're living in an environment that you're in all the time, sometimes you can't see the woods for the trees. So you're walking past, I'll tell you a story, a cool story. So we ended up friends with Robert Kiyosaki and we came to Scotland for the Ryder Cup. Right. So we were showing Kim and Robert around our town and some of the opportunities or the developments that we were working on, and we were telling him, Robert, about, uh, an investment that we'd bought. And when we took him down, you see, he couldn't believe it because it's in the middle of the main street.

Speaker 2 (00:20:34) - There's a huge for sale sign, and every day it'd been on the market for years. Every day, thousands of people are walking past that opportunity. How did we see that opportunity when someone else didn't?

Speaker 4 (00:20:47) - Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:20:48) - Because we were prepared.

Speaker 4 (00:20:50) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:20:51) - Because. No no no, please. Go go go go go.

Speaker 2 (00:20:55) - So when we're moving to, it's like almost like you get blinkers on and your and your town. So we've moved to an environment where we can see more. We can see all over the world. You know, it doesn't just need to be that small that we we love them.

Speaker 4 (00:21:11) - Yeah. That's so.

Speaker 1 (00:21:13) - That's so important because you had to step out of your environment to.

Speaker 4 (00:21:17) - See.

Speaker 1 (00:21:18) - To see bigger opportunities. Now, here's the here's the hard part that I would have is you're leaving when you move from Scotland to Dubai. That's a big time zone gap. So distance. So friends, family comfort. You're stepping out of that to to go to this new level. You've got kids right.

Speaker 1 (00:21:39) - So you're pulling them out of their schools with their sports teams and all that stuff. Like how do you how do you how do you approach that as a family unit to say, this is what's good for us as a family, because those are some hard choices to make, right?

Speaker 4 (00:21:54) - Mhm.

Speaker 2 (00:21:55) - Um, for I'll answer this for me. Um, I remember my father working really, really hard and he always offered promotion and it was to move countries, different locations. And my, my mom wouldn't go because she was so, so, um, her mom was still alive and, you know, and she wanted the whole family feel. And I felt a little bit that my mom held my dad back. Um, so I always said I would never do that to my family so that they would go and look at the opportunities that come. If it doesn't work out, you can always go home.

Speaker 4 (00:22:33) - You can always.

Speaker 2 (00:22:34) - Go, you know? And I tell you, we see our friends and family more than you know.

Speaker 2 (00:22:39) - They come and visit and they probably they make more effort that we're now living in the sunshine and, and and it's a different place to come. But but being an entrepreneur is lonely because you work hard. You work long hours. A lot of people don't believe in what you believe in, and yet your worlds are completely different. I know all the, um, my life is completely different to my friends. Um, you know, sometimes you're traveling again or you're doing this again, but that's who I am, and that's who I choose to be. So. I don't think it's for the faint hearted if you want to stay with your families, but, um. Yeah, I think if it doesn't work out for you, you go. You go back. Yeah. Um.

Speaker 1 (00:23:25) - It's a it's beautiful. Uh, my daughter, I have three kids. My daughter's ten, and she's lived in ten different homes because we have moved to work with an investment group or to move here and move there.

Speaker 1 (00:23:35) - And, you know, we did move back because at some point it didn't work. And the beautiful thing, you know, now that it's working really well, but like, there was just a such a great adventure to be had. And I look back and I wouldn't change it like we had the we had a blast and we learned so much and we met people all over, you know, the US. And it was it was beautiful, but it was scary. So when you talk about mindset, emotional bank account, being able to cut out the noise, being able to look at all the resources out there and going, what's right for me? I think that is so valuable. And what I didn't hear is a lot about the technicalities of this contract or this or that. You, you know, like you could have talked about anything, but you prioritized the mind, the emotional bank account, the heart, the family unit, the, you know, the strength. So I think that's really cool.

Speaker 1 (00:24:25) - And I'm and I'm thankful that you shared that with me. Um, kind of pivot in our conversation as you are now doing global deals. You guys are looking here in the US, in Dubai, just buying those deals. You know, you've still got a portfolio and stuff in Scotland and in Spain and all over the world, like what is the what is the motivating driver for you to keep doing more and more bigger? What keeps you going?

Speaker 4 (00:24:52) - We.

Speaker 2 (00:24:53) - We love growth and we love landing. And every acquisition, every deal we learn. We meet new people. We meet new partners. We are partners based business. So we get fantastic partners all over the world. Um, and that is so valuable. And the lessons, as I said, there's some deals you won't do, but we've met some fantastic people and we've learned some fantastic lessons along the way. Um, you know, I think you said it before the some of the best deals you do or the deals you don't do. Um, and we've been working on a project in the States for over a year now.

Speaker 2 (00:25:31) - And, um, the more we look at it, it's not going to work out. But we've met some fantastic people, some partners that we would do something elsewhere. Um, and we've learned a lot of lessons and we've learned, as you said, culture and vitamin. Um, you know, there's different terminology. And so you learn all that. So we just love that the.

Speaker 4 (00:25:52) - Love love it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:25:55) - So you guys are currently looking in the health care field, home health care. And if people want to know more about the specifics of the kind of deals you're looking for, they could go to your websites and, uh, which will be in the show notes below. But, um, when it when it comes to the perfect deal, it doesn't matter where in the world it is. What would the absolute perfect deal come across your plate? What would it look like that you would say, absolutely, yeah. Let's go take a look at it.

Speaker 2 (00:26:22) - Oh, well. And the sector that we're looking for.

Speaker 2 (00:26:24) - Or any other sectors that we're looking for something that fits the criteria. Aim. The majority of the criteria is a won't always fit, but something that the sailors motivated. They're looking to what? What along with you. You know maybe do a year's handover or stay and be part of something bigger. Um, we don't look for startup businesses. We're looking for, you know, well-established, well-established, well run businesses and with people that want to continue and grow. Or if certain members of the team won't take that, they can exit.

Speaker 1 (00:27:00) - Yeah. Is there a certain criteria in terms of employee size, EBITDA? Top line.

Speaker 4 (00:27:06) - Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:27:06) - Yeah. That's every sector is different. So you would get you know if you contact those or that's on your website. So um it's too hard to say like oh you know we're looking for you know, be, you know, anything 1 million above for a certain sector, it might be 10 million above for another sector. So the criteria is definitely per sector.

Speaker 1 (00:27:27) - Yeah. Sounds good. So why don't you tell everybody where they could go to find out more about you and your company?

Speaker 2 (00:27:33) - Okay. So the curling group. Co.Uk and Leander Curling on LinkedIn.

Speaker 4 (00:27:39) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:27:39) - Very cool. Are there any questions that I should have asked you during this interview about you and your story that I screwed up and did not ask?

Speaker 2 (00:27:47) - Not that I can think of.

Speaker 4 (00:27:49) - All right.

Speaker 1 (00:27:49) - Very good, very good. Well, I honor you and your family. And thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing it. Uh, for our audience out there, as always, reach out to our guests and say thanks for being on the show. Their contact information will be in the show notes below, and if you have a deal that would fit them or that you want to take a look at with them, reach out to them and maybe do a deal, that's the purpose of the mission of the show. Put deals and dealmakers together. I love you all and we'll talk to you all on the next episode.

Speaker 1 (00:28:14) - Bye, everyone.