case study · 7 min read
A private equity firm called about your company. Now what?
By Ray Whitfield, Charlotte-region manufacturing exit specialist: what industrial companies in the Carolinas are worth, which buyers compete for them, and what the year before a sale has to look like.. Published March 18, 2026.
Unsolicited approaches to healthy Charlotte-area manufