This is Robert’s story.
How to sell an education business at the right time, to the right buyer, for the right price is the question Robert Chen had been turning over for nearly three years before he picked up the phone. When the right time came, he called CGK Business Sales. Robert ran a $7.2M regional tutoring and test-prep chain across the Northern Virginia and DC suburbs: six locations spanning Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington, Alexandria, plus two in Montgomery County, Maryland. Roughly 600 active families a year. Three integrated revenue streams across the chain: year-round K-12 academic tutoring, SAT/ACT and AP test prep, and college admissions consulting. Forty-one employees including six location directors, twenty-eight part-time tutors (a deliberate mix of full-time public-school educators moonlighting evenings and weekends and selectively credentialed graduate students), and a seven-person administrative, curriculum, and operations team. Two of the six locations sat in buildings he and his wife Lisa owned outright; four ran on long-term commercial leases. He was 58. Lisa, his co-founder of seventeen years, was ready to retire. Their two kids had built careers in software in San Francisco and Seattle and were not coming home to take over a tutoring business in the Mid-Atlantic. The post-pandemic shift toward online tutoring and the post-2024 wave of AI-assisted personalized learning tools were both calling for capex he was not sure he wanted to make at fifty-eight. He came to us in mid-2024 because he was thinking about what the next ten years of his life needed to look like and did not know who else to talk to about how to sell an education business at this size, with this kind of revenue mix, in a market where the competitive landscape was changing under his feet every quarter. This page is what happened next, and what could happen for you. Robert is a composite, not a single real CGK seller, but the patterns and details are pulled from real tutoring, K-12, and vocational engagements. Two shorter sister stories below cover what is different when you sell a private K-12 school (Eleanor) and when you sell a vocational or career school (David).
The night before Robert called us.
Most owners who decide to sell an education business have been thinking about it quietly for two or three years before they pick up the phone. Robert was no different. He was 58. For sixteen years he had been the curriculum architect across every program the chain offered, the recruiter and the firer of every location director, the SAT/ACT methodology lead, the person who personally trained every new tutor through the chain’s three-week onboarding cycle, and the one parents asked for by name when a junior was scoring 1380 on practice tests and the mother needed someone to tell her honestly whether a 1500 was actually possible by November. The business did $7.2 million in annual revenue across six locations, three integrated revenue streams (academic tutoring K-12, standardized test prep, college admissions consulting), and roughly six hundred active families across a typical academic year. Forty-one employees: six location directors, twenty-eight part-time tutors, and a seven-person team running curriculum, scheduling, and back-office operations.
Why owners decide to sell an education business
Robert’s son worked at a cloud-infrastructure startup in San Francisco. His daughter was an early-stage product manager at a search company in Seattle. Neither was coming home to take over a tutoring chain that meant being on email at nine on a Sunday night when a parent in Vienna needed to talk through her daughter’s APUSH grade. Lisa, his wife and co-founder of seventeen years, had been hinting for two academic years that she was ready. The bigger pressures were the competitive landscape and the capex question: the post-pandemic acceleration of online tutoring had forced him to invest in a learning-management system, a video tutoring stack, and a custom CRM, and the post-2024 wave of AI-assisted personalized-learning tools (Khan Academy’s Khanmigo, the Duolingo-style adaptive engines, Magic School AI, the new wave of personalized writing-feedback startups) was now calling for a much larger capex commitment to keep the chain on a competitive footing through the second half of the decade. Robert had been approached six times in the prior fourteen months: three times by US-based PE-backed national tutoring and learning-center roll-up platforms (one of them a Sylvan-style consolidator, two of them PE-backed test-prep platforms with portfolios in the eastern US), once by a regional Mid-Atlantic competitor looking to absorb his footprint, once by a search funder who had spent six months underwriting tutoring as a vertical, and once, the most unexpected of the six, by a Singaporean education group that introduced themselves as a forty-plus-year family business with tutoring and enrichment operations across Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong who were quietly looking for a US flagship. Robert did not know what his business was actually worth at six locations, three revenue streams, and the new online platform partially built. He did not know whether the buyers calling him were the right buyers. He did not know whether his curriculum was a real moat or a nice-to-have. He did not have a single peer in his life who had ever sold an education business at this size.
