What is it worth, really?
A valuation built the way a buyer will build it, and a list of what moves the number.
- Value-gap analysis
- Buyer-side diligence preview
Exit planning for privately held companies
Most owners plan the business for thirty years and the exit for thirty days.
We advise founders and families on the largest transaction of their lives: when to sell, to whom, and what the company must look like before it does.
Our approach
About Marrow & Vale
An exit is not an event. It is a discipline.
Marrow & Vale is an independent advisory firm. We take no commissions from buyers, lenders or insurers, so the only side we can be on is the owner's.
Principle · 01
Value is transferable or it is not value
A company that cannot run without its owner is a job, and buyers price it that way.
Principle · 02
The owner is half the plan
Financial readiness and personal readiness are separate problems. We work on both.
The practice
Three questions every owner must answer.
Our work is organized around the questions, not around our departments.
Who should own it next?
Family, managers, employees or an outside buyer. Each path has a price and a consequence.
- Succession options
- Deal structure and tax
What happens to you?
The personal plan that most exits skip, and most owners regret skipping.
- Life-after planning
- Wealth transition
The method
A discipline, practiced in order.
01
Assess
A ninety-day review of the business, the owner and the gap between them.
02
Build
Quarterly work to raise transferable value and remove dependence on the owner.
03
Transact
We run the process, or sit beside your banker and attorney while they do.
Who we advise
Owners at the decision.
- Photo: Manufacturers
Manufacturers
Second-generation owners weighing a sale against a family transfer.
$10M to $80M revenue - Photo: Professional firms
Professional firms
Partners planning internal succession.
Engineering, accounting, law - Photo: Distributors
Distributors
Founders approached by a strategic buyer.
Regional and national - Photo: Family companies
Family companies
Siblings and cousins who must agree before anyone signs.
Multi-owner
In their words
Owners, after the close.
"They told me not to sell that year. It cost them a fee and made me eleven million dollars."
Sample quote, founder, industrial distributor
"The first advisor who asked what I would do on the Monday after."
Sample quote, second-generation owner
"Every buyer question had already been asked, by them, two years earlier."
Sample quote, managing partner
The record
Measured in outcomes, not hours.
140
owner exits advisedSales, family transfers and management buyouts since 2009.
3 to 5 yrs
typical engagementThe work starts long before a buyer appears.
92%
closed on the owner's termsStructure, timing and role after the sale.
- Fee only, no commissions
- Certified exit planning advisors
- Independent of any buyer
Request a conversation
Begin with one confidential hour.
No presentation and no obligation. We will ask about the company, the timeline and what you want your life to look like after.
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