~$2B
in closed M&A transactions.
Best-seller
Know a business owner who’s thinking about what’s next? Your name travels with every introduction. Partner with us to help them build value or sell, choose how involved you want to be, and put a whole firm behind your name. We do the heavy lifting.
“Group” in our name is meant literally. Our strength is our network: the collective relationships, capabilities, and industry expertise of the people in it. Partners keep their independence and have all of it behind them.
Best-seller
An owner deciding whether to build value or sell a business they’ve spent years on needs two things at once: someone they trust, and a team that has done this many times. You don’t have to be both.
The owner keeps someone they trust in their corner. You choose your involvement. Our senior team, and the network behind it, does the rest.
No single advisor has every relationship, skill, or industry insight an engagement needs. A network does. Each engagement draws on the collective strength of ours, and every partner adds to it.
Strategic buyers and investment firms that buy companies (private equity), and the advisors around them, that our team and partners know, across many industries.
Deal execution, private equity, operations, and transaction accounting in-house, with partners who add depth where an engagement needs it.
Founders, executives, and advisors who know their industries firsthand: how the businesses run, what buyers look for, and what moves value.
What works in one industry often solves a problem in another. Partners, and the owners they introduce, get the benefit of what we learn across all of them.
Running a sale well takes more than relationships and judgment. It takes research, data, process, and people. We’ve built all of it, and partners have it behind them from the first conversation.
M&A Outlooks for the industries we serve, and weekly tracking of what buyers are paying, so you walk into every conversation with an owner current on their market.
A growing database of transactions, from public deals to industry and proprietary sources, so the ranges we share are grounded in evidence, not rules of thumb.
A database of strategic buyers, investment firms, and family offices, with what each looks for and how they work, so owners meet the right buyers, not just the obvious ones.
Built on our own experience and fed continuously by the best books, research, and practitioners, it helps us see hidden connections, second-order consequences, and what’s around the corner for each owner.
Every engagement runs on the same proven process, with a clear owner for every step, so the work meets the same standard whoever made the introduction.
Before your first introduction, we walk you through how a sale works, how buyers look at value, and how to open the conversation, with more depth if you’d like a bigger role.
Our partnership is built for founders and executives who aren’t done building: self-starters who hold themselves accountable and want the freedom to choose their own opportunities, without anyone managing their calendar.
You decide which owners to introduce, when, and how involved you’d like to be. There are no quotas and no one setting your schedule. You work on your terms, with your own judgment.
Your reputation travels with every introduction, so the work has to be excellent. A senior team runs every engagement the same way, to a standard you’ll be proud to put your name behind.
Taking an owner through a sale on your own means buyer-ready financials, buyer research, marketing materials, diligence, compliance, and months of managing the process. You shouldn’t have to build any of it. Partnering opens those opportunities without the overhead, and puts a whole network behind your relationships.
If you’ve sold a company, you know how hard the decision is, and how alone an owner can feel making it. Partnering lets you help the next founder through it, with a team behind you that has done it many times.
The network is stronger for its range: different relationships, industries, and perspectives.
Founders who have sold a company, former executives, board members, and investors who know owners and the industries they work in.
Accountants, attorneys, wealth advisors, bankers, and consultants who want a team they can trust when a client starts thinking about growth or a sale.
A friend, a former colleague, a customer, or a neighbor. If you know an owner who’s weighing what’s next, an introduction can help.
A relationship with a founder- or family-owned business, the drive to act on it, and a commitment to doing right by the owner. No background in buying and selling companies (M&A) or finance is needed: we bring that, and we’ll walk you through the basics. We’ll help you prepare for the first conversation, or have it with you.
Make an introduction and step back, or stay close all the way through. You choose, and your role is set in writing before you make the introduction.
Introduce us to the owner and step back. We’ll keep you posted.
Join key conversations, and be a sounding board for the owner along the way.
Work alongside our deal team through closing, helping head off what could stall the deal.
Wherever you land, our team does the heavy lifting: the numbers, the materials, the outreach, and the diligence.
The more involved roles call for specific experience. Beyond the introduction, we agree on each partner’s role case by case, at our discretion, based on what the engagement needs and on your bandwidth and capabilities.
Reach out anyway. With a few of the right questions, we can usually help you size up the opportunity and sketch some general options, before anyone commits to anything and without naming the owner.
We advise every client as if it were our own family’s business, even when that cuts against our own interest. We ask the same of everyone we partner with.
We decide which engagements we take on. If we’re not the right fit for an owner you introduce, we’ll say so and refer them to the best possible fit we know. Either way, the owner is better off for your introduction.
Every owner you introduce knows your role. Any compensation comes from McCombie Group, never from the owner.
Partner compensation. Partners are not registered representatives of McCombie Group’s broker-dealer, GT Securities, Inc. A partner who doesn’t hold a securities license may share in McCombie Group’s fees on advisory engagements, and on the sale or transfer of control of a privately held company where the partner’s role requires no securities license or registration, for example because the transaction qualifies for the federal M&A broker exemption and any applicable state exemption. Partners are not compensated on any transaction that would require one. Partnerships do not extend to capital-raising engagements: partners have no role in, and receive no compensation from, any engagement to raise debt or equity capital. McCombie Group determines eligibility for each engagement before any arrangement is made. State rules vary.
McCombie Group works with independent partners under written agreements. Nothing on this page is an offer of employment, a promise of compensation, or an offer to buy or sell any security. Each arrangement is subject to McCombie Group’s policies and to applicable law and regulation.
David W. McCombie IIIFounder & Chief Executive Officer
Author of Selling Your Business with Confidence (Wiley, 2024).
David also serves on the executive committee of the Miami chapter of YPO, the global community of chief executives.
Start with a conversation, and put our whole firm behind your next introduction. Not sure it makes sense? That’s what the first conversation is for. Please don’t share the owner’s name or confidential details until we’ve spoken.