Austin Business Brokers Who Sit With You Before They Sell For You.
You have built this through Capitol session calendars and ACL weekends, through Dell engineering layoff cycles and the Hill Country pace of a Tuesday afternoon at the shop, through Westlake school-pickup traffic and the way Mopac thickens at five-thirty even on a Tuesday. You know which longtime employee’s kid is finishing at UT, which customer has been with you since the year ACL Festival first ran in Zilker Park, which dispatcher reads the difference between a Cedar Park run and a Buda run when the Mopac lanes lock up. Selling the company is not a transaction question. It is a question about what happens to the people who trusted you, what your life looks like on the other side of the wire, and whether the timing fits the rest of the story you are still writing. Our Austin business brokers and M&A advisors sit with you in that decision before we run the process.
Most Greater Austin owners we sit with do not call us ready to sell. They call because something has shifted, and they want to think it through with someone who reads both the financials and the part of the decision that does not show up in a spreadsheet.
We start there.
A note from Derik Polay · Austin Managing Director, CGK Business Sales
Questions Greater Austin owners are asking themselves right now.
These are the questions that show up at four in the morning before any of it is shared. Our Austin business brokers have heard each of them across years of Central Texas engagements.
How Austin business brokers at CGK actually run a sell-side engagement.
A CGK Austin engagement rests on three pillars: senior representation start to finish, disciplined intake on the front end, and disciplined deal management between LOI and wire. Most brokerages do one of these three well and the other two badly. Our Austin business brokers do all three the same way, which is what produces the nine-of-ten close rate.
Pillar 1: Senior representation, start to finish.
Derik Polay, Austin Managing Director, leads every CGK Austin engagement. Greg Knox, CFA backs the valuation work and the larger M&A engagements that need a CFA charterholder on the model. The principal who walks you through your free valuation is the same person who writes your Confidential Information Memorandum, runs the buyer outreach, negotiates the Letter of Intent, manages the post-LOI review work, and sits across from you when the wire clears. No junior screener slips into that handoff.
Pillar 2: Disciplined intake on the front end.
The conversations before going to market are where most of the value lives. If a documentation gap is going to cost you on the final price, we name it. If your team has a single-person dependency a sophisticated buyer will catch, we flag it. If the Texas legislative session calendar, the Texas healthcare investment cycle, the SXSW-anchored hospitality rhythm, or the Austin tech-corridor rollup window is in a slow stretch and waiting six or twelve months meaningfully improves the outcome, we tell you straight. Disciplined intake is one half of why nine of every ten CGK engagements close, while the broader brokerage industry sits closer to two of ten.
The Confidential Information Memorandum gets written for the people who will actually price your business. A Westlake medical-aesthetics and dermatology practice gets payer-mix detail by physician, a Mohs-and-cosmetic revenue split, and Dell Seton and St. David’s hospital-privilege language calibrated correctly. A Bee Cave commercial general contractor gets project-backlog by sub-vertical, LEED-certification credentialing, and superintendent-by-superintendent utilization the way commercial-construction buyers expect. A Domain-corridor software-services platform gets recurring-revenue breakouts by contract tier and a clean churn picture. The CIM is what the buyers who set the floor are reading, so every page has to defend a number.
The market process runs as a multi-buyer competitive process under absolute confidentiality. Blind teaser, NDA before the CIM, staged release of detailed financials and customer concentration figures (without naming customers), and the most sensitive material held back until two or three turns into the purchase agreement. Employees, customers, suppliers, and competitors learn what is happening when you decide.
Pillar 3: Disciplined deal management between LOI and wire.
The other half of the nine-of-ten close rate is what happens after the LOI is signed. That work covers holding the buyer to the LOI terms instead of the looser purchase-agreement first draft, sizing the escrow holdback to the actual risk in your Austin business rather than the buyer’s standard template, getting answers to the buyer’s review team before unanswered questions stall the deal, and keeping the deal upright through the months between LOI and wire when most other brokerages quietly start to lose their grip. Disciplined intake gets you to LOI. Disciplined deal management gets you to closing. Both halves are necessary. Neither carries the deal alone.
Start with a free Austin business valuation conversation.
Owners come to our Austin business brokers with three different valuation questions at the front of an engagement. Which question fits your situation determines what we do for you and what it costs. Here are the three.
Question 1: “Am I exploring whether to sell?”
If you are thinking about selling on any horizon, including no specific horizon, the free verbal valuation walkthrough is the most useful first conversation. A senior CGK Austin principal sits with you, in person or by Zoom, opens our valuation model calibrated to your specific Central Texas business, and walks you through the price band you are likely to clear in today’s Austin buyer pool. You see the methodology, the comparables, the multiples, and the math behind the number. No retainer, no obligation, no sales pitch.
Question 2: “Do I need defensible documentation in my hand?”
If you need a written valuation memo to give to your CPA, your attorney, your lender, the IRS, or a Texas court (partnership buyout, estate planning, ESOP), that work is a separate fixed-fee project scoped per engagement. The deliverable carries four independent valuation methodologies, an executive summary, and a frank conversation about specific levers that could lift the number before going to market. If you later engage CGK to sell, the written memo work credits against the success fee.
Question 3: “How do I know the number will hold up to scrutiny?”
The CFA charter is the institutional standard credential for valuation work. CGK is one of very few Austin business brokerages with a CFA charterholder leading the analysis. Greg Knox, CFA backs every Austin valuation, and the work carries four independent methodologies, the underlying comparable transactions, and the rationale behind each step. When a sophisticated reader picks up the analysis (a CPA, an attorney, a lender, a trust counsel, the SBA, or the IRS), the depth and credentials behind the number are what make it defensible. A defensible Austin valuation holds up under that scrutiny. A soft one does not.
Start with a confidential conversation.
