Sell Your Houston Business at Full Value, Without the Word Getting Out.

The process to sell your Houston business runs in nine steps. Most owners only ever do this once, so here is the whole arc up front.

1. The confidential conversation. You talk with a senior CGK principal about the company, your timeline, and what you want from the exit. No commitment, no cost, and nothing leaves the room.

2. The recast and the valuation. We rebuild your financials to show true owner earnings and give you a defensible value range. If the number does not work for you yet, you leave with a clear picture of what would change it.

3. Preparing the story. We build the confidential information memorandum, the document serious buyers read after signing an NDA. It presents the business at its best: the customer base, the team, the equipment, the growth levers, and the recast numbers.

4. Confidential marketing. The company goes to market without its name on it. A short, anonymous profile reaches qualified buyers: individuals, private equity groups, family offices, and strategic acquirers, in Houston and nationally through CGK’s shared pipeline across 11 markets.

5. Buyer qualification and NDAs. Every interested buyer signs a confidentiality agreement and shows financial capability before learning the company’s identity. Information after that is released in stages, from least sensitive to most sensitive, on the cadence serious buyers expect.

6. Meetings and offers. Qualified buyers meet you, ask their questions, and put offers on the table. Competing interest is what moves price and terms in your favor, and creating it is the core of what a sell-side firm does.

7. The letter of intent. You pick the best combination of price, structure, and buyer credibility, and sign an LOI that locks the framework while the buyer verifies everything.

8. Due diligence and financing. The buyer’s team confirms the financials, contracts, licenses, and lease while their financing closes. On SBA-financed deals, the lender’s underwriting runs alongside diligence, and CGK keeps both moving on schedule.

9. Closing and transition. Purchase agreement, funds wired, keys handed over, and a transition period where you teach the buyer what only you know. From signed LOI to funded close is commonly 60 to 120 days.

Owners ask about confidentiality before they ask about price, and rightly so. The process is built for it. Your company is marketed anonymously, buyers sign NDAs before learning who you are, and the information they receive afterward is staged so that the most sensitive material, like named customers and named employees, is held until the deal is well into the purchase agreement stage.

Inside the company, you decide who knows and when. Most sellers tell no one until the deal is certain, then tell key people with retention arranged and the story straight. Done this way, the announcement lands as good news: a committed new owner, a founder who chose the timing, and jobs that continue. That is the normal outcome of a properly run process, and it is how we run every engagement to sell your Houston business.

Waiting for the perfect year. Owners hold out for one more record year and ride the cycle down instead. Buyers pay for the trend they can see. Selling into strength beats selling after the peak, every time.

Negotiating alone with an unsolicited buyer. The buyer who approached you has done this before and has no competition unless you create it. Even one credible alternative at the table changes the price and the terms. Get a valuation before you respond seriously to anyone.

Pricing off a rumor. What a competitor supposedly got tells you nothing about your recast earnings, your customer concentration, or your equipment. Companies priced off rumors sit on the market and go stale. Companies priced off a defensible recast sell.

Handing over sensitive information too early. Enthusiastic sellers sometimes send customer lists and full financials to the first interested party, unqualified and un-vetted. A structured process releases information in stages to qualified buyers only, and loses nothing by doing so.