Seven things a buyer's accountant finds first
What each one costs at the sale table, and how long it takes to fix.
CPA-led business brokerage · Chicago and the six counties
We get Chicagoland businesses ready to sell. Then we sell them.
Most owners hire a broker for the sale and lean on a CPA for the numbers, and the two rarely talk. Here they are the same people. We clean up the books, fix what a buyer will push on, price the business with evidence, and run the sale through closing. When the fit is right, we make the offer ourselves.
Led by a former IRS auditor
60+ closed deals on the team
Fees in writing before we go to market
List with us, or sell to us
Start here
What would your business sell for?
Tell us three things: revenue, industry, and where to send it. Within two business days you'll have a CPA-prepared value range and the two or three items a buyer's accountant would raise first.
It's free, it's confidential, and there is nothing to sign. If the honest answer is "wait two years," you'll hear that too. If you'd rather see the math first, how much a business like yours is worth walks through the multiples buyers actually pay.
Three ways to work with us
Prepare, sell, or sell to us. The fees are the same on the phone as they are here.
Sell a business
We list it, price it with evidence, and run the sale to closing.
10% success fee, in writing before market
Blind profile, NDAs before financials, buyers vetted before they learn your name. The people who cleaned up your numbers sit at the table through diligence.
How a sale runs Exit-Readiness ReviewTwo weeks with your real numbers. A scorecard, a defended range, a fix list.
$4,500 flat
We look at the five things buyers test first and tell you what each one is costing you. Credited against our fee if we later sell the business.
What the Review covers Sell to LakeshoreSometimes the buyer is us. One prepared buyer, no process, no commission.
$0 commission when we buy
We invest in and acquire Chicagoland businesses. If we want to buy yours, we say so in writing up front, and you stay free to take it to market instead.
What we buyOne to three years out? The Sale-Ready Program closes the gaps with your team, month by month, from $2,500 a month.
Why the accounting comes first
Buyers pay for proof, not potential.
Every serious buyer sends an accountant before they send an offer. That accountant rebuilds your earnings from the bank statements up, tests every add-back, and prices the risk of you walking out the door. Most owners meet that person for the first time in diligence, after the price has been agreed. That is where deals get cut by 10 or 20 percent, or fall apart.
We put that person on your side of the table first. Our managing advisor spent fifteen years examining businesses for the IRS and reads a company the way a buyer's accountant does. We fix what that reading finds before anyone else sees it.
15
years examining businesses as an IRS auditor, now on the owner's side
60+
closed deals across the team, from machine shops to dental practices
2 days
from your request to a confidential value range in your inbox
6
counties, in person, at your place of business, as business brokers in Chicago and the suburbs
Nobody minds the years before the sale, and that's where most of the money is won or lost. We work those years and the sale itself, with the same people the whole way through.
Lakeshore Exit Partners · Chicago
Who we serve
Family- and founder-owned. About $1 million to $15 million in revenue. Chicago and the collar counties.
The businesses
- Machine shops, fabricators, and food producers
- Distributors, wholesalers, and trucking firms
- HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and landscaping companies
- Dental, veterinary, engineering, and accounting practices
- Agencies and business-services firms
The places
- Chicago and Cook County
- DuPage and Kane
- Lake and McHenry
- Will County
- Northwest Indiana, by arrangement
Insights
Things owners ask us, written down.
What Chicagoland businesses actually sell for
Multiples by industry and size, from the sources buyers use, and why the range is wide.
Business broker fees in Chicago: what's normal and what isn't
Success fees, retainers, minimums, and the questions to ask before you sign a listing agreement.
Thirty minutes with a CPA. Your numbers, straight answers.
Pick two windows and we'll confirm one within a business hour. Or call the office, weekdays 9 to 5. A person answers.