A senior CGK Austin principal will respond within one business day to schedule a free verbal valuation, in person, or by Zoom. For Greater Austin owners with $1.5M+ in annual revenue. Strictly confidential. No commitment.
Confidential. No obligation. Direct routing to a named CGK Austin business broker, not a junior screener.
Buy a Texas business with CGK Austin business brokers.
Our Austin business brokers run buy-side engagements for three distinct buyer types. The work is different for each type, the fee structure is different for each type, and the ‘Micro Private Equity Program’ is available only to the first of the three. The firewall against representing the other side of any single transaction is the same for all three.
First-time HNW buyers stepping into ownership.
For high-net-worth individuals buying their first operating business, our Austin engagement is built around target selection, financial review, SBA or conventional financing structure, deal negotiation, and operational onboarding. Derik Polay leads Austin buyer engagements. Greg Knox, CFA backs the analytical work. For first-time HNW buyers who want CGK as a long-term equity partner instead of a one-time advisor, the ‘Micro Private Equity Program’ trades the transaction fee for a small equity stake in the platform. More cash stays in the deal at closing, CGK keeps real skin in the game alongside the new operator, and we keep working together to source add-on acquisitions over time. The ‘Micro Private Equity Program’ is available only to first-time HNW buyers stepping into ownership. If that fits, mention “Micro PE” on the buyer profile form below.
Search funders and independent sponsors.
For search funders and independent sponsors running a targeted thesis, our Austin engagement supports the search work itself plus the financial review, lender introductions, deal structuring, the LOI negotiation, and the close. Targets are sourced through our cross-office pipeline and direct outreach across Texas, the Gulf Coast, the Sun Belt, and the rest of CGK’s national footprint. The fee structure for search funders and independent sponsors is a standard buy-side transaction fee. The ‘Micro Private Equity Program’ does not apply to this profile.
Family offices, strategic acquirers, and PE platforms.
For family offices, strategic acquirers, and private equity platforms with an Austin, Texas, or broader Sun Belt thesis, our engagement is built around target identification across our cross-office pipeline plus off-market sourcing through the relationships our other ten offices carry. Family-office and PE buyers see the deal book in Baltimore, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Louisville, Nashville, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Washington DC, not just the Texas book. The fee structure here is a standard buy-side transaction fee scaled to deal size. The ‘Micro Private Equity Program’ does not apply to this profile.
One firewall: we never represent both sides of any single deal.
Buy-side and sell-side at CGK are distinct engagements with distinct fee structures. Sellers get full sell-side representation. Buyers get full buy-side representation. The firewall is absolute on any individual transaction. Submit the buyer-qualification form below. CGK keeps a curated buyer list and reaches out when an active engagement aligns with your stated criteria, capital, and timeline.
Submit your buyer profile.
Submit the form below for a senior CGK Austin principal to review. CGK keeps a curated buyer list and reaches out when an active engagement aligns with your stated criteria, capital, and timeline.
Confidential. Your profile is added to CGK’s curated buyer list. We reach out when an active Texas engagement aligns.
From first Austin conversation to wire transfer.
Most engagements our Austin business brokers carry run six to twelve months from signed engagement to wire transfer. Some clear in three to six. Healthcare-services groups, commercial-construction platforms with clean project-backlog schedules, and home-services groups tend to land at the faster end of the window when the diligence file is in shape. State-procurement-anchored professional services, hospital-privileged specialty practices, and tech-corridor industrial-services platforms tend to run longer because of agency contract assignment timing, hospital privilege transfers, and supplier-qualification renewal cycles. Here is what a typical seller journey looks like, stop by stop.
Confidential conversation
You call us or submit the form. We listen. No pressure, no commitment. Our Austin business brokers tell you whether and when CGK is the right fit.
Free verbal valuation
Derik, with Greg backing the analytics, in person or by Zoom, walks you through our valuation model and the price range your Austin business is likely to clear.
Engagement & prep
Signed engagement on a success-fee basis. We help close the items that affect the final price: financial recasting, document cleanup, and the management-team questions buyers will dig into. Texas-specific items get sequenced into the diligence file.
To market & buyer process
Blind teaser, full Confidential Information Memorandum, structured data room, multi-buyer competitive process under NDA. Indications of Interest follow.
LOI & diligence
Most engagements weaken between LOI and wire. Most buyers will widen the purchase agreement, raise the escrow, and crowd your operating staff with review sessions during business hours. We treat those months as the most important part of the engagement, not the least. The LOI we negotiated is the LOI we close on.
Closing & wire
Wire instructions clear. The purchase agreement is already signed, escrow is already funded. The new owner steps into a business that is running, with the operating staff in place, the customers in place, the vendors in place. Your role from that day forward is whatever you want it to be.
The industries anchoring the CGK Austin book.
Austin sits at the intersection of state government, tech-corridor industrial growth, and a deepening healthcare cluster around Dell Medical and the St. David’s network. The Capitol-anchored professional-services bench, the Round Rock and Cedar Park tech-supplier corridor (Samsung Taylor, Tesla Gigafactory, AMD, NXP), and the Westlake-and-Bee Cave affluent corridor each pull a specific buyer pool. Restaurants and hospitality run on a food-and-music-scene rhythm shaped by ACL, SXSW, and the East Sixth and Rainey Street venue corridors. CGK Austin engagements span both High Main Street and lower-middle-market bands.
Plus deal experience across 30+ industries. Don’t see yours? Our Texas business brokers have closed deals in almost every Central Texas industry, including some very niche businesses.
Meet your Austin business brokers and the national bench behind them.