That is the night he found CGK and submitted the form. We called him back at 9:14 the next morning.
The conversation we had on the first call.
The first call was 52 minutes. We did most of the listening.
Robert talked about the six location directors and the way each one ran a different revenue mix (the Fairfax flagship was 60 percent test prep because of the high-density concentration of magnet-school families and the McLean and Vienna feeder neighborhoods, the Bethesda flagship was nearly half college admissions consulting because of the Bethesda-Chevy-Chase parent profile, the Loudoun and Alexandria locations skewed toward year-round K-8 academic tutoring), the part-time tutor bench he had built over a decade by recruiting full-time public-school teachers in the four largest school districts in the region, the proprietary curriculum framework he and Lisa had layered on top of standard test-prep methodology, the partially built online platform, the AI-assisted personalized-learning tools he was evaluating for the next academic year, and the difference between the two owned-building flagships and the four leased locations. He talked about the outcomes data the chain quietly tracked, year over year, on average SAT and ACT score improvement by program length, college acceptance rates by tier across his admissions-consulting cohort, and retention from year to year within his year-round K-8 academic tutoring families. He suspected the outcomes data was a meaningful value driver but had never tried to package it. We asked about the business in the way you would ask if you were trying to understand it, not in the way you would ask if you were trying to win the engagement. What we were listening for was not just the financials. We were listening for whether Robert was actually ready to sell, what he and Lisa were working toward, and whether his expectations on price were grounded in what the market would actually support.
At the end of that call, we set up a working session: an in-person conversation where one of our Managing Directors would walk Robert and Lisa through our valuation model and tell them honestly what their business was likely to command. We did not promise them a written report. Written valuations involve substantially more work, and we charge for those when a seller actually needs one for estate planning, a partner buyout, a divorce, or another documentary purpose. The walkthrough was free because Robert was clearly thinking seriously about selling, the way someone thinks about it before they actually do it. Whether that ends up being in a year, three years, or longer, we make the same call.
The valuation session was the following Thursday at 8 a.m. at the Fairfax flagship, before the first afternoon tutoring block on a half-day school release.
Robert was not ready to sell an education business yet. He and Lisa went home and waited eight months.
The valuation session showed Robert and Lisa that their business was worth meaningfully less than they had been hoping, for two reasons that surprised them. The first was the curriculum-and-platform question. The proprietary curriculum framework that Robert had built over sixteen years was real intellectual property, but it lived in his head and in a partially documented internal wiki that only Lisa and the curriculum-and-operations lead had ever fully indexed. To a sophisticated buyer, especially an international strategic looking to operationalize the curriculum across new markets, that looked like serious key-person risk wrapped around the most valuable part of the business. The second was the platform-investment question. The partially built online tutoring platform was meaningful but not finished, and the AI-assisted personalized-learning evaluation work was a working document, not a product roadmap. Buyers underwriting the chain at the high end of the range were going to want to see either a finished platform with usage data or a clear, costed plan with a hire pipeline already in motion. The middle state, where Robert had landed in summer 2024, was the worst of both worlds.
We told Robert and Lisa honestly: they could go to market now and accept the discount, or they could spend six to twelve months formally documenting the curriculum framework into a transferable internal asset (instructor-training manuals, a sequenced K-8 mathematics curriculum reference, an SAT/ACT methodology playbook, a college admissions consulting workflow), making the platform-investment decision (either finish the build with a defined product roadmap and one new hire, or formally pause the build and reposition the chain as a high-touch in-person operator with a strategic platform partnership), tightening the outcomes-data tracking into the kind of report a buyer’s diligence team can rely on, and cleaning up the legal-entity structure across the two owned-building flagships and the four leased locations. We said the second path would likely command a meaningfully better number from a wider range of buyers, especially the international strategics and patient-capital family-owned buyers that pay premiums for institutionally documented multi-location education assets where the curriculum is portable across new markets.
This is the part most brokers skip. Most brokers would have signed Robert that day, taken the chain to market, and made the commission whether or not the deal was the best one for him. We told him to wait, even though it meant we did not get paid for eight months and might never get paid at all if he changed his mind.
