Sell your business without tipping off staff, customers or competitors

Why selling in New York is different

Selling a business anywhere is complicated. Selling one in New York City adds layers most owners never see coming: commercial lease assignments that can make or break a deal, landlords with consent rights and their own agendas, liquor license transfers through the State Liquor Authority, city permits, union considerations, and buyers who range from first-time operators to sophisticated family offices. A generalist approach leaves money — and sometimes the whole deal — on the table.

Our sell-side practice exists to carry that weight for you. We have represented owners of restaurants in the West Village, HVAC contractors in Queens, e-commerce brands in Brooklyn and food producers in the Bronx. Every engagement is led by a senior broker who has personally closed dozens of New York transactions, and that same broker stays on your file until the closing table.

Confidentiality is not a promise — it is a process

The single biggest fear owners share with us is exposure. If your employees learn the business is for sale, some will start looking for new jobs. If a key customer hears it, they may hedge their orders. If your landlord hears it, your negotiating position on the lease just got weaker.

That is why we never advertise your name, address, or anything that could identify you. Buyers first see a blind profile: an accurate but anonymized summary of the opportunity. Only after a buyer signs a non-disclosure agreement, completes a buyer profile and shows evidence of funds do we reveal identifying details — and even then, disclosure is staged. Sensitive items like customer lists and employee data are held back until diligence is well advanced and the buyer has real skin in the game.

Pricing that survives diligence

Anyone can put a big number on a listing. The hard part is defending it four months later when the buyer's accountant starts asking questions. Before we go to market we recast your financials to reveal true seller's discretionary earnings, normalize one-time expenses, and benchmark the result against closed transactions in your sector and borough. The asking price we recommend is one we can justify line by line — which is why our sellers close, on average, at 92% of asking.

What the engagement includes

• Market-based valuation and pricing strategy before anything goes to market.
• Professional deal materials — blind profile and full confidential information memorandum.
• Targeted buyer outreach to our database of 4,000+ registered, vetted buyers, plus discreet placement on the major business-for-sale platforms.
• Buyer screening — NDAs, financial capability checks and motivation interviews before anyone sees your numbers.
• Offer management and negotiation — we run interested buyers in parallel to create competitive tension and negotiate structure (cash at close, seller notes, earnouts, transition terms), not just headline price.
• Closing management — coordinating attorneys, landlords, lenders, license transfers and escrow so momentum never dies in diligence.

What it costs

We work on a success-fee basis. There is no upfront charge to engage us for a standard sale — our fee is a percentage of the transaction, paid at closing, out of proceeds. If your business does not sell, you owe us nothing. That alignment is deliberate: we only recommend going to market when we genuinely believe we can deliver a result you will accept.

When should you start?

Ideally, twelve to twenty-four months before you want to be out. Early conversations let us identify the two or three changes — cleaning up the books, documenting procedures, renewing the lease — that measurably raise your multiple. But if life has made the decision for you and you need to sell now, we move fast: a typical New York main-street business goes from engagement to market in two to three weeks, and to closing in five to nine months.

The first step costs nothing: a confidential conversation and an honest opinion of what your business would bring in today's market.