Derik Polay leads our Austin office. He brings more than twenty years of experience in mergers and acquisitions, distressed securities, and capital markets, plus seven-plus years in upper-management operating roles. Before joining CGK, Derik was Managing Director at IFI Capital, focused on distressed investments trading, and Senior Vice President at Fulcrum Capital. On Austin engagements, Derik is the day-to-day lead through valuation, buyer outreach, negotiation, and close. Behind him sits the broader CGK Managing Director bench across the firm’s other offices, available on valuation analytics, M&A structuring, sector specialization, and buyer-side work whenever an Austin deal calls for additional firepower. Greg Knox, CFA backs every Austin valuation and the larger M&A engagements that need the analytical defense a CFA charterholder brings to LOI-stage pressure.
What Greater Austin owners say about CGK.
Derik was an outstanding broker and an absolute pleasure to work with throughout the sale of our company. He is dependable, extremely knowledgeable, and truly takes charge of the process. What sets Derik apart is that he doesn’t just advise from the sidelines, he gets in the trenches, does the work, and actively seeks constructive, practical solutions when challenges arise. This was a long and drawn-out transaction, and Derik consistently brought clarity, calm, and confidence at every stage. We always knew he had our best interests in mind and was pushing the deal forward with integrity and professionalism. I would highly recommend Derik to anyone looking for a broker who is hands-on, solutions-oriented, and truly committed to seeing a transaction through to a successful close.
Kean ChanI had an excellent experience working with Derik Polay. He is knowledgeable, professional, and incredibly responsive. He took the time to understand my search criteria, provided valuable insights on the acquisition process, and shared well-vetted opportunities that aligned with my goals. His transparency and industry expertise made a real difference in helping me navigate the complexities of buying a business. I highly recommend Derik to anyone looking for a trustworthy and proactive business broker.
Huan ZhengHere’s the thing that truly sets CGK apart from the pack: They have decades of successful M&A experience, actual business degrees, and finance designations. They are transactionally minded and know how to navigate and identify any risks in legal, banking and commercial real estate. They empathize with business owners because they are business owners and know what it takes. This is the type of broker you want. Always check credentials. I’m not a finance person and I was able to understand the entire process and strategies. I would trust Derik and Greg every time.
Kim WuDerik and team are great to work with. Professional, timely and are my go to when I am looking to acquire a restaurant. They get into the details and knowledgeable about all aspects of the process. Wouldn’t use anyone else.
Craig PlackisInside the Blueprint, on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News.
CGK Business Sales was featured on Inside the Blueprint, the syndicated business television series. Our episode aired on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News. We are usually the only Austin M&A advisors on a Greater Austin seller’s shortlist who can point to a Bloomberg appearance. Watch the segment, then start a confidential conversation with our Austin team.
Four Greater Austin owner stories, four CGK Austin engagements.
The four composite seller stories below sit inside the structural Central Texas mix our Austin business brokers see most often: a Bee Cave commercial general contractor rolling into a Texas-and-Sun-Belt commercial construction platform, a Westlake dermatology and medical aesthetics practice taken by a Texas-and-Southwest derm consolidator, an East Austin modern Southern restaurant group sold to a Houston-area family-office-backed restaurateur, and a Round Rock Vietnamese-American nail salon group sold to a Texas operator-buyer with family-office co-investment. Names, locations, and identifying details are composited; the structural patterns are real. Each story shows what the engagement felt like from the seller’s seat.
How a Bee Cave commercial general contractor and Hill Country custom-home builder found a Texas-and-Sun-Belt platform with the Austin business brokers who priced the project mix correctly.
Wade’s family has been in the Austin and Hill Country area for four generations. His grandfather started a Westlake-area construction shop in 1958 on the back of the postwar Austin growth wave; his father expanded into commercial general contracting in the 1980s following the first Austin commercial real estate cycle and built the relationships that still anchor the platform today. Wade joined the family business in 1990 after a UT Austin civil engineering degree, took the company over in 2005, and repositioned the firm toward Austin’s commercial construction boom and the Hill Country custom-home market that Bee Cave and Westlake clients began driving through the early 2010s. By the time he called us, the operation cleared $30 million in revenue at a 17 percent EBITDA margin (clean for an Austin commercial construction platform of that size), with 95 W-2 staff covering 18 project managers and superintendents, 25 in-house carpenters and crew, 12 estimators, and 5 LEED-certified architects on retainer. The mix landed at 50 percent commercial general contracting for Austin office, retail, and medical buildings (anchored to the Domain, Bee Cave, and Lakeway commercial cycle), 30 percent Hill Country luxury custom-home construction, 15 percent tenant improvements and small renovations, and 5 percent Capitol-adjacent state-agency special projects. Top-3 customer concentration was a manageable 22 percent and roughly 28 percent of revenue carried recurring relationship volume from long-term commercial real estate clients. Wade’s wife, a UT Austin geosciences professor, is preparing for a department chair role at Texas A&M that requires significant time in College Station; their two adult kids are a UT Austin architecture grad now at a Bay Area firm and a Stanford engineering student. Wade wanted to be available for his wife’s career chapter and to spend more time at the family ranch outside Dripping Springs.
The first call ran fifty-three minutes. Wade walked us through the way David Reyes, his longtime senior estimator and a fellow UT Austin engineering alum who joined Wade in 2005, had quietly become the institutional voice on the commercial-bidding side; the way the Hill Country custom-home book had stayed durable through three Westlake-area development cycles; the way Texas commercial construction PE consolidator scouts had been calling the office once a month for three years; and the way none of those scouts had asked about David or about how the project-manager bench fed the commercial backlog. He did not know whether the platform numbers he was hearing reflected the recurring-relationship-revenue premium his book actually carried or the standard discount that larger consolidators apply by default. We told him what to expect from each band of buyer, then we set up a free valuation walkthrough.