Robert and Lisa went home and waited. They spent the next eight months formally documenting the curriculum framework into a 240-page internal reference (with Lisa leading the documentation work and the curriculum-and-operations lead organizing the historical instructor-training material), making the platform decision (they elected to finish the in-house LMS and video-tutoring stack and to pause the AI-assisted personalized-learning build, repositioning that work as a future-roadmap conversation with the eventual buyer rather than a partially funded internal project), tightening the outcomes-data tracking into a quarterly report covering SAT/ACT score improvement, college acceptance rates, and year-over-year retention by cohort, and cleaning up the real-estate-LLC and the operating-company structure with their accountant. They read up on what active acquirers were paying for regional tutoring and learning-center networks through resources from the National Tutoring Association and tracked deal news in the M&A press. Robert called us back in spring 2025 and said he was ready to sell an education business that was finally in the shape it needed to be in.
What we did when Robert came back.
What it takes to sell an education business properly
When an owner is ready to sell an education business with CGK, the speed surprises them. We took Robert’s business to market in a little under four weeks once he got us his updated financials, the 240-page curriculum-framework reference, the finished LMS and video-tutoring stack, the outcomes-data report with SAT/ACT score improvement and college acceptance metrics, the cleaned-up real-estate-LLC and operating-company structure, the state private-school registration documentation across all six VA and MD locations, the instructor roster with credentials and tenure per location, and the three-revenue-stream segmentation that broke out academic tutoring, test prep, and college admissions consulting separately. The blind teaser went out to 64 buyers we had pre-qualified across six buyer types: US-based PE-backed national tutoring and learning-center roll-up platforms (Sylvan, Mathnasium, Huntington Learning, Tutor Doctor, and similar consolidator ecosystems are very active), US-based PE-backed test-prep platforms (Princeton Review and Kaplan adjacencies plus the test-prep-only PE platforms), regional independent tutoring and learning-center operators looking to expand multi-state, search funds and individual SBA-leveraged buyers with operating-CEO backgrounds in education or related services, international family-owned education conglomerates entering the US market through anchor acquisitions, and family offices and patient-capital strategics building education portfolios on long-hold time horizons.
Forty-two of those buyers signed NDAs and received the full Confidential Information Memorandum. Twenty-eight entered our structured data room. Seventeen submitted Indications of Interest. Nine advanced to Letters of Intent. We narrowed to five for management presentations. Three re-submitted refined LOIs after the management meetings.
Robert decided between two of the top LOIs. They were materially different. One was a higher headline price from a US-based PE-backed national tutoring roll-up platform that wanted to absorb Robert’s six locations into a regional East Coast portfolio, with a conventional escrow structure, an earnout tied to revenue growth in the academic-tutoring segment over three years, a real-estate carve-out (the platform wanted the operating business but not the two owned-building flagships, which would have to be sold separately), curriculum-standardization mandates that would absorb the proprietary framework into the platform’s existing methodology, and a fund hold horizon of four to six years before the platform itself would likely be sold. The other was a slightly lower headline price from Lim Family Holdings, the Singapore-based education group that had been operating tutoring, enrichment, and STEM programs across Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong for more than four decades; they were a third-generation family-owned business with patient capital, no fund timer, and a strategic plan to use Robert’s chain as their flagship US asset and as the platform for further US tutoring acquisitions over the following decade. They were willing to acquire both the operating business and the two owned-building flagships as a single integrated transaction, to keep the proprietary curriculum framework intact and to reposition it as the new US-portfolio standard, and to invest behind finishing the AI-assisted personalized-learning roadmap as a 2026 product priority. We walked Robert and Lisa through what each LOI would actually deliver under realistic and pessimistic scenarios, including what the cultural continuity would look like for their six location directors and the part-time tutor bench under each owner, what the curriculum question would actually look like under each structure, and what the international cross-border deal mechanics meant for diligence timing, regulatory review (CFIUS does not typically reach a tutoring chain at this scale, but our deal team confirmed before signing), and tax structuring. The Lim Family Holdings deal was the better one for Robert and Lisa. The cash position day one was meaningfully stronger when normalized for the absence of an earnout babysitting load, the integrated real-estate-plus-operating transaction was structurally cleaner than carving the two pieces apart, the curriculum framework would be preserved and strategically extended rather than absorbed and standardized away, and the cultural fit with a third-generation family-owned buyer who valued long-hold portfolio building over fund-cycle exits mattered to Robert and Lisa deeply. They took it.
Through the whole process, the same CGK Managing Director who had taken Robert’s first call eight months earlier was the person walking him and Lisa through every conversation.
What the deal actually looked like.
How the deal looks when you sell an education business with CGK
Robert’s deal closed roughly seven months after we restarted the engagement. The buyer was Lim Family Holdings, a third-generation Singaporean family business with a forty-plus-year operating history in tutoring, STEM enrichment, and supplementary education across Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, funded with multi-generational family capital plus a long-standing relationship with a Southeast Asian regional bank that financed the cross-border piece of the transaction. The Lims were not PE-backed and had no fund-timer pressure to flip the business inside a defined hold period. They acquired both the operating company and the two owned-building flagship real-estate parcels as a single integrated transaction, with the operating company keeping the existing leases on the four leased locations in place. The deal was structured as a stock sale for the operating company plus separate real-estate purchase agreements for the two owned-building flagships, all closing simultaneously, with a US holding subsidiary newly formed by the Lim family as the acquiring entity.
The headline price was meaningful but not the highest LOI he received. About 84 percent of it came as cash at closing, funded by the Lim family’s multi-generational capital plus the cross-border bank financing across both the operating-company piece and the real-estate piece. About 5 percent was held back in escrow for 18 months (the longer-than-typical duration reflected the cross-border indemnification structure that the Lims’ counsel preferred and that we negotiated as the trade-off for the favorable cash-at-close percentage) to cover indemnification claims, a working capital adjustment, and a small carve-out for any state private-school-registration or curriculum-IP-transfer issues that could surface during the transition window. About 11 percent was a rollover equity stake into the newly formed US holding subsidiary, which gave Robert continued upside on the broader US-platform thesis if the Lim family executed on the further US acquisitions they planned, and gave the buyer reassurance that Robert would stay engaged through the integration and through the platform’s first follow-on acquisition. Wire hit on a Tuesday morning in October.
Robert stayed on as a paid President of US Operations for the Lim family’s US holding subsidiary for fourteen months after closing, which let him personally introduce his six location directors and his curriculum-and-operations lead to the new ownership, walk through the proprietary curriculum framework with the Lim family’s curriculum team in Singapore (two of whom relocated to Northern Virginia for the integration year), shape the AI-assisted personalized-learning product roadmap as a 2026 priority, and lead the diligence on the first follow-on US acquisition the platform completed nine months post-close in a sister metro. After fourteen months, Robert stepped back to a quarterly strategic-advisor role that gave him room to spend time with his kids in San Francisco and Seattle and that left Lisa fully retired for the first time in seventeen years.
What happened to Robert’s people.
Robert cared most about his six location directors, the long-tenured part-time tutors across the six locations (the four Fairfax County Public Schools teachers who had been moonlighting evenings since 2014, the three Loudoun County teachers who had built the Saturday SAT/ACT bench, the curriculum-and-operations lead who had been with the chain for eleven years), the family-by-family relationships that Lisa had personally maintained over more than a decade with parents who had now sent two and three kids through the chain, and the cohort of high-school juniors mid-cycle on college admissions consulting who had paid for full-program engagements through April of the following year. Lim Family Holdings was a third-generation operator who would actually run the US platform with their own family integration team rather than parachute in a corporate consultant from a Big Four playbook. That made the people part substantially cleaner than it would have been under a US PE-backed national roll-up that would have consolidated Robert’s six directors into shared-services regional positions and standardized the proprietary curriculum away in favor of the platform’s existing methodology.
The buyer kept all 41 employees, honored the existing pay structure across all six locations, and committed to keeping the six location directors in their roles with expanded autonomy under the broader US-holding governance. Robert’s curriculum-and-operations lead stepped into a US-platform-level role as Head of Curriculum, partnering directly with the Lim family’s curriculum team in Singapore on the AI-assisted personalized-learning product roadmap. The part-time tutor bench, including the four Fairfax County and three Loudoun County teachers who had been moonlighting for years, was preserved with formal stay-bonus packages tied to performance over the first eighteen months post-close. The family-by-family relationships were preserved by keeping Lisa on a part-time strategic-advisor basis through the end of the academic year for hand-off conversations with the long-tenured families. Every junior mid-cycle on college admissions consulting was honored under the existing engagement terms, with the same admissions consultants finishing out their cohorts.
