Selling an owner-operated business in New York City.

What New York's owner-operated economy looks like

New York's private businesses are mostly small, dense and service-led. Value tends to sit in contracts, crews, routes, client lists and leases rather than in equipment. The owner-operated companies we see most often in the city fall into a few groups:

• Trades and building services: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, elevator and boiler maintenance, fire protection, and the subcontractors who serve general contractors on renovation and fit-out work.
• Property-related services: management companies, cleaning and janitorial contracts, security, waterproofing and facade work, much of it under recurring agreements with buildings and co-op or condo boards.
• Food and distribution: wholesale and specialty food distributors around Hunts Point in the Bronx and across Brooklyn and Queens, commercial kitchens, and multi-location restaurant groups.
• Professional and health practices: accounting firms, insurance agencies, staffing firms, dental and physical therapy practices.
• Neighborhood businesses with recurring revenue: laundromats, pest control, linen and uniform services, parking operations.

Long Island leans toward home services, landscaping, pool and marine businesses, and light manufacturing and distribution. Westchester leans toward professional practices and businesses that serve households. A Hauppauge distributor and a Manhattan design-build firm attract different buyers, so we treat them as different searches.

Who buys New York businesses

A sale in this range usually ends with one of four kinds of buyer. Each reads the same business differently, and the preparation should reflect who is most likely to pay.

Individual operators using SBA 7(a) financing

Often the deepest pool for businesses up to the low millions. An SBA 7(a) loan is made by a bank and partly guaranteed by the US Small Business Administration, up to a maximum of USD 5 million. The lender underwrites the business as closely as the buyer, so earnings backed by tax returns matter more than an attractive story. In New York this pool includes corporate professionals leaving Manhattan careers and experienced tradespeople buying the firm they used to work for.

Search funds and ETA buyers

Entrepreneurship-through-acquisition buyers, often MBA graduates backed by a group of investors, look for steady, recurring businesses with a second layer of management. Many are based in or around New York, alongside the investors who back them.

Private-equity add-ons

Private-equity-backed platforms in building services, insurance distribution, accounting, dental and other fragmented sectors buy smaller companies to add to an existing group. They often pay for density: another route, another client base in the same boroughs.

Strategic acquirers

Competitors and adjacent operators who want your crews, accounts or locations. They can often pay the most, and they also carry the greatest confidentiality risk, which is why qualification comes before any name is shared.

What New York sellers typically get wrong

• Leaving the lease until the end. Many city businesses are worth only what their lease allows. A short remaining term, a personal guaranty with no clear release, or a landlord with consent rights over assignment can stall a closing. We read the lease in the first week. Where real property is part of the sale, that part is handled by a real estate professional who holds the right New York license, working alongside us.
• Books that do not match the tax returns. Cash-heavy businesses often show less profit on the return than the owner believes the business earns. A lender will lend against what can be documented, so income that is not on the return does not support the price. Tidy the twelve months before going to market.
• Treating union arrangements as a detail. If your workforce is unionized, the collective agreement and any pension participation should be reviewed by counsel before buyers see the business, because they shape who can buy it and on what structure.
• Assuming licenses and permits move with the business. List every license and permit the business relies on and confirm with counsel how each one passes to a new owner before a closing date is set.
• The owner as the only relationship. If every key client calls your cell phone, buyers discount for it. A named second-in-command and written processes often add more value than another year of revenue growth.

How we value a New York business

We start from seller's discretionary earnings: profit plus the owner's pay and the personal or one-off costs a buyer will not carry, each one documented. SDE times a multiple gives the first view. Then we test it two ways. The debt-service test asks whether a buyer financing the purchase with an SBA 7(a) loan could pay that loan from the business's cash flow with room to spare; if not, the price will not get financed, whatever a comparable sale suggests. The asset floor sets out what the equipment, inventory and receivables are worth on their own. You get a range with the reasoning, not a single number.

How the process runs

1. Conversation. A confidential discussion about the business, the numbers and what you want from a sale. No cost, no obligation.
2. Valuation and preparation. We normalize earnings from tax returns, bank statements and payroll, give you a written range, and list what to fix before buyers see anything.
3. Buyer search and qualification. An anonymized profile goes only to buyers who have signed an NDA and shown they can fund the deal, including lender pre-qualification where relevant.
4. Negotiation and closing. We negotiate the letter of intent and manage diligence alongside your attorney and CPA through to closing.

Every engagement is agreed in writing and signed before any work begins. The first conversation is confidential and carries no cost or obligation. See the United States overview for how engagements work across all our US markets, or our page on Washington, DC.