~$2B
in closed M&A transactions.
Best-seller
McCombie Group is an investment bank and an advisory firm for buying and selling companies (M&A), working with founder- and family-owned mid-market businesses.
Our team has led investments in private companies as principals (private equity), so we know how a buyer will look at your business before one does.
Based in Coral Gables, Florida, we work with owners across the country.
Free and confidential: about two minutes of questions, then a preliminary value range by email.
Most owners who talk to us aren’t selling yet.
Best-seller
Selling is one moment. Our M&A advisory work for founder- and family-owned businesses covers every stage: making the business more valuable, raising capital or taking money out, and running the sale process when it’s finally time. Most owners we work with start years before any transaction.
Make the business worth more to a buyer, years before you sell.
Raise capital for the business, or take some money off the table, without handing over the keys.
When it’s time, a confidential, competitive process run by dealmakers who’ve sat on every side of the table.
Owners rarely arrive knowing which of these they need. That’s normal-- sorting it out is the first conversation, it’s confidential, and it’s useful even if you do nothing for years.
Before we built an M&A advisory practice, we sat where buyers sit: advising large family offices on direct investments and leading private equity investments as principals, with our own capital at risk. That experience shapes how we advise owners in three ways.
And what they discount: owner dependency, customer concentration, and financials that won’t survive diligence. We help you fix those before a buyer finds them.
Leverage peaks before the letter of intent. We know the moves buyers make after it, so we plan for them while you still have competition on your side.
Payments that depend on future results (earnouts), escrows, working capital targets, and rollover equity decide how much of the headline price reaches you. We build the numbers in-house from day one, so we negotiate the terms, not just the price.
What we believe
Intentional preparation gives you the best odds of a premium outcome. You’ve dedicated years, often a lifetime, to this business. You owe it to yourself to get full value for it.
We’re with you through the whole process, not just the closing. We get to know you, your business, and what matters to you, and we try to have some fun along the way.
Selling a business you built is personal, and it often involves family, partners, and people who have been loyal to you for years. Much of our work is coaching owners through those decisions, and our own experience as sellers helps us walk that road with you.
If we’re not the right fit, whether on chemistry, expertise, or market timing, we’ll tell you and point you to a better option. Our reputation matters more than any one engagement.
We invest serious time and energy in every engagement, and we ask for the same commitment in return: to the transaction, to getting full value, and to making the changes a smooth closing requires. That alignment gives you the best chance at a great outcome.
Every engagement is run by a senior team, the same way every time.
David wrote Selling Your Business with Confidence so owners could see the whole process before they’re in it. First conversations work the same way: what buyers will see, what drives your range, and what you could do about it, whether or not you hire us.
We publish annual M&A Outlooks on the industries we work in, so our advice reflects what buyers are paying for this year, not a decade ago.
Our core team covers deal execution, private equity, operations, and transaction accounting in-house. When an engagement calls for it, we add senior advisors and former C-suite executives with directly relevant experience.
Our aim isn’t to keep pace with other advisors. It’s to set the standard owners should expect. Industry recognition and published work are one outside check on how we’re doing.
I trust David and his team because they not only have delivered time and again, but because they act more like a partner than an outside advisor.
Their commitment to keeping this process moving ensured that I received the best possible outcome and a timely closing.
Working with McCombie Group was (and continues to be) an outstanding experience.
More from our clients, and our transactions →
Testimonials reflect the experience of these clients and may not be representative of the experience of other clients. They are not a guarantee of future performance or success.
We’re blessed to be living the American Dream, and we feel a deep responsibility to support causes and organizations in our community that give others that same opportunity. We focus our charitable work on causes that build resilience and expand opportunity.
Veterans sacrificed so much, including their prime working years, to defend our values. Beyond donating to the Wounded Warrior Project, we prioritize hiring veterans and encourage our partners to do the same.
No one should go hungry, especially at Thanksgiving. We donate complete meals for dozens of families, and our team members hand them out themselves.
Anybody can face setbacks. We believe the answer to homelessness is helping people reach long-term self-sufficiency, and we helped Chapman Partnership design its strategic plan, focused on the roadblocks residents face in becoming job-ready.
Involved with a cause that could use our help? Tell us about it →
David has studied it, done it, and written the book on it: Selling Your Business with Confidence: A Practical Playbook for Mid-Market Owners, published by Wiley. A senior team runs every engagement the same way, held to David’s exacting standards.
An entrepreneur first, and a dealmaker by trade, David founded McCombie Group in 2010 and has since bought, run, and sold businesses himself, as a private equity investor with his own capital at risk and as an owner. When he negotiates against private equity, he’s negotiating against a playbook he has run himself.
Trained at Harvard Law School, McKinsey, and Citigroup, he built McCombie Group’s M&A advisory practice to close the gap most owners run into: small brokers who list businesses on one side, and Wall Street banks that save their best people for billion-dollar clients on the other.
David also serves on the executive committee of the Miami chapter of YPO, the global community of chief executives.
David’s full bio →Even if a sale is years away, an honest read on your business and your market is useful now. No obligation.
Most owners who talk to us aren’t selling yet.