Sunbelt Business Brokers of South Florida · Palm Beach · Broward · Miami-Dade
You’re curious about selling your business. I’m here to help.
I am a former investment banker and corporate development professional, and I help Florida business owners understand what their business is worth, connect them with qualified buyers, and close on terms that reflect what they built.
Transaction work representing over $3 billion in enterprise value
Public and private M&A transactions
Years of institutional finance experience before business brokerage
Fuqua School of Business. BBA in Finance, University of Miami
A note to owners
Most owners only do it once, and the process is more complex than most people expect.
When you sell a business, you negotiate against buyers who know how to analyze companies and structure deals. You deserve that level of experience on your side of the table.
Before becoming a business broker, I advised companies in investment banking and evaluated acquisitions from inside major corporations. I have seen how sophisticated buyers study a company, challenge its story, price risk, and decide whether to proceed. That perspective now works for the seller.
From the first conversation to closing day, I make sure your business reaches the right buyers at the right value, with complete confidentiality every step of the way.
Richard Ceballos · Business Broker, Sunbelt Business Brokers of South Florida
Wall Street deal experience
I have worked on transactions as an adviser and from inside the buyer’s organization. Each role built a skill that now matters when an owner takes a business to market.
Capital Markets
Rate derivatives & debt capital markets
Financing terms, interest rates, and lender requirements can reshape a transaction. That experience helps me see a deal through the eyes of the financing sources that often determine what a buyer can afford.
Investment Banking
Oil & gas investment banking
I built valuation analyses, prepared transaction materials, supported diligence, and learned how to turn financial and operating information into a clear investment case that can stand up to scrutiny.
Buy Side
Corporate development
At a Fortune 200 company, I evaluated acquisitions and divestitures from the buyer’s side, and saw how internal deal teams test strategic fit, challenge assumptions, assess risk, and make investment decisions.
Private Equity Backed
Corporate development
At a private equity backed industrials company, acquisition logic had to hold up under owner-level scrutiny: understand the business, identify the risks, and determine whether the deal made economic sense.
Today at Sunbelt
The companies may be smaller than the institutions where I began my career, but the transaction can matter far more to the person at the table. For many owners, a lifetime of work is riding on one deal.
What I do for sellers
As part of Sunbelt Business Brokers, I bring the reach and expertise of a larger platform to a customized and confidential sale process, so your business gets the professional guidance, attention, and visibility it deserves.
“A listing can attract interest. A disciplined process turns interest into a deal worth considering.”
01
What your business may be worth before going to market, including add-backs, earnings quality, buyer expectations, and what the numbers can support.
02
A comprehensive and confidential marketing package that positions your business clearly and favorably to the right target audience, with discretion at all times.
03
Inquiries screened, buyers pre-qualified, the NDA process managed, and help to analyze and select bids that are serious, qualified, and able to close.
04
Offers, due diligence, buyer and seller coordination, and closing, with the small details that can slow down a transaction taken care of.
Purchase price is only one part of the economics. Cash at closing, seller financing, working capital, contingencies, transition obligations, and closing conditions all affect what the seller receives.
The sale process timeline
Timeframes below are typical, not promises. Deals move at the speed of the slowest party, which is usually a lender or a landlord.
What you own, what you are hoping to do, and roughly when. No documents needed. Nothing leaves this conversation.
About 30 minutesThree years of financials, tax returns and the detail behind them. A defensible opinion of value and a clear view of what is holding it down.
One to three weeksRecast financials, a blind profile that describes the business without identifying it, and a confidential information memorandum.
Two to four weeksThe Business Brokers of Florida MLS, Sunbelt’s buyer network, and buyers who are a real fit. Nobody sees your name or numbers before an NDA and proof of funds.
One to four monthsPrice is one term among many. Cash at close, seller financing, earnouts, the training period, the non compete and working capital all move what a deal is worth to you.
Two to four weeksThe buyer verifies everything. Where step three was done properly this is administrative. Where it was not, this is where the price gets cut.
Four to eight weeksPurchase agreement, lease assignment, lender conditions, license transfers, and whatever transition period you agreed to.
Two to six weeks after diligenceMost deals that close run six to twelve months from first conversation to funded.
