What your company is worth today. And what raises the price.
For owners who have not decided to sell. You leave with the earnings a buyer would accept, who would buy the company, and the moves that raise the price: buy, build, partner or sell. Four to six weeks.
Request a Growth and Exit PlanA sale is one of four paths. Most owners price only one.
Keep building, buy a competitor, take a capital partner, or sell. Each path has a price, and the price of each depends on the same earnings. The plan works all four against your own numbers.
In the 2023 national survey of 1,162 owners. The rest will decide the path when a buyer, a partner or a lender forces the decision.
Share of investment bankers’ engagements that did not close on the gap between the owner’s price and the market’s. Pepperdine, 2024.
The average in private equity deals through the third quarter of 2025. A sale is often a partnership with a different name.
Across private-target deals; 35 percent of deals under $25 million. The path you choose decides how much of the price is cash.
Four answers, worked against your own numbers.
Your adjusted earnings traced to source documents, with every adjustment marked supported or unsupported.
The Pre-Market Assessment →The buyer types active in your sector, from the criteria buyers keep on file with Capital Row.
Who is buying, by sector →Keep building, buy a competitor, take a capital partner, or sell. What each path does to the price, and what it needs first.
Where each path leads →The path we would take, in order, and a decision session to go through it. Yours to keep.
How it works →Four steps, and you decide what happens after each one.
- 1A conversation
About the business, its market and what you want from the next two years.
- 2An agreed information request
Scope is agreed in writing before any work begins.
- 3Four to six weeks of work
Your numbers traced to source, your buyers mapped, and each path worked out.
- 4A written plan and a decision session
The plan is yours to keep. Nothing reaches a buyer without your written permission.
Whichever path you choose, the next step is already mapped.
A check each quarter on the numbers that move the price, against the plan from the assessment. Sell later, from a stronger record.
The Pre-Market Assessment →A search for the right company, the evidence on it before a letter is priced, and acquisition financing introductions.
Acquisition financing →Introductions to financing and capital partners, with the business story read first.
Acquisition financing →The Sell-Side QoE, then a sale. Capital Row can represent you in the sale under a separate engagement.
The Sell-Side QoE →What each path does to the price, and what it needs first.
| Path | What it does to the price | What it needs first | The next step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build | Raises it over time, if the numbers that move the price are the ones that grow. | A quarterly check on retention, margin and concentration against the plan. | The plan from the assessment, then the assessment again next year. |
| Buy | Raises size, which raises the multiple in every published series, and adds integration risk. | A target read the way a buyer reads yours, and financing arranged before the letter. | A search, and acquisition financing. |
| Partner | Takes money off the table now and keeps a share of the price later. | Earnings a partner can underwrite, and a story a lender can read. | Financing introductions. |
| Sell | Sets the price once, on the earnings a buyer accepts. | The preparation review, then the Sell-Side QoE. | The sale, under a separate engagement. |
Owners who have not decided to sell.
One number both can read, and the four paths worked out so the partner who wants to stay and the partner who wants to leave see the same arithmetic.
What the business is worth against the offer, and what the other three paths would return. The first number is rarely the last.
Which of the numbers that move the price to work on, and in which order, with a check each quarter.
The target read the way a buyer reads yours, the financing read before the letter, and the combined price worked out.
A valuation both generations can read, and the paths if the next generation does not want it.
Earnings read the way a lender will read them, and what the records support before the application.
Plain answers, then a conversation if you want one.
How is this different from the Pre-Market Assessment?
The assessment gives you a valuation range and the earnings behind it. The plan starts from that read and works out all four paths against your numbers: who would buy, what raises the price, and what each path needs first. Four to six weeks.
Do I have to choose a path at the end?
No. The plan is yours to keep. A decision session at the end walks through the four, and you decide, then or later.
Who would buy it?
The buyer types active in your sector, from the criteria buyers keep on file with Capital Row. No buyer hears about you without your written permission.
What if the answer is that I should not sell?
Then the plan says so, with the path that returns more. We will not promise a price and we will not recommend a sale the numbers do not support.
Decide with the numbers in front of you.
A sale is one of four paths. The Growth and Exit Plan shows you all four, worked against your own earnings, before you choose.
Scope is agreed in writing before any work begins. Nothing from your plan reaches a buyer, or anyone else, without your written permission.