Gulf Coast business brokers and M&A advisors

Energy, ports and the companies that serve them

The Gulf Coast economy is built around energy and shipping. Refineries and petrochemical plants line the coast from the Houston Ship Channel to Beaumont and Port Arthur, and the ports move cargo in and out of the state. Houston adds the Texas Medical Center, NASA's Johnson Space Center and the headquarters of many energy companies, while Sugar Land and The Woodlands have grown into corporate and residential centers of their own.

Around those anchors sit the privately held companies buyers look for: industrial service and maintenance contractors, fabricators and machine shops, distributors of parts and supplies, and residential trades serving a metro area that sprawls across several counties. Galveston and the smaller coastal towns add marine, tourism and port-related businesses.

Selling a Gulf Coast company through the energy cycle

Buyers of Gulf Coast companies want to know how much of the revenue follows oil and gas prices. A company that serves refineries and plants with recurring maintenance often looks steadier than one tied to new drilling. One that also serves healthcare, government or residential customers looks steadier still. We show buyers how your revenue behaved through past cycles, using a recast of several years of results.

Storm exposure, insurance costs and customer concentration come up regularly in due diligence here. Addressing them up front, with documentation, keeps a deal from losing value late in the process. So does a clear account of which contracts renew automatically and which must be won again each year, and of any safety programs and certifications your industrial customers require.

Representing owners from Houston to Beaumont

We are sell-side only: we represent the owner, never the buyer. A free, confidential first conversation can happen at your office or at your accountant's or lawyer's office nearby, and it ends with our opinion of what the company could bring. Once engaged, we prepare a blind profile, a confidential package and an HD video, and we show them first to the qualified buyers and private equity groups in our own database. None of them learns who you are until they have registered with us and agreed in writing to keep it confidential.

When offers come in, we have a fiduciary duty to present every one of them to you in person, and you decide whether to accept, reject or counter. Buyers who know they are competing against other letters of intent tend to sharpen their price and terms. If a buyer needs financing, we can help put together an SBA loan, a conventional bank loan or a seller note. The firm has sold manufacturing and distribution businesses in Texas, and our fee is due only if your company sells.