Houston Business Brokers Who Sit With You Before They Sell For You.

Adaeze’s father was a U of Lagos-trained surgeon who emigrated to Houston in 1982 and built a primary-care practice serving the growing Nigerian-American community in southwest Houston; her mother was a Houston ISD principal who put both daughters through college on a public-school administrator’s salary. Adaeze finished UTHealth McGovern Medical School in 1996, completed her OB-GYN residency at Memorial Hermann, and opened her practice in 2004 inside the Texas Medical Center submarket with a focus on high-risk obstetrics and minimally invasive gynecologic surgery that compounded steadily over twenty-two years. By the time she called us, the practice ran as Adaeze plus two other OB-GYNs plus one nurse midwife, supported by 22 W-2 staff including four RNs and a full ultrasound suite. The service mix sat at 35 percent high-risk obstetrics, 30 percent routine OB and gynecology, 20 percent in-office minimally invasive gynecologic surgery, and 15 percent specialty consults from regional primary-care groups. Memorial Hermann and Houston Methodist hospital privileges were active on every clinician. The payer mix landed in the texture the Texas Medical Center submarket actually demands: roughly 30 percent commercial, 25 percent Medicaid managed care, 30 percent TRS-ERS-employer, and 15 percent Medicare and other. Revenue cleared $5.6 million at a 27 percent EBITDA margin, defensibly clean for a single-site women’s health group of that size in Houston. Adaeze had been recruited as the founding chief of a new Memorial Hermann women’s health institute that would move her from private practice into an academic-and-clinical leadership role; the new role does not allow her to keep running a private practice. Her two adult children are a Rice engineering grad and a Yale law student; neither is taking the practice.

Women’s health PE rollup is hot across Texas, and the buyer profile reflects it. Adaeze had been approached seven times in two years: twice by national women’s-health platform consolidators, twice by Texas Medical Center-aligned PE platforms, twice by regional medical-group rollups, and once by a strategic acquirer running a Texas-and-Southeast US women’s-health expansion thesis. None of those scouts had walked her through how a buyer’s diligence team would price the hospital-privilege continuity, the high-risk obstetrics referral pull from regional primary-care groups, or her senior nurse midwife Chiamaka Eze’s quiet but real institutional weight inside the practice. She called us the week after she signed her acceptance for the Memorial Hermann institute role.

The first call ran fifty-five minutes. Adaeze walked us through the founding, the way the high-risk obstetrics arm had grown from a small clinical interest into the practice’s most differentiated revenue line, the way Chiamaka, a longtime Nigerian-American RN who had been with the practice fourteen years, had quietly become the institutional voice on the obstetrics floor, and the conversations she had been having with the other clinicians about whether they wanted to stay through a change of control. The valuation walkthrough showed Adaeze a band that priced the high-risk obstetrics revenue line, the in-office minimally invasive surgery suite utilization, the Memorial Hermann and Houston Methodist hospital-privilege continuity, the regional referral pull, and Chiamaka’s continuity at the obstetrics layer. The valuation also flagged what the diligence file would need: a payer-mix-by-physician waterfall with full hospital-privilege documentation, a CCM and chronic-care utilization breakout where applicable, named-physician retention agreements with the three other clinicians, and a clean breakout of in-office surgical revenue versus pure cognitive-visit revenue. Adaeze spent five months getting that done. The CGK Houston team took the practice to market.

Texas Medical Center-adjacent women’s health draws a deep buyer pool. The blind teaser drew deep buyer interest. The pool was the structural mix the women’s health industry tends to attract in Houston: a few HNW physician-investor buyers (Houston has a real physician-investor cohort), search funders, independent sponsors, the heaviest concentration of bidders from mid-market PE women’s-health platform consolidators (the dominant cohort, since women’s health PE rollup is a hot active thesis), Memorial Hermann and Houston Methodist-aligned platforms, regional women’s-health groups across TX, LA, and OK, and a couple of family offices with healthcare-services theses. Four LOIs advanced to a final round. Adaeze chose the second-highest headline because the buyer (a PE-backed women’s health platform consolidator with a Texas-and-Southeast US regional thesis, 20+ women’s-health groups in their existing portfolio, sponsored by a Dallas mid-market PE fund) committed to keeping all 22 staff and all four clinicians under their current contracts, kept the Texas Medical Center office, and named Adaeze as senior medical advisor and academic-clinical liaison 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 Adaeze called her father in Igbo from her Texas Medical Center office. “O gwula, papa.” It is finished, papa. Her father, the same Lagos-trained surgeon who had built his Houston practice from a single room at a strip mall in 1983, said quietly “Mma.” Good. Adaeze walked the office one final time with Chiamaka, the two of them standing for a long moment at the ultrasound-suite door.

“I needed a buyer who would ask about Chiamaka first. The number came after that.”