Preparation done before listing is the main thing that shortens it.
How a buyer determines what your business is worth
Net profit + your compensation + interest, taxes, depreciation & amortization + expenses that would not carry over to a new owner.
Most owners already have a number in mind. It usually comes from a competitor’s rumor, an industry rule of thumb, or what they need for retirement. Buyers do not price from any of those.
For most owner operated businesses that means seller’s discretionary earnings. That last category, the add-backs, is where deals are won and lost.
Beyond the earnings number
Documented processes and a second in command who can run the place are worth real money.
One customer at forty percent of revenue is a different business to a buyer than forty customers at one percent each.
Service contracts, maintenance agreements and repeat accounts all carry weight. Predictable is worth more.
Financials that tie back to your tax returns. Buyers check, and so do their lenders.
Remaining term, renewal options, and whether the landlord will consent to an assignment.
Buyers are often buying the crew as much as the contracts.
Confidentiality, in practice
Your business is marketed as a blind profile. It describes the industry, the region, the revenue range and the type of operation. It does not name you, your company, your address or your customers.
Your employees do not find out from me.
In most deals the right moment to tell key staff is after diligence is substantially complete and the buyer is committed, and that timing is your decision. If a competitor is a realistic buyer, we talk about that before anything goes to them.
Industries and areas I serve
Every industry prices differently and every one has its own paperwork that has to be sorted before closing.
Palm Beach, Broward & Miami-Dade County
With the rest of Florida as a secondary market. I represent buyers and sellers throughout the state.
Boca Raton · Boynton Beach · Jupiter · Wellington · Pompano Beach · Deerfield Beach
What this costs you
No upfront fee. No retainer.
I am paid a success fee at closing, and if the business does not sell you owe me nothing.
The valuation conversation, and everything up to the point you decide whether to go to market, costs you nothing and commits you to nothing. A good number of the owners I speak with go through that and then decide to wait two years, which is a perfectly good outcome.
Three years of tax returns, P&Ls and balance sheets, plus year to date.
Equipment list, lease, loan schedules, customer concentration.
Licenses, permits, franchise agreements, insurance policies.
You do not need any of this for a first conversation.
Current listings
Full details are released to qualified buyers after a signed Non-Disclosure Agreement. Listings as shown on Richard’s Sunbelt profile.
Listing ID 59775 · New
Listing ID 59952 · New
For serious business buyers
I work with qualified buyers who are looking for real acquisition opportunities, and help them think through valuation, cash flow, SBA financing, seller financing, due diligence, transition risk, and whether a deal actually makes sense.
In print · Acquisition Aficionado, issue 49
What changes when the buyer across the table is a private equity platform rather than an individual: the quality of earnings review, the cash-to-accrual conversion, the working capital peg, and what a broker has to do differently to protect the number on the cover page.
Read the Article (PDF) ↗Common questions
No, and a good number of the owners I talk to are two or three years out. That is the useful time to have the conversation, because knowing the number gives you time to fix whatever is dragging it down. Finding out at listing gives you no time at all.
Not from me. Your business is marketed as a blind profile, buyers sign an NDA and show proof of funds before they learn who you are, and the timing of telling your staff is your call.
Most deals that close run six to twelve months from first conversation to funded. Listing is only part of that, and due diligence after a letter of intent regularly adds two months on its own. Preparation done before you list is what compresses the timeline.
No. A broker opinion of value is a market based estimate built from comparable sales and financing capacity, and it is what you use to go to market. A certified appraisal is a separate, formally regulated exercise, and it is what you need for tax, litigation or estate purposes.
That is worth a conversation before you respond. An unsolicited offer with no other bidders at the table is the weakest negotiating position an owner can be in, and it tends to be priced accordingly.
Not always. Be aware that deals with some seller financing tend to close more often and on better terms than all cash demands, because a seller willing to carry paper reads to a buyer as a seller who believes the business will keep performing.
Start with a confidential valuation conversation
A private conversation will help you understand value, timing, buyer interest, and what a sale process may look like for your business. Anything you tell me stays with me, whether or not we end up working together.
Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 6:00pm Eastern
Sunbelt Business Brokers of South Florida
636 US Highway 1, Suite 103
North Palm Beach, FL 33408
