What every buyer examines.
Financial credibility
Can a stranger trust your numbers without trusting you? We bring the books to a clean, GAAP-ready standard: traceable revenue, documented add-backs, honest margins.
Owner-dependence
If you took a month off, what breaks? Buyers pay for a business, not a job with your name on it.
Customer durability
One customer over about 20% of revenue and the offer drops. We fix the mix before a buyer prices it.
Team & process
Will the key people stay, and does it run without you? We build the SOPs, manuals, and internal controls that prove it does.
The deal file
Every document diligence will request, assembled before anyone asks. Prepared owners get cleaner terms and faster closings.
Who's actually buying in Chicagoland.
These are the rooms we take your listing into. And sometimes the buyer is us: Lakeshore invests in and acquires Chicagoland businesses directly.
Roll-ups & platform buyers
PE-backed groups consolidating trades, services, and niche manufacturing. They've done this fifty times; you're doing it once.
Strategic & competitor buyers
The company across town that wants your customers and your crew. Often the best price, always the biggest confidentiality risk.
Individual buyers & searchers
Operators buying one good business to run. Financing-dependent and very sensitive to clean books.
Insiders & family
The friendliest conversation and the most underprepared deal. Readiness protects the relationship as much as the price.
Family- and founder-owned, $1M to $15M.
Makers & movers
Machine shops, fabricators, food producers, distributors, trucking and logistics.
Trades & services
HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, landscaping. The businesses roll-ups are buying right now.
Professional practices
Agencies, engineering firms, medical and dental practices with loyal books of business.
Done with you, at your business.
- In person, on site. Shop floor, warehouse, back office. Chicagoland only, on purpose.
- Plain English. Fix lists a busy owner can act on, not binders.
- Your advisors stay yours. We coordinate with your CPA and attorney.
- Confidential by default. Most teams never know an exit is being prepared.