The CGK Austin team walked Wade through a valuation that priced the commercial GC backlog correctly, the Hill Country custom-home pipeline, the tenant-improvement recurring book, the Capitol-adjacent special-projects line, and David’s continuity at the estimating-leadership layer. The valuation also flagged what the diligence file would need: a project-by-project backlog schedule, a customer-by-customer revenue waterfall by sub-vertical, a LEED-certification renewal calendar, named-superintendent retention agreements at the senior tier, and a clean breakout of the recurring relationship revenue inside the broader project book. Wade spent four months getting that done. Then we took the platform to market.
Texas commercial construction rollup is one of the most active consolidation verticals in the Sun Belt right now and buyer interest reflected it. The blind teaser drew deep buyer interest. The pool was the structural mix the Austin commercial construction industry tends to attract at this size: a few HNW commercial real estate-investor buyers, a real cohort of search funders (Austin commercial construction is a search-funder favorite), several independent sponsors, the heaviest concentration of bidders from mid-market and lower-middle-market PE commercial construction platforms (Texas commercial construction rollup is hot), regional Austin and DFW family offices with commercial-services theses, large national strategics with Texas commercial real estate exposure, and a couple of Austin-anchored family offices with Hill Country development theses. Five LOIs advanced to a final round. Wade chose the second-highest headline because the buyer (a PE-backed national commercial construction platform with a Texas-and-Sun-Belt regional brand, 22 commercial construction firms in their existing portfolio across TX, AZ, CO, UT, and NV, sponsored by an Austin-area mid-market PE fund running a Sun Belt commercial construction rollup thesis) committed to keeping all 95 staff with comp-step protections, kept the Bee Cave / Westlake headquarters under existing branding, and named Wade as senior strategic advisor for 24 months at one day per week. The deal closed at 76 percent cash at close, 12 percent in a twenty-four-month escrow (longer than the standard twelve to cover commercial bond performance tail risk and any latent construction warranty claims on completed projects), and 12 percent rolled forward as equity in the consolidator’s holding company. When the wire cleared Wade called his father (84, still living in the Westlake home where Wade grew up) in plain English from the Bee Cave office. “It’s done, dad.” His father, who had built the family’s first Westlake shop in 1958, simply said “You did good, son.” Wade drove from there to David Reyes’s home off Bee Cave Road and shook his hand on the porch.
“I needed a buyer who would ask about David first. The number came after that.”
How a Westlake dermatology and medical aesthetics practice went to a Texas-and-Southwest derm platform with the business brokers Austin teams who priced the medical-aesthetics balance correctly.
Priya’s parents emigrated from Gujarat in the 1980s as part of an Austin-area Dell engineering recruitment wave; her mother was an Austin Community College math instructor and her father was a Dell electrical engineer who put her through medical school on a single semiconductor-industry salary. Priya graduated UT Southwestern Medical School in 1995, completed dermatology residency at Baylor College of Medicine, and opened her Westlake practice in 2004 with a focus on medical dermatology and a smaller medical-aesthetics arm that compounded steadily alongside Austin’s affluent demographic shift through the 2010s. By the time she called us, the practice ran as Priya plus one other dermatologist plus a PA-C, supported by 22 W-2 staff including 4 medical aestheticians, 3 RNs, 4 medical assistants, and admin. The service mix sat at 45 percent medical dermatology (skin-cancer screenings, biopsies, dermatologic surgery), 30 percent cosmetic dermatology and injectables, 15 percent laser and medical aesthetics, and 10 percent Mohs surgery referrals from a regional network. Dell Seton and St. David’s hospital privileges were active across the clinical team. The payer mix landed at the texture an affluent Austin corridor practice typically carries: roughly 55 percent commercial, 25 percent Medicare, and 20 percent self-pay aesthetic. Revenue cleared $5.2 million at a 29 percent EBITDA margin, defensibly clean for a single-site dermatology and medical aesthetics group at that scale in Westlake. Priya’s husband, a Dell semiconductor architect being recruited for a senior role at a Bay Area chip company, is relocating; Priya and their two college-aged kids will join him after the academic year. Priya wanted the practice to continue under operators who would preserve the medical dermatology mix.
Dermatology PE rollup is hot across Texas right now, and the buyer profile reflects it. Priya had been approached eight times in two years: three times by national derm platform consolidators, twice by Texas-aligned PE platforms, twice by regional medical-group rollups, and once by an aesthetics-focused medical platform running a Texas-and-Southwest expansion thesis. None of those scouts had walked her through how a buyer’s diligence team would price the balance between medical dermatology and the medical-aesthetics arm, the Dell Seton and St. David’s hospital-privilege continuity, or her senior PA-C Anjali’s quiet but real institutional weight inside the practice. She called us the week after her husband signed the Bay Area offer.
The first call ran fifty-two minutes. Priya walked us through the founding, the way the medical dermatology arm had stayed the practice’s identity even as the medical-aesthetics revenue line compounded, the way Anjali, a longtime Austin-native Indian-American clinician who had been with the practice 12 years, had quietly become the institutional voice on the medical-derm floor, and the conversations she had been having with her associate dermatologist about whether they wanted to stay through a change of control. The valuation walkthrough showed Priya a band that priced the medical dermatology revenue line, the cosmetic and injectable book, the laser and medical aesthetics suite utilization, the Dell Seton and St. David’s hospital-privilege continuity, the regional Mohs referral pull, and Anjali’s continuity at the PA-C layer. The valuation also flagged what the diligence file would need: a payer-mix-by-physician waterfall with full hospital-privilege documentation, a medical-versus-aesthetic revenue breakout by line, named-clinician retention agreements with the associate dermatologist and PA-C, and a clean breakout of self-pay aesthetic revenue versus insurance-billed dermatology revenue. Priya spent four months getting that done. The CGK Austin team took the practice to market.