Robert’s son flew in from San Francisco for closing weekend with his fiancée. His daughter flew down from Seattle for the closing dinner with her partner. Robert and Lisa took the rest of October off for the first time in seventeen years, used the time to plan a long-overdue six-week trip through Taiwan and Japan with both kids and their partners over the holidays, and started a quiet conversation about whether they wanted to spend part of every year living closer to one or both of the kids on the West Coast.
What Robert told us afterward.
Why owners who sell an education business with CGK keep coming back
About five months after closing, Robert called the Managing Director who had run his deal. He said two things that the Managing Director still tells new sellers about.
The first was about the eight-month wait. He said: “Three of the buyers who had been calling me were ready to move in thirty days, and two different M&A advisors I talked to before you told me they could take me to market right then. The reason I sold with you is that you told me the truth about the curriculum framework still living in my head and what that would look like to a strategic buyer who actually wanted to operationalize it. You told me the truth about the half-finished platform and the AI roadmap I had not yet committed to. You told me what would happen to the price if I went out without finishing those things, and you told me what would happen to the buyer pool, not just the price. I would have left a real number on the table and would have ended up with the wrong buyer.”
The second was about who he sold to. He said: “I almost signed with the US PE-backed platform because the headline price was bigger and the deal team had a slick presentation. The fact that you walked me through what each buyer would actually do with my six location directors, my part-time tutor bench, and the proprietary curriculum framework Lisa and I had built over sixteen years, what each buyer’s hold horizon would mean for the chain three and five years out, and how an integrated transaction with an international family-owned strategic was structurally different from a US fund-timer roll-up that wanted to carve out the real estate and standardize the curriculum, is a conversation I never even thought to have until you raised it. I sold to a buyer who is going to grow this chain with the team I built it with and treat the curriculum as a strategic asset, not absorb it.”
This is what we mean when we say we sit with you in the decision, not just the transaction. Robert is one composite story, but the pattern is real. The owners we work with who decide to sell an education business usually find their way to us through versions of Robert’s situation, and the relationships start with a long listening session and a free walkthrough, not a pitch.
What is different when you sell a private school.
Eleanor’s K-8 day school, the buyer pool, and the deal that closed
Robert’s story is one of three pathways most owners walk through when they sell an education business with CGK. The other two are different in important ways. Here is the second pathway. Eleanor Johnson was 62 and had been Head of School at an independent K-8 day school in a suburban Northeast metro for twenty-five years. The school did roughly $8 million a year in tuition revenue, served 380 students from kindergarten through eighth grade at an average tuition of about twenty-one thousand dollars, and employed about 120 people including division heads, classroom faculty, special-subject faculty, school counselors, admissions and advancement, facilities, and the head-of-school office. The school had been founded as a 501(c)(3) by a circle of academic families in the 1970s, had grown steadily, and now operated under a board with the kind of multi-generational alumni representation common to long-established independent schools. The board had been planning Eleanor’s succession for three years. The school had been approached by two regional independent-school networks, one religious-affiliated charter school holding company, and one mission-driven regional family education foundation that wanted to build a portfolio of long-hold independent schools.
The buyer pool for K-12 private schools is structurally narrower than the tutoring and learning-center pool. PE rollups are largely absent because the unit economics of an independent K-8 day school do not generate the kind of free cash flow PE platforms underwrite at scale, the regulatory profile is different (501(c)(3) governance, accreditation through regional bodies and the National Association of Independent Schools), and most board structures will not approve a buyer that intends to extract operating margin in the way a fund-backed strategic typically would. The active buyers tend to be: regional independent-school networks looking to add a flagship school to their footprint, religious-affiliated school networks with similar mission profiles, mission-driven family foundations and education-focused philanthropies building long-hold portfolios, and individual education-sector investors with operating-CEO backgrounds. CGK ran a process for Eleanor that surfaced fourteen serious buyers across these four buckets and narrowed to three management-presentation finalists. The winning buyer was a mission-driven regional family education foundation with no fund timer and a fifteen-year hold thesis.
