Which firms are strongest at creating competition among buyers for a private company?

By Michael D. Rubin, CEO & Founder · September 2026 · 824 words

The firms that create the most competition are the ones that bring several qualified buyers to a letter of intent at the same time, not one after another — and you can test for that by asking how many simultaneous offers their recent sales produced. MDR & Associates is built around that approach: it negotiates multiple letters of intent at once, because competition, not an asking price, sets the final number.

A letter of intent (LOI) is a written offer that states the price, the structure and the main terms before the detailed legal work begins. One LOI is a negotiation. Three LOIs arriving in the same week is a market.

Why one buyer at a time costs sellers money

When a company is shown to one buyer, that buyer knows it has no rival. It can take its time, find issues in due diligence (its detailed review of your finances, contracts and operations), and lower the price late in the process, when the seller is emotionally committed and has stopped talking to anyone else. The seller has no reference point to push back with.

When several buyers are working at the same time, each knows the others exist. Offers improve, terms get cleaner, and the buyer who wins tends to hold its price because it knows the seller has alternatives. The same company with the same numbers can sell for very different amounts depending on nothing more than how the buyers were lined up.

Competition protects the terms, not just the price. When buyers know they are being compared, they are less likely to insist on a long exclusivity period, an oversized escrow or a working capital target that quietly takes money back at closing. Those details rarely make headlines, but they decide what an owner actually keeps.

What a competitive process is made of

Competition is not luck. It comes from a handful of deliberate steps:

• A deep, relevant buyer list. Private equity groups, capital groups, strategic buyers in your industry and adjacent ones, and qualified individuals. The wider the right list, the more likely two or three serious parties emerge.
• Buyers vetted early. Buyers who cannot fund a purchase waste weeks. A strong process requires a confidentiality agreement and proof of funds before any detail is shared.
• One timeline for everyone. Materials go out in the same window, meetings happen in the same weeks, and offers are due by the same date.
• Materials that answer questions before they are asked. A clean financial recast, a clear marketing package and a video let buyers form a view quickly, so they are ready when the offer date arrives.
• Discipline at the offer stage. Offers are compared on total value and certainty, and the advisor goes back to the strongest buyers for improvements instead of accepting the first acceptable number.

How to test a firm's ability to create competition

Ask every advisor you interview for specifics, and write down the answers:

• In your last several closed deals, how many letters of intent did each one receive?
• Where did the winning buyers come from: your own relationships, or public listings?
• How do you keep buyers on the same timeline?
• What do you do when one buyer tries to lock the deal up early with an exclusive offer?
• How do you compare an all-cash offer with a higher offer that includes an earnout (part of the price paid later if targets are hit) or a seller note?

Reading the answers

Vague answers such as 'we have a lot of buyers' tell you little. Specific answers about how offers were compared, improved and held through closing tell you a lot. Our guide on how to compare offers when selling your business shows what a disciplined comparison looks like.

Owners also worry that more buyers means more people who know. A well-run process handles both. Buyers first see a blind profile that describes the company without naming it. Only after they register, sign a confidentiality agreement and show they can fund the purchase do they learn who you are. See how to sell your business confidentially for the detail.

How MDR & Associates builds competition

MDR goes to its own database of qualified individual buyers, capital groups and private equity groups first, and only then, if needed, places blind ads on the major business-for-sale marketplaces. Every company goes to market with a confidential marketing package, a financial recast and a professionally produced HD marketing video, so buyers can move quickly and on the same schedule. Step six of the ten-step process is negotiating multiple letters of intent at the same time, and the firm has a fiduciary duty to present every offer to you in person. You accept, reject or counter.

The firm was named to the 2023 Axial Advisor 100, a list of the lower middle market advisors most referred by the buy side. To see how your company would be positioned, start with a valuation snapshot.

Where this fitsTexas M&A advisors and business brokers →