Westlake-anchored dermatology with a balanced medical-and-aesthetic mix draws a deep buyer pool. The blind teaser drew deep buyer interest. The pool was the structural mix the dermatology industry tends to attract in Austin’s affluent corridor: a few HNW physician-investor buyers (Austin has a notable physician-investor cohort), search funders, independent sponsors, the heaviest concentration of bidders from mid-market PE dermatology platform consolidators (the dominant cohort, since derm PE rollup is hot in affluent Texas corridors), aesthetics-focused medical platforms, regional Texas dermatology groups, and a couple of Austin family offices with healthcare-services theses. Four LOIs advanced to a final round. Priya chose the second-highest headline because the buyer (a PE-backed dermatology platform consolidator with a Texas-and-Southwest thesis and a balanced medical-aesthetics-and-traditional-derm posture, 35+ practices in their existing portfolio across TX, AZ, CO, and NM, sponsored by a Dallas mid-market PE fund) committed to keeping all 22 staff and all three clinicians under their current contracts, kept the Westlake office, and named Priya as senior medical advisor for 18 months at one day per week. The deal closed at 80 percent cash at close, 8 percent in a twelve-month escrow for general indemnity, and 12 percent rolled forward as equity in the platform’s holding company. When the wire cleared Priya called her father (now retired in Round Rock) in Gujarati from her Westlake office. “Thai gayu, papa.” It’s done, dad. Her father, the Dell electrical engineer who had put her through medical school, simply said “Saras.” Excellent. Priya walked the practice with Anjali, the two of them standing for a long moment at the medical-aesthetics-suite door.
“I needed a buyer who would ask about Anjali first. The number came after that.”
How an East Austin modern Southern restaurant group sold to an Austin restaurateur with the Austin business brokers who priced the chef-leadership continuity correctly.
Tasha was born and raised in East Austin’s historic African-American community. Her grandmother ran a small Manor Road diner for 25 years; her mother taught at Anderson High School and put both kids through college on a single Austin ISD salary. Tasha trained at Le Cordon Bleu Austin, worked through several Austin restaurant kitchens (including a high-profile stint at one of the city’s most respected restaurant groups), and opened her modern Southern concept on Manor Road in 2014. By the time she called us, the operation ran as a 2-restaurant modern Southern and soul food concept with the flagship on Manor Road in East Austin and a smaller satellite on the East Sixth corridor. The concept blends traditional African-American Southern cuisine with contemporary Austin food culture and carries a tight bourbon-and-Texas-whiskey program; the flagship has won regional acclaim, including a James Beard semifinalist nod for Tasha. Service runs lunch and dinner Wednesday through Sunday with a strong weekend brunch following and a small private-events and catering arm. Combined revenue cleared $1.9 million at a 39 percent SDE margin, defensibly clean for a 2-restaurant concept of that scale in East Austin. Tasha had been recruited as the founding chef-director for a new culinary residency program at Huston-Tillotson University (Austin’s HBCU); the role aligned with her long-term passion for mentoring young African-American chefs but did not allow her to keep running the restaurants day-to-day. She wanted the restaurants to continue under operators who would preserve the concept and the East Austin African-American culinary scene.
Restaurant M&A at this tier has its own structural pattern. The valuable assets are the brand identity, the lease portfolio, the chef-leadership continuity, and the East Austin community trust that underwrites a modern Southern concept on Manor Road. Smaller-tier restaurant groups typically transact on a cash-and-seller-note basis rather than the cash-plus-rollover structure that dominates larger restaurant-platform deals. Tasha had been approached five times in twelve months: twice by Austin-area restaurant operators looking to bolt on a Southern concept, once by a regional Austin restaurant group expanding into East Austin, once by a search funder running an Austin restaurant thesis, and once by her former mentor running an existing Austin restaurant group. None of those conversations had walked her through what a buyer’s diligence team would do with the bourbon-and-Texas-whiskey program revenue, the Manor Road community-trust narrative, or how the chef-leadership continuity through Marcus, her sous chef since opening night, would be priced inside an LOI. She called us the week she signed the Huston-Tillotson offer.
The first call ran thirty-eight minutes. Tasha walked us through the founding, the way the bourbon-and-Texas-whiskey program had compounded into a steady draw for the Manor Road and East Sixth dinner crowds, the way Marcus, a longtime young Austin-native chef who had been with her since opening night in 2014, had quietly become the institutional voice on the kitchen line, and the conversations she had been having with Marcus about whether he wanted to step up under a new owner. The valuation walkthrough showed Tasha a band that priced the two-location lease portfolio and renewal-option language, the chef-leadership continuity through Marcus, the bourbon-and-Texas-whiskey beverage program revenue, the brunch and catering arms, and the East Austin / Manor Road brand identity. The valuation also flagged what the diligence file would need: a clean trailing-eighteen-month covers-per-service waterfall by location and day-part, a beverage program revenue breakout, a named-staff retention agreement with Marcus, and a clean lease-assignment opinion from her real estate counsel covering both locations. Tasha spent eight weeks getting that done. The CGK Austin team took the group to market.
Smaller-tier restaurant M&A in East Austin draws a moderate-depth pool with a strong HNW-restaurateur cohort. The blind teaser drew deep buyer interest. The pool was the structural mix the smallest-tier restaurant band tends to attract: a few HNW restaurateur-investor buyers (including a few Austin restaurant operators looking to add Southern concepts), search funders, independent sponsors, regional Austin restaurant groups looking to expand into East Austin, and one strategic acquirer with a James Beard recognition thesis. Four LOIs advanced to a final round. Tasha chose the highest headline because the buyer (a HNW Austin-area restaurateur, Tasha’s former mentor from her high-profile Austin restaurant group stint, partnered with an Austin-area family office providing equity-gap financing) committed to keeping both locations operating under their existing brand names, kept all 22 staff, named Tasha as creative-and-brand advisor for 12 months at quarter-time, and gave Marcus the path to step up as chef de cuisine under the new ownership. The deal closed structured as 82 percent cash at close with the remaining 18 percent as a seller note over five years at a market rate. When the wire cleared Tasha called her grandmother (87, in her East Austin home) from the Manor Road kitchen in plain English. “Grandma, it’s done.” Her grandmother, who had run the Manor Road diner for 25 years, said simply “Babygirl, you did it your way.” Tasha walked the dining room one final time with Marcus, the two of them standing for a long moment at the kitchen pass on a slow Wednesday afternoon.
