For businesses valued from $5M to $100M+
Maximize What
You’ve Built.
Expert M&A advice for owners of privately held businesses valued from $5 million to $100+ million.
Understand what your business is worth, prepare for a transaction, and create competition among qualified buyers.
- Independent and sell-side only. We represent owners, never buyers.
- Nothing shared with employees, competitors or buyers
- Most owners we speak with are one to three years out
Request a confidential valuation
One question to start. Your answer stays confidential.
Prefer to talk first? Speak with an M&A advisor
Sectors covered, each with its own advisory approach
Stages from first conversation to closing, all of them mapped
Deal terms negotiated, not just the headline price
To hear back from an advisor after you reach out
Selling your business is nothing like building it.
Most owners sell a company once. The buyer across the table has done it thirty times, with a team that does nothing else.
That asymmetry is the single biggest reason good companies sell for less than they are worth, on terms the owner did not fully understand until after closing.
You, once in a career
- One transaction, ever
- No basis for comparing offers
- Running the company at the same time
- Advisors assembled for the occasion
Them, most weeks of the year
- Dozens of closed acquisitions
- Precise knowledge of market pricing
- A full-time deal team
- Counsel who draft these documents daily
This is the gap OwnerWell exists to close. We are not a listing service. We prepare the company, identify the buyers who should be at the table, put them on the same timeline, and negotiate every term rather than the headline number alone.
Where an advisor changes the outcome
Competition, not a single buyer
Selling to the one buyer who happened to call is rarely the way to maximize value. A managed process that puts qualified buyers in the same window changes both the price and your leverage on every other term.
The terms behind the price
Two offers at the same headline number can be worth very different amounts. Cash at closing, earnouts, seller financing, working capital, escrows, rollover equity, employment agreements, non-competes, and whether the deal is structured as assets or stock all move what you actually keep.
Preparation before the market sees you
Buyers find every issue eventually. Owners who find them first, and address them on their own timeline, hold their value through diligence instead of watching it get renegotiated away.
Confidentiality throughout
Your employees, customers, competitors, and vendors do not need to know you are exploring a sale. Every conversation starts under confidentiality, and the process is built to keep it that way.
We know the businesses people actually build.
Buyer behavior, valuation multiples, and diligence pressure points differ enormously by industry. Choose yours to see how your market is trading.
M&A insights
Practical answers to the questions owners actually ask before they go to market.
The add-backs buyers accept, the ones they argue about, and why this single number drives most of your purchase price.
Why buyers usually want one and sellers usually want the other, and what the difference is worth after tax.
An earnout can bridge a valuation gap or quietly move risk onto you. The wording decides which.
Questions owners ask first.
If yours is not here, ask an advisor directly.
Will anyone find out I am considering a sale?
No. Every conversation is confidential from the first minute, not from the signing of an engagement letter. Buyers see nothing identifying until they have signed a non-disclosure agreement and you have approved them by name. Your employees, customers, competitors and vendors are never contacted.
What does it cost to find out what my business is worth?
Nothing. A valuation conversation is free and carries no obligation. We would rather speak with owners two years early than have them sell badly without us.
I am not ready to sell yet. Is it too early to talk?
It is almost certainly too early to go to market and exactly the right time to talk. Most owners we speak with are one to three years out. The preparation that improves outcomes takes twelve to twenty-four months, so early conversations are the ones that pay.
How long does the process take?
Typically six to nine months from engagement to closing, depending on the business, the sector and how prepared the company is when we start. Preparation done in advance shortens it materially.
What size businesses do you work with?
Privately held companies valued from roughly $5 million to $100 million and above. Below that range a business broker is often the better fit, and we will tell you so.
What happens to my employees?
It depends on the buyer, which is one reason buyer selection matters as much as price. A strategic acquirer with an overlapping back office behaves differently from a private equity platform buying a management team it intends to keep. This is negotiable, and we negotiate it.
Find out what your company could be worth.
A confidential valuation conversation is not a commitment to sell. Most owners we speak with are one to three years away, and the ones who start early tend to do better when they go.
- No cost and no obligation
- Held in strict confidence
- Grounded in what buyers are actually paying in your industry today