Pacific Business Sales
At a Glance
The California seat on this shelf, and a seller's broker that already speaks SBA to buyers.
- Pricing
- Success Fee, 'No upfront fees or retainers. Compensation is only upon closing the deal.' No percentage is published.
- Best For
- California buyers, especially in manufacturing, construction or aerospace, who want an SBA-aware seller's broker
- Kind
- One firm, one bench of brokers, one process.
- Footprint
- Names California. It works beyond the states it names, so one it does not name is worth asking about rather than ruling out.
- Sells
- California manufacturing, construction, aerospace and B2B service companies, brokered at $1M to $10M of gross sales with an M&A line from $10M to over $100M. A third band, $1M to $50M with no measure attached, sits on the homepage, and the transactions it displays run $650,000 to $4.9M.
- Publishes a size, and not one a buyer can use.
- Seller Fee
- Publishes the structure. It says when a fee is owed and on what basis, but names no number, so the amount takes a call.
- Buyer Fee
- Says nothing about a buyer fee. Its buyer-facing pages say nothing either way about what a buyer pays.
- Works For
- Represents buyers. Names a buy-side service a buyer engages, so somebody on this list can be working for you. None of them publishes what it costs, so ask that first.
- Before It Shows You Anything
- Wants proof of funds before it shows you a business. Proof of funds or a personal financial statement, alongside the NDA. Expect to show what you can actually spend before you see a single set of books.
- A Buyer Profile that collects the same facts a proof-of-funds request would, gathered inside the profile rather than asked for separately.
- Roadmap Stages
- 2. Define & Test Your Thesis4. Source & Screen Deals
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Covers California, which the rest of this shelf leaves open, at a band that sits on the audience
- Publishes an SBA 7(a) financing explainer for buyers, which is the instrument most of these deals use
- Names a real trade specialization rather than claiming every industry
- States its fee structure in one sentence covering both the retainer and the trigger
Cons
- No percentage and no minimum
- One state, described by region rather than enumerated, so there is nothing finer than California to go on
- Its own claims of over 25 years and a 2002 founding do not reconcile on the same page
What Searchers Say
Fee sentence, deal band, regions and specialization read from its own pages. Its former domain pacificbusinesssales.com redirects to pbsbrokers.com, which is the live domain.
How to Approach
Pacific Business Sales is a brokerage, and it works for the seller rather than for you, so this is how that side of the table comes in and what it is deciding about you.
The Typical Arc
- A teaser and an NDA, before you see the name of the business.
- A call with the listing broker, who is screening you as much as answering you.
- The CIM, then a seller meeting the broker schedules and usually sits in on.
- Your offer, carried by the broker to the seller they represent.
What It Weighs
- Whether your money is real: how much is cash, and where the rest is coming from.
- Whether your criteria are specific enough to match against a listing.
- How fast you move, because the fee arrives on a close rather than on a conversation.
How to Prepare
- Write the one page a broker asks for before you inquire. Buyer Profile Builder
- Set criteria specific enough for a listing to match. Buy Box Builder
- Know what you can pay before the CIM lands. Business Valuation Calculator