“My grandmother ran a Manor Road diner for twenty-five years. The buyer kept the team. That is the inheritance.”
How a Round Rock Vietnamese-American nail salon group sold to a Texas operator-buyer with the Austin business brokers who priced the technician-bench heritage correctly.
Tien’s family came to the United States as boat-people refugees in 1984 and settled into Austin’s emerging Vietnamese-American community in North Austin (Round Rock and Cedar Park before they were the dense tech-corridor submarkets they are today). Her parents ran a small Vietnamese grocery in North Austin for 22 years; Tien spent her teenage afternoons stocking shelves and learning kitchen Vietnamese from her grandmother. She graduated Austin Community College’s cosmetology program in 1995, worked through several nail salons in the North Austin Vietnamese-American community, and opened her first salon in Round Rock in 2008. By the time she called us, the operation ran as a 3-salon nail-and-lash group operating in Round Rock, Cedar Park, and Pflugerville, $1.3 million in revenue at a 29 percent SDE margin, and a 24-person staff of Tien plus 21 nail technicians and lash artists plus 2 admin and receptionists. Mix landed at 60 percent nail services, 25 percent lash services, 10 percent small wax services, and 5 percent retail across roughly 3,200 active customers. The Vietnamese-American technician-bench heritage and a clean-air and OSHA-compliant operations practice that went well beyond industry norms were the platform’s structural moat. Tien’s husband, a Dell engineer being recruited for a Bay Area role, is relocating; Tien and their three school-aged kids will join him after the academic year. She wanted the salons to continue under operators who would preserve the Vietnamese-American technician bench.
Personal-services rollup is in early-PE-consolidation mode in Texas, and the structural pattern at Tien’s tier reflects it. The valuable asset is the technician bench, the customer-loyalty book, the three-location lease portfolio, and the operational reputation that the Vietnamese-American community trust underwrites in North Austin’s tech-corridor suburbs. Smaller-tier salon groups typically transact on a cash-and-seller-note basis rather than the cash-plus-rollover structure that dominates larger personal-services platform deals. Tien had been approached six times in fourteen months: twice by national personal-services rollup platforms running early Texas-and-Sun-Belt theses, twice by Vietnamese-American operator-buyers from Texas Vietnamese-American communities, once by a search funder running an early salon-rollup thesis, and once by a strategic acquirer with a Vietnamese-American community salon thesis. None of those conversations had walked her through how a buyer’s diligence team would treat the technician-bench heritage, the OSHA-compliant operations practice, or her senior nail technician Trang’s quiet but real institutional weight with the longtime customer book. She called us the week her husband signed the Bay Area offer.
The first call ran thirty-three minutes. Tien walked us through the founding, the way the technician bench had stayed remarkably stable across all three locations, the way Trang, a longtime Vietnamese-American colleague who had been with Tien since the first Round Rock salon opened in 2008, had quietly become the institutional voice on the customer-relationship side, and the conversations she had been having with her technicians about whether they wanted to stay through a change of control. The valuation walkthrough showed Tien a band that priced the three-location lease portfolio and renewal-option language, the technician-bench continuity, the customer-retention pattern across the three submarkets, the lash-services growth line, and Trang’s continuity at the senior-technician layer. The valuation also flagged what the diligence file would need: a customer-retention waterfall by salon, a technician-by-technician revenue and tenure schedule, a named-staff retention agreement with Trang, OSHA and clean-air-practice documentation, and a clean lease-assignment opinion from her real estate counsel covering all three locations. Tien spent six weeks getting that done. The CGK Austin team took the group to market.
Personal-services M&A at the smaller salon-group tier draws a steady pool with a strong HNW operator-buyer cohort. The blind teaser drew deep buyer interest. The pool was the structural mix the smaller-tier personal-services band tends to attract: a few HNW operator-buyers (a few owner-operators in their 30s and 40s looking for a turnkey salon group), a small handful of search funders (nail salon rollups are starting to draw search funders), a couple of independent sponsors, regional Texas personal-services consolidators, mid-market PE personal-services rollup platforms running an early Texas-and-Sun-Belt thesis (small but growing cohort), and one strategic acquirer with a Vietnamese-American community salon thesis. All five LOIs advanced to a final round at Tien’s tier. Tien chose the highest headline because the buyer (a HNW Vietnamese-American operator-buyer in her late 40s, a fellow Vietnamese-American salon-group operator from Houston’s Bellaire community, partnered with an Austin-area family-office co-investor) committed to keeping all 24 staff including the technician bench, kept all three locations operating under their existing brand names, kept Trang in her senior-technician seat at her existing comp tier, and named Tien as senior advisor for 12 months. The deal closed structured as 78 percent cash at close with the remaining 22 percent as a seller note over three years at a market rate. When the wire cleared Tien called her mother (78, still in her North Austin home) in Vietnamese from the Round Rock flagship. “Xong rồi, má.” It’s done, mom. Her mother, who had run the North Austin grocery for 22 years, simply said “Giỏi lắm, con.” You did well, daughter. Tien walked the salon one final time with Trang, the two of them standing at the front desk on a slow Thursday afternoon as the appointment book scrolled past on the screen.
“My mother ran a North Austin grocery for twenty-two years. The buyer kept the team. That is the inheritance.”
If any of these stories sound like you, start with a free Austin business valuation.
