A competitive process for companies too valuable to simply "list"

When a listing is the wrong tool

A neighborhood café can be sold with a well-priced listing and a strong buyer database. A staffing firm with $8M in revenue, sixty employees and contracts with Fortune 500 clients cannot. At that scale the buyer universe changes — private equity groups, strategic acquirers, family offices, independent sponsors — and so do their expectations. They want recast financials with a quality-of-earnings mindset, a professional information memorandum, an organized data room and a process that respects their time while protecting your leverage.

Our M&A practice brings the mechanics of an investment-bank process to companies that most investment banks consider too small, with the local market knowledge that national advisors simply do not have.

The process, stage by stage

1. Preparation (weeks 1–4). Deep financial recasting, adjusted EBITDA analysis and a valuation model built on comparable lower middle-market transactions. We draft the confidential information memorandum (CIM), a one-page blind teaser and the buyer list — typically 80 to 200 curated names spanning strategics, financial buyers and high-capacity individuals.
2. Marketing (weeks 5–12). The teaser goes out under strict confidentiality. Interested parties sign NDAs and receive the CIM. We host management calls and site visits scheduled to keep buyers on a common timeline, because parallel interest is what creates pricing power.
3. Offers (weeks 10–16). We solicit indications of interest, compare them across price, structure, financing certainty and cultural fit, then push the strongest parties to best-and-final letters of intent. Owners are often surprised that the highest headline number is rarely the best offer once terms are weighed — we make those trade-offs explicit.
4. Exclusivity and diligence (weeks 16–28). Once an LOI is signed, we run the data room, manage the diligence request list, and keep the chosen buyer honest against the terms they signed. Retrades happen when sellers are unprepared; preparation is our job.
5. Closing. Alongside your attorney and accountant we negotiate the purchase agreement's commercial points — working capital pegs, indemnification caps, escrows, earnout mechanics and employment terms — through to funding.

What owners get from a structured process

• Competition, not a single negotiation. Multiple bidders reliably add value; our processes average several qualified offers per engagement.
• Confidentiality at scale. Staged disclosure and controlled communication, even with dozens of parties in the process.
• Momentum. Deadlines and parallel workstreams prevent the slow drift that kills deals in month eight.
• A buffer. Hard conversations go through us, preserving your relationship with the buyer who will soon employ your team and carry your legacy.

Is your company a fit?

Our M&A engagements typically involve New York-area companies with revenue between $1M and $25M and adjusted EBITDA above roughly $350K — service firms, distributors, manufacturers, healthcare practices, multi-unit restaurant and retail groups, and established e-commerce brands. If you are under that range, our standard sell-side brokerage is usually the better and more economical path, and we will tell you so in the first call.

Fees follow the Lehman-style convention: a modest engagement retainer, credited against a success fee that scales with the transaction value. Everything is set out in a plain-English agreement before we begin.