Some companies begin with a business plan. PestGon began with a promise.

In 1980, Ed Keenan was a father of six, buried in bills. “Six kids, no income, up to our nose in debt every month,” he recalls in the video, “and she’s saying to me, you can change jobs if you’d like, and I’ll do what I can to support you.” With his wife’s blessing, he bought a pest control business from a retiring operator, an old man who had lost an arm at the elbow, along with, in Ed’s words, “this junky old truck.”

That first year, Ed sold $60,000 worth of route work: “spraying and ants and trees and insects and so forth.” He paid himself a salary of $6,000 a month from the beginning, and set a rule that would define the company for the next four and a half decades: “I displayed to the employees and to management around me that we’re going to run this business without debt.”

A business built on loyalty, and no debt

PestGon grew the way the best independent pest control companies grow: customer by customer, debt-free, in Oceanside, California. Ed’s goal was never just pest control: it was addressing the customer’s concern and earning loyalty that lasted decades. “Dave and I have been in this for 30 years,” the partners share in the video, “and we’ve put our heart and our blood into it.”

That is exactly what made the idea of selling so hard. “For a company to step in and say, hey, I can buy you guys, it’s hard to necessarily absorb so quickly.”

When buyers come calling

For a founder, an acquisition offer is not a spreadsheet event. It lands on everything you built: every early morning, every year the business fed your family. And that moment of shock is precisely when most owners make their most expensive mistakes: negotiating alone, anchoring on the first offer, and letting emotion set the price.

PestGon didn’t do that. They brought in representation and ran a real process. Looking back on it, the verdict was unambiguous: “After looking at all the things that you guys went through to get us from point A to point Z, we realized very quickly there was absolutely no way we could have had this much success without you.”

Five buyers. A 50% spread.

Working with Kemp Anderson Consulting, PestGon went to market properly: prepared, positioned, and presented to multiple qualified buyers rather than one. In the owners’ own words: “Without getting into numbers, we had five potential buyers, and the difference was literally 50% difference in the bids.”

Sit with that figure for a moment. The same company, the same trucks, the same customer list, and offers half again as large as others, purely as a function of who was bidding and how the process created competition among them. No amount of solo negotiation with a single buyer uncovers that spread, because the spread only exists when buyers know they have competition.

The lesson in one line: PestGon’s five competing bids were 50% apart. The company didn’t change between offers; the process did.

Watch Ed’s full story:

In March 2025, the sale of PestGon, Inc. to Rentokil Terminix was announced: a global leader acquiring a 45-year-old family company, with the founder’s legacy and his team’s future secured.

Ed’s advice to other owners

The message in the video to any owner thinking about a sale is direct: “Anyone out there that’s thinking about selling their company, don’t try to do it on your own. You need professional advice. There’s a lot of things you don’t think about: a lot of things you guys have handled.” The buyer across the table has bought many companies; you’ve sold none. As Ed put it after closing: “We loved having the team at Kemp Anderson Consulting represent us. Without them, we wouldn’t have done it. We’d never sold a business before and didn’t know what the future held. I’m grateful, and looking forward to the next chapter.”

And the verdict on the engagement itself: “You have truly performed, you have lived up to, you have done what you said you would do. I’m very grateful for that.”

What the PestGon story means for you

Every owner’s company is different; the mechanics of a good exit are not. Preparation before going to market, multiple qualified buyers, competitive tension, and steady representation through diligence and closing, that is what turned one conversation into five bids, and a difficult decision into a secured legacy.

Watch Ed tell the story in his own words, and if you’re beginning to think about your own next chapter, schedule a confidential consultation.

  • Request a Valuation: Understand your current market standing with a professional assessment.

  • Strategic Advisory: Learn how to optimize your operations to attract premium buyers.

  • Confidential Discussion: Speak directly with our team about your long term goals.

Call us directly: (407) 466-5859

Email: Kemp@KempAnderson.com