The composites above are different industries, different sizes, different deal structures. They are the same engagement, run the same way, by the same named CGK Austin lead. The first conversation is free. The verbal valuation that follows is free for any Greater Austin owner seriously thinking about selling on any horizon: a year, five years, longer.
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The buyer pool the Austin business brokers at CGK actually run process for.
The number of qualified buyers we can put in front of you is the biggest reason CGK’s close rate runs nine of ten. Austin draws a buyer pool unique to Central Texas, anchored by the tech corridor (Dell, Apple, IBM, Tesla, Samsung), the state government and Capitol economy, the Dell Medical and St. David’s healthcare clusters, the SXSW and ACL festival economy, and the Hill Country tourism market. Below is who shows up when we take an Austin business to market.
Texas-anchored PE platforms with Sun Belt rollup theses. Mid-market and lower-middle-market PE platforms with Texas, Sun Belt, and Southwest theses run continuous outreach into Austin commercial construction, dermatology and medical aesthetics, healthcare specialty practices, IT services and MSP, and personal-services rollup targets. The Texas PE bench (Austin, Dallas, and Houston-headquartered funds) treats Austin as a preferred entry vertical because the Austin operating talent layer is structurally deep and the regional buyer-and-seller demographics compound more reliably than peer Sun Belt metros.
Austin family offices with healthcare and commercial-construction theses. The Westlake, Bee Cave, and Tarrytown family-office bench, plus the broader Austin tech-money family-office layer that emerged through the 2010s and 2020s, runs continuous outreach into Austin healthcare specialty practices, ancillary services, commercial construction, and Hill Country development targets in the lower-middle-market band where they can hold for decades. The Austin family-office cohort frequently pays the highest premium when the long-hold thesis aligns and the operating-talent continuity is intact.
Central Texas regional consolidators across home-services and trades. Texas-and-Sun-Belt regional consolidators in plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, and broader home services run continuous outreach into Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park, and Hill Country home-services platforms above $750K SDE. Austin’s population-growth pattern through the 2010s and 2020s built a deep home-services book that draws consolidator attention every quarter.
Tech-corridor strategic acquirers in industrial services and engineering services. Strategic acquirers operating along the Round Rock and Cedar Park tech corridor (Samsung Taylor supplier base, Tesla Gigafactory adjacency, AMD and NXP supplier touch) target Austin engineering-services, machine-shop, semiconductor-supplier, and industrial-services platforms that ride alongside semiconductor and EV capex cycles. Industry strategics frequently pay the highest premium when the synergy math is real, and our Austin M&A advisors stage those conversations carefully so confidential information does not leak into trade press while a process is live.
Restaurant groups with Austin food-scene exposure. Austin’s role as a national food and music capital pulls a real cohort of HNW restaurateur-investor buyers, regional Austin and Houston restaurant groups, and a growing layer of search funders running Austin restaurant theses. Restaurant M&A in Austin tends to transact on a cash-plus-seller-note structure at the smallest tiers and a cash-plus-rollover structure at the larger restaurant-platform tier, with HNW Austin-area restaurateur-investors frequently paying premium when the chef-leadership continuity and brand identity hold through the change of control.
Greater Austin submarkets we serve.
Greater Austin is not one market. Our Austin business brokers run engagements across these twelve submarkets and the sectors that anchor each. Derik runs every one.
Preparing to sell your Austin business.
Each step in the twelve to twenty-four month runway costs something if you skip it. The cost usually shows up at the buyer’s offer, not before. Here is what gets skipped most often and what skipping it tends to cost.
Skip the runway, lose the strongest prices. The last twelve months of your numbers drive what buyers will pay. If you compress a year of getting ready into a sixty-day rush before going to market, the financial picture buyers see is whatever you have right now, not the cleaner picture you could have shown twelve months later. The cost shows up directly in the offer.
Skip the financial cleanup, lose on the offer terms. If your books carry tax-driven decisions that hide what the business actually earns, if recurring revenue is mixed in with one-time project revenue, if the last twelve months include a one-time event that needs to be flagged separately, the buyer’s accountants will mark down what they cannot verify quickly. Cleaning up the financial picture twelve to eighteen months ahead means the buyer’s team is reading the strongest, most defensible version of your business.
Skip the next layer of management, take the owner-dependency discount. If you are the only person holding key customer, vendor, regulatory, or referral relationships together, the buyer will discount for the risk of you walking out the door after closing. Putting a layer of named managers between you and each of those relationships, then letting the handoff settle in for six to twelve months, removes one of the biggest possible discounts at the offer stage.
Skip the tax and estate planning, lose net dollars after the wire. A larger Austin sale carries tax choices most owners do not see until they are deep inside the offer process: how the deal is structured (asset sale versus stock sale), specific reorganization options for some C-corps, Texas franchise tax considerations, installment-payment arrangements, charitable trusts. The right financial advisor, trust attorney, CPA, or tax attorney brought in twelve months before close pays for itself many times over.
Austin owners who walk the runway tend to land at the prices you see in trade-press coverage. Austin owners who compress the preparation into a sixty-day rush before going to market learn what a discounted price feels like in real time. Either way, the CGK Austin team will tell you the truth about which path you are actually on.
When to call Austin business brokers.
Owners call our Austin business brokers with a handful of recurring situations. Here is what we will tell you in the first conversation, depending on which one you are looking at.
If you call us about an unsolicited offer: we will tell you to slow down before you sign anything. Most unsolicited offers are designed to anchor the price low. Our process runs the unsolicited buyer in parallel with the buyers we surface, and the original suitor frequently lands in the back half of the LOI table once a real field shows up. The competitive pressure of a structured process is what generates the price the unsolicited inquiry alone cannot.
