Case Study · Closed September 2026
Carolina Site: Fourteen Weeks to a Signed LOI
A Charlotte commercial paving and pavement-maintenance contractor, sold to a private equity-backed platform, Southern Paving & Milling. How the process ran, stage by stage, from the owner's side of the table.
When we met, the owner was fielding inbound private equity interest with no process, no materials, and no market view. One buyer, on its timeline, with its information. Fourteen weeks later there was a signed letter of intent; by September, a funded close.
Four stages, one system
Each stage was built to make the next one stronger. The model made the market study credible; the study made buyers underwrite faster; a crowded process gave us term sheets to play against each other; and the negotiation was about structure, not just the headline.
Know the business cold
- What we built
- Job-level financial model. Quality-of-earnings support. Working-capital analysis.
- What it provided
- Numbers that held in diligence. Defensible normalized EBITDA.
- Outcome
- Six figures defended at the table.
Replace claims with proof
- What we built
- Independent market study. Every claim tagged fact, estimate, or inference.
- What it provided
- A story buyers couldn't poke holes in. Faster buyer underwriting.
- Outcome
- Premium positioning before the first call.
Make buyers compete
- What we built
- Code-named buyer presentation. NDA-gated data room.
- What it provided
- Nine institutional buyer groups. Meetings on the seller's timeline.
- Outcome
- Competing bids, not one phone call.
Win on structure
- What we built
- Term sheets leveraged against each other. Tax, rollover, working capital, and governance as one system.
- What it provided
- Headline price plus livable terms.
- Outcome
- Signed LOI at week 14; funded close in September.
The Styx view
The single biggest discount in this trade is answering one phone call. Almost everything that commands a premium is buildable, and almost everything that gets discounted is fixable, given time. That is why the owners who win are the ones who start early.
Who we areWe sit on one side of the table. Yours.
Styx Advisory Partners is a strategy and M&A advisory firm for founder- and family-owned companies in the lower middle market. We are not brokers, and we don't run listings. We take on a small number of clients, do the work at the depth an institutional buyer's own deal team would, and stay through the close.
Financial model, quality-of-earnings readiness, market study and positioning, built before any buyer appears.
Confidential, code-named, and competitive. We pick the buyers, control information, and run the clock.
Price, structure, tax, rollover, working capital, and terms, negotiated as one system. The headline number is where the negotiation starts.
How we work
- A few clients at a time
Depth over volume. We take on the work an institutional buyer's own deal team would do.
- First conversation is free
Confidential and unhurried. No fee, no engagement, no follow-up campaign if you leave it there.
- We stay through close
From the first model to the funded wire. The person you meet is the one who does the work.
Wherever you are in the life of the business
One advisor across the whole cycle. The owner stays at the center; the work changes with the stage.
- Founding
Getting the books and the story right.
- Growth
Capital, add-ons, management beneath you.
- The hard stretch
Lenders, restructuring, and keeping control.
- Platform interest
Running a process, not answering a call.
- Transition
Structure, rollover, and what you keep.
Who did the work
Founder of Styx Advisory and the senior advisor on every engagement the firm takes on. Twenty years advising consumer and brand-led businesses through M&A, IPOs, and capital decisions, on transactions from $20 million to $2.6 billion, domestic and cross-border. Experience at every stage: start-up, growth, sponsor-backed, sale or succession. The person you meet is the one who does the work.
Styx works only for owners. If you run a paving, sealcoat, or sitework company, or know someone who does, and you'd like a straight read on how a buyer would see the business before the call comes, write me or call. It costs nothing, and it's better done before the first number than after.
Zach Manis · 917-455-8604 · zim@styxadvisory.com
The market read, updated each quarter: the current issue of the Ground Note
Competing bids, not one phone call. That is the whole difference.
Zach ManisFounder, Styx Advisory Partners · Charlotte, North Carolina