Sector coverage
Sell-side M&A advisory for founder-led and family-owned consumer brands, retailers, distributors and business services companies. Led by a senior banker from the first meeting to closing, and staffed with a senior advisor who spent twenty years as a CFO in retail and distribution.
Who we represent
Founder-led and family-owned companies with enterprise values between $5 million and $300 million: branded consumer products, specialty and multi-location retail, wholesale and route-based distribution, and the business services companies that serve them. Owners weighing a full sale, a majority recapitalization or a generational transition.
The acquirers in these sectors are professional: sponsor-backed platforms doing add-on acquisitions, strategic consolidators and family offices, most of them closing several transactions a year. Windsor Drake exists to put the same preparation, competitive tension and control of information on the seller’s side of the table.
What buyers underwrite
Gross margin by channel, customer and supplier concentration, and how much of the revenue repeats without the founder in the room. We rebuild the numbers the way a buyer’s diligence team will, before the buyer does.
Inventory turns, payment terms and the working-capital peg set at closing. Most price erosion in these sectors happens here, after the headline number is agreed.
The working-capital pegWho runs the company on the first day after closing. Sponsors price a management bench; strategic acquirers price the absence of one. We position both before launch.
How we run the sale
A written price range built from the firm’s transaction data, the acquirers most likely to pay it, and a clear verdict: sell now, sell later, or do not sell.
About the ReadoutRecast financials, the equity story a buyer can underwrite, and a buyer universe of 150 to 300 strategic acquirers, private equity platforms and family offices.
How we run a saleSix gated phases over roughly nine months: confidential outreach, management meetings, letters of intent, diligence and negotiation of the terms below the purchase price.
Sell-side M&ASenior advisor
Senior Advisor, Consumer, Retail & Business Services
Michael advises on consumer, retail, distribution and business services mandates. He spent more than twenty years as a CFO in retail and distribution across public, private-equity-backed and family-owned companies in the United States and Canada, and was involved in the $1.8 billion sale of 189 Zellers stores to Target Corporation.
On a Windsor Drake mandate he sits on the client’s side of the table through diligence and negotiation, where a CFO’s reading of the numbers decides what survives to closing.
Full biographyEvery inquiry is read and answered personally by a senior banker, usually within one business day. Confidential and without obligation.