If you call us about a succession question: we will tell you that succession is the most common single trigger we hear from Austin owner-operators. If the family conversation has landed and the answer is not a family member, the right window to start the conversation is six to twelve months before you need it resolved. We will walk you through the timing options against the trailing-twelve picture.
If you call us because the numbers are the strongest they have ever been: we will tell you that selling from strength gets the highest prices Austin typically sees. Trailing twelve months at peak, team deepest it has been, customer pipeline cleanest in years. The instinct most owners feel at this moment is to wait one more year. The price that materializes a year later, after the inevitable softer quarter, is rarely the better trade.
If you call us because a health, family, or partnership shift changed your horizon: we will tell you that we work confidentially through these conversations and that calling early, before the urgency forces the timeline, is almost always the better path. We can run a process inside a tight window, and we have, but the compression usually shows up in the final price. We will be honest about what the timing costs.
If you call us because you simply want to know what your Central Texas business is worth: we will tell you the free verbal valuation walkthrough is open to any Austin owner thinking about a sale on any horizon, including no specific horizon. Most of our best Austin engagements start exactly this way, a year or more before the transaction.
Whichever situation fits you, start the conversation.
Start with a confidential conversation. A senior CGK Austin principal will respond within one business day to schedule a free verbal valuation, in person, or by Zoom.
Confidential. No obligation. Direct routing to a named CGK Austin principal, not a junior screener.
Frequently Asked Questions
Practical answers to what comes up most often when Greater Austin owners are evaluating Austin business brokers to take their company to market.
We Know Austin.
Austin is Lady Bird Lake on a quiet Saturday morning before the Hike-and-Bike Trail fills, the Capitol dome holding its line down Congress Avenue, South Congress and Allen’s Boots in the late-afternoon light, Barton Springs Pool in late June, Zilker Park during ACL Festival weekend, the Continental Club on a Tuesday night and the East Sixth music strip on a Friday, Franklin Barbecue in line at ten in the morning, the Driskill and the Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental on Congress, the Domain at lunchtime and Mueller’s redevelopment grid on a clear October weekend, Westlake’s affluent corridor and Bee Cave’s commercial growth, Hill Country wineries in Driftwood and Wimberley on a Sunday, the Mount Bonnell view at sunset, the Hope Outdoor Gallery legacy on Castle Hill, Tex-Mex at Matt’s El Rancho on a Friday night, breakfast tacos as a religion, the live music capital identity, the LBJ Library and the long shadow of presidential history, the UT Tower over the campus and Texas football at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium, Lake Travis and the Hill Country cypress trees, music venues from Stubb’s to The Continental Club, the Pecan Street Festival, the Mexic-Arte Museum on Fifth Street, the Blanton Museum on the UT campus, breakfast tacos at Veracruz All Natural, late-night Tex-Mex at Polvos, breakfast at Magnolia Cafe, SXSW in March and ACL Festival in October. CGK’s Austin address is 2720 Bee Caves Road, Austin, TX 78746, in the heart of the Westlake / Bee Cave corridor, but most of our work with Austin owners happens at the seller’s business or by Zoom.
We know the Dell Medical and St. David’s hospital-network anchor pulls a deeper specialty-practice and ancillary-services M&A market into Austin than the city’s population alone would suggest, and we work that buyer pool every quarter. We track the Capitol session calendar and the way biennial Texas Legislature procurement cycles ripple through Austin’s Capitol-anchored professional-services bench, and we work the Greater Austin deal market alongside the convening work of the Austin Chamber of Commerce and Opportunity Austin, the Greater Austin economic development partnership. For Asian-American and immigrant-founder composites in our book we cross-reference the convening work of the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce, which represents one of the densest Asian-American business communities in the South.
We know Austin is brisket and ribs at Franklin and La Barbecue, the Austin City Limits Festival at Zilker every October, breakfast tacos at Veracruz All Natural and Joe’s Bakery, the Paramount Theatre on Congress, the Long Center on the south shore, the Buffalo-skyline view from the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge, the South Lamar music venues and the Saxon Pub on a Tuesday, the East Sixth pool halls and the Rainey Street bungalow bars, Barton Creek Greenbelt swimming holes after a wet spring, Mount Bonnell at sunset, the Westlake Hills cypress trees and Lake Austin from the Pennybacker Bridge, the Hill Country dance halls out at Gruene and Luckenbach. We know Westlake and Bee Cave, Tarrytown and Old Enfield, Hyde Park and North Loop, East Austin and Mueller, Round Rock and Cedar Park, Pflugerville and Hutto, Buda and Kyle, Dripping Springs and Wimberley, the Domain and Anderson Mill, Downtown and Rainey Street. We know the Capitol’s Tuesday-morning rhythm and the way the Dell Medical campus pulses around the clock on the south side of the river, the St. David’s hospital cycle, the Round Rock semiconductor-supplier corridor, and the Lady Bird Lake skyline as the anchor of the city.
We are members of the International Business Brokers Association (IBBA) and M&A Source. We carry a CFA, a CMT, a CAIA, an FDP, an MBA, and a Master of Data Science. If you are a Greater Austin owner thinking about how and when to sell your business, or hunting for the right Texas acquisition through our buy-side advisory, or want a confidential business valuation, our Austin business brokers know this city and the Texas buyer pool. Call (512) 900-5960 or submit the form to start.
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Submit a brief profile and a senior CGK Austin principal will reach out within one business day. The first conversation is always free, and the verbal valuation that follows is free for any Greater Austin owner seriously thinking about selling on any horizon.
Strictly confidential. No pressure. Direct routing to a named CGK Austin principal, not a junior screener.
Talk to an Austin Business Broker
A senior CGK Austin principal will respond within one business day. For Texas privately-held companies with $1.5M+ in revenue.
Or scroll up to the seller-profile form in any of the three valuation blocks above. Direct routing to Derik Polay, not a junior screener.
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