The deal structure looked different from Robert’s. About 78 percent of the consideration came as cash at closing, funded by the foundation’s endowed capital. About 5 percent was held back in escrow for 12 months for indemnification and a working-capital adjustment, a shorter duration than Robert’s because the cross-border issue was not present and the foundation buyer’s diligence comfort was higher. About 17 percent was structured as a five-year mission-protection earnout tied to enrollment retention and explicit mission-compliance covenants (the school’s founding educational philosophy preserved, a defined floor on need-based financial aid, board representation maintained for three named alumni-family seats), an unusual structure that reflected the buyer’s desire to align long-term economic outcomes with mission preservation rather than to maximize short-term cash extraction. Eleanor stayed on as a non-voting Head of School Emeritus for eighteen months and then transitioned fully to a quarterly board-advisor role.
What is different when you sell a vocational school.
David’s regional vocational chain, the buyer pool, and the deal that closed
The third pathway most owners walk through when they sell an education business is the vocational and career-school pathway. David Ramirez was 51 and had founded a four-location regional vocational school chain across Texas and Oklahoma. The chain offered programs in cosmetology and barbering at all four campuses and medical assisting at three of the four. Annual revenue was roughly $11 million, with about $2.8 million in Seller’s Discretionary Earnings. About 82 percent of revenue came through Title IV federal financial aid, with the remainder from cash-pay students and state workforce-development funding streams. The chain held programmatic accreditation through the appropriate body for each program type and institutional accreditation that allowed continued participation in the Title IV federal aid program. David had been approached three times: twice by US PE-backed accredited career-college platforms vertically integrating regional vocational chains, and once by a regional Texas-based independent operator looking to expand into Oklahoma.
The buyer pool for vocational and career schools is structurally different from both Robert’s tutoring chain and Eleanor’s independent K-8 school. The dominant active buyer category is PE-backed accredited career-college platforms that have built operating playbooks around Title IV compliance, accreditation maintenance, and the gainful-employment regulatory framework that governs federally funded vocational programs. These platforms move efficiently on diligence because their playbook has been refined over multiple acquisitions, but their offers tend to come with extended Title IV compliance escrow durations because the federal audit window for any acquired Title IV recipient extends well beyond standard M&A indemnification timelines. Secondary buyers include regional independent vocational operators expanding multi-state, healthcare-systems and skilled-trades trade associations vertically integrating workforce development, and a small set of mission-driven workforce-development buyers. CGK ran a process for David that surfaced eleven serious buyers and narrowed to three management-presentation finalists. The winning buyer was a US PE-backed accredited career-college platform with seven existing campuses and a deliberate Texas-Oklahoma expansion thesis.
The deal structure reflected the Title IV exposure. About 81 percent of the consideration came as cash at closing, funded by the platform’s PE-fund equity plus committed senior debt. About 9 percent was held back in escrow for an extended 24-month duration (versus the 18 months on Robert’s deal and the 12 months on Eleanor’s), the longer duration covering the federal Title IV audit window for any post-close compliance issue that could surface during the recipient-of-record transition. About 10 percent was a rollover equity stake into the PE platform’s holding entity, which gave David continued upside if the platform executed on its broader Texas-Oklahoma roll-up thesis. David stayed on as Regional President for the platform’s South-Central US division for thirteen months, leading the diligence on the platform’s two follow-on acquisitions in the region post-close.
Ready to sell an education business? Where are you in Robert’s story?
If you are starting to think about how to sell an education business, whether that is a tutoring or learning-center chain like Robert’s, an independent K-12 day or boarding school like Eleanor’s, or a vocational and career-school operation like David’s, we should talk. There is no commitment and no pressure. The first conversation is free. The valuation walkthrough that follows is free when you are seriously thinking about selling, whether that is in a year, five years, or longer. We only charge for formal written valuations, and only when you actually need one for estate planning, a partner buyout, or another documentary purpose. Submit the form and a senior CGK Managing Director will reach out within one business day.
If you are Robert at month 1: just exploring
You are not sure if you want to sell yet. The competitive landscape keeps shifting, AI-assisted personalized-learning tools are rewriting what platform investment looks like, your kids have built careers in other fields, your spouse is hinting at retirement, you are curious about what your chain and your curriculum framework might be worth, or maybe a US PE-backed roll-up or an international strategic has been calling you. Most of our best engagements start here. Submit the form and we will schedule a working session. You walk away with a real number and a clear sense of what to do next, with no obligation to do anything.