Aileen’s family emigrated from Manila in the late 1980s through a Houston Methodist Hospital nursing recruitment program; her mother spent thirty years as a Methodist Hospital nurse and put both daughters through the University of Houston on a single nursing salary. Aileen graduated U of H in 1990 with an accounting degree, worked through the late nineties for a Houston P&C agency, and bought a small struggling agency in Pearland in 2002 that she rebuilt over twenty-three years into a respected energy-adjacent commercial book. By the time she called us, the operation ran as an independent property and casualty agency in Pearland with a smaller satellite presence in Sugar Land, $1.4 million in revenue at a 27 percent SDE margin, and a five-person staff of Aileen plus two producers plus two admin and CSRs. The book mix landed at 40 percent energy-adjacent commercial (insuring Houston-area engineering services firms, midstream contractors, and oilfield equipment shops), 35 percent traditional commercial across Pearland and Sugar Land small businesses, and 25 percent personal lines that the Filipino-American Pearland and Sugar Land community had relied on for two decades. Top three carriers represented roughly 60 percent of placed premium, defensibly clean for an independent agency of that scale. Aileen’s husband, a retired Houston Methodist physical therapist, had been ready for them to spend extended time with grandchildren in Texas and California where their two adult kids settled. Aileen wanted the agency to continue under operators who would preserve the energy-adjacent commercial book and the Filipino-American personal-lines clientele.

Insurance broker rollup is in heavy PE consolidation mode across Texas, and the structural pattern at Aileen’s tier is well established. The valuable asset is the placed-premium book, the carrier-appointment portfolio, the energy-adjacent commercial relationships, and the producer continuity through the change of control. Smaller agency books typically transact on a cash-and-seller-note basis rather than the cash-plus-rollover structure that dominates larger broker platform deals. Aileen had been approached eight times in eighteen months: three times by national insurance broker rollup platforms, twice by Texas-and-Gulf-Coast regional consolidators, twice by HNW agency-investor buyers, and once by a strategic acquirer with a Houston-area energy-adjacent commercial book thesis. None of those conversations had walked her through how a buyer’s diligence team would treat the energy-adjacent commercial concentration, the carrier-appointment continuity through the change of control, or her senior CSR Beatriz Reyes’s quiet but real institutional weight with the Filipino-American personal-lines clientele. She called us the week her husband told her he was ready to start spending real time with the grandchildren.

The first call ran forty-one minutes. Aileen walked us through the founding, the way the energy-adjacent commercial book had grown from a single Pearland engineering-services client into 40 percent of placed premium, the way Bea, a longtime Filipino-American CSR who had been with the agency since the 2002 buyout, had quietly become the institutional voice with the personal-lines book, and the conversations she had been having with her two producers about whether they wanted to stay through a change of control. The valuation walkthrough showed Aileen a band that priced the energy-adjacent commercial book, the Pearland and Sugar Land lease portfolio, the carrier-appointment continuity, the personal-lines retention pattern in the Filipino-American community, and Bea’s continuity at the CSR layer. The valuation also flagged what the diligence file would need: a producer-by-producer placed-premium waterfall, a carrier-appointment renewal calendar, a named-CSR retention agreement with Bea, a named-producer retention agreement with each of her two producers, and a clean lease-assignment opinion from her real estate counsel covering both locations. Aileen spent six weeks getting that done. The CGK Houston team took the agency to market.

Insurance broker rollup at the smaller agency tier draws a steady pool with a strong PE-platform cohort. The blind teaser drew deep buyer interest. The pool was the structural mix the smaller-tier insurance agency band tends to attract: a few HNW agency-investor buyers, a small handful of search funders, a couple of independent sponsors, the heaviest concentration of bidders from mid-market PE insurance broker rollup platforms, several regional Texas independent agency consolidators, and one strategic acquirer with a Houston-area energy-adjacent commercial book thesis. All five LOIs advanced to a final round at Aileen’s tier. Aileen chose the second-highest headline because the buyer (a PE-backed insurance broker rollup with a Texas-and-Gulf-Coast focus, sponsored by a regional PE platform with a Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio agency consolidation thesis, with a commitment to grow the energy-adjacent commercial book through cross-portfolio referrals) kept the Pearland office and Sugar Land satellite, kept all five staff with comp-step protections, kept Bea in her CSR seat at her existing comp tier, kept both producers under their current contracts, and named Aileen as senior strategic advisor for 12 months at half-time. 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 Aileen called her mother in Tagalog from the Pearland office. “Tapos na, nanay.” It’s done, mom. Her mother, the eighty-four-year-old Methodist Hospital nurse who had put Aileen through U of H, said quietly “Salamat sa Diyos.” Thanks be to God. Aileen walked the office one final time with Bea, the two of them at the front desk on a slow Thursday afternoon as the carrier renewal queue scrolled past on the screen.

“My mother carried the Methodist Hospital ICU for thirty years. The buyer kept the team. That is the inheritance.”