Haircuts Ltd.

Location

Western Suburbs
Newton, Wellesley and Natick, MA

Business Broker

Stephanie Bloch

Situation

The owner of three salons in the western suburbs of Boston, MA had started this business more than 30 years ago.

He had built a highly successful business with loyal employees; some of whom had been with him for more than 30 years! This enabled him to be an absentee owner for the past several years. He had developed a business model that promoted convenience while offering consistent, quality results in a warm and welcoming environment that felt like a family-owned small business.

The locations of the salons were strategically appealing for an owner to easily allocate staff as needed from one location to another and enabled a new owner to easily be at each location.

When he decided it was time to retire, his accountant recommended he work with BayState Business Brokers to help him achieve his goals.

BayState Business Brokers’ Approach

Business Broker Stephanie Bloch immediately connected with the owner and knew of the success of his salons as her family enjoyed the convenience and quality of the services provided.

With strong financials including cash flow for each location, Stephanie was confident that there would be a lot of interest in the opportunity to purchase this business that was well-known, well-located and successful.

As she and the owner discussed his goals for the sale, he emphasized the importance of finding an owner who would be a good fit; who would expand the business while maintaining the welcoming, small business feel that he had established and who would be good to his loyal employees and clientele.

The listing generated a lot of interest, resulting in multiple signed letters of intent (LOI), with many over the asking price. Zoom meetings were scheduled with each prospective buyer who had submitted a LOI, the owner and business broker, Stephanie Bloch. Bloch facilitated each meeting to enable the prospective buyer to present their interest, answer questions and to help the owner and broker assess which buyer emerged as the leading candidate to buy the business.

After the Zoom meetings were complete, the owner and Stephanie separately ranked their list of the ten prospective buyers to review. Their lists were the same! There was a clear leader who they both agreed was a great fit for the business including personality and vision.

Results

The seller and buyer developed a good relationship early in the process which contributed to a pleasant and respectful process as the broader advisory team worked to negotiate and facilitate to closing, led by Stephanie Bloch. An SBA loan was secured through the commercial lender at Live Oak. As closing neared, the closing attorney for the buyer removed himself from the team, but thankfully another professional with relevant expertise and experience stepped in to enable the deal to progress to close. The seller agreed to support the new owner in any way, including coming into to each salon during the initial three months of the transition, as he was committed to helping the new owner who did not have industry experience and was likely going to change careers from his existing job.