If you are Robert at month 8: ready to go
You have done the work to clean up the business. The financials are tight. Your location director bench is solid across every campus. Your curriculum framework is documented in transferable form. Your platform-investment decisions are made and either finished or formally repositioned. Your outcomes data is tracked and packageable. Your real-estate structure is clean. Maybe a buyer is already in the conversation. You want to run a real process. Submit the form and we will be in touch within a business day to talk about timing, scope, and what your first 30 days as a CGK seller would look like.
If you are not sure where you are
Most owners are not sure. Submit the form and start with the conversation. We will figure out together where you are. We are equally happy to tell you to wait twelve months as we are to take you to market in three weeks.
Or call us directly at (888) 858-7191.
Start your own story
A senior CGK Managing Director will respond within one business day. Strictly confidential. For owners of education businesses doing $1.5M+ in annual revenue, including tutoring chains, learning centers, K-12 schools, and vocational and career schools. The first conversation and the valuation walkthrough that follows are free for any seller seriously thinking about selling, on any horizon.
Confidential. No obligation. Direct routing to a named CGK business broker, not a junior screener.
One of these eight people would lead your engagement.
When you decide to sell an education business with CGK, one named senior Managing Director stays with you from the first call through the wire transfer, just like Robert’s Managing Director stayed with him for eight months and then for the engagement that followed. Our Managing Directors come from Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds, Fortune 500 corporate finance, and operating-business leadership. Cornell MBA. U Chicago Booth MBA. CFA. CMT. Naval Academy. Goldman Sachs. Merrill Lynch. Deutsche Bank. AIG. T. Rowe Price.
What sellers say after they sell an education business (and other businesses) with CGK
I could not be happier with the experience I had selling my business with CGK. Greg did a detailed analysis of my business and helped me price and position it right for the market. After receiving multiple offers at full asking price, the rest of the process went very smoothly, and we closed in less than two months.
Hanna M.Selling my business was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had Wes by my side throughout the process. He brought perspective, pushed when necessary, and always had my best interests in mind. His experience and strategic approach allowed me to maximize the sale price while minimizing long-term risk and obligations. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose him as my broker.
Adam NevilleDerik located multiple interested strategic buyers that produced more than one serious offer. The negotiations were tough but Greg and Derik’s experience helped us overcome. We got a great result for our employees and for the owners. We would recommend them without reservation.
Bob TaylorWe sold a business that was 47 years old and being run by second generation within a year of working with Wes. CGK has a system that attracts serious prospects to review opportunities. Wes was able to make the overwhelming feeling of selling easy and to a certain extent enjoyable. I never felt alone or in the dark throughout the entire process.
Jennifer WilliamsWe decided to sell our company in 2025. Talked to another M&A company in the Houston area. We felt very comfortable with Greg and Matthew at CGK. Could not have made a better choice. From day 1 till final closing and even after 30+ days, they have been here helping us with documents and support during the transition. Thanks can not be said enough.
Rickey ThomasInside the Blueprint, on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News.
Robert’s son, the cloud-infrastructure engineer in San Francisco, is the one who first sent him a clip of CGK on Bloomberg. He had been catching the segment in the background during a Saturday-morning workout and recognized the firm name from a tutoring-industry trade article about how to sell an education business he had forwarded to his dad three months earlier. He sent him the link with a note that read “Dad, this is the firm.” CGK Business Sales is featured on Inside the Blueprint, the syndicated business television series. Our episode aired on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News. Watch the segment, then start a confidential conversation.
The CGK office Robert called was in his local Mid-Atlantic market. Yours might be one of these.
When you sell an education business with CGK, whichever office you reach, you get the entire firm. Robert worked with a CGK Managing Director based out of the firm’s Washington-Baltimore corridor, but his deal benefited from a buyer pool we sourced firm-wide, including the international family-owned strategic that ultimately won the integrated operating-plus-real-estate transaction. Click any city to learn about our local presence and the named Managing Director leading that market.
Other Questions Robert and Other Education Business Sellers Ask Us
Practical answers to what comes up before, during, and after the kind of engagement Robert, Eleanor, and David went through, when you sell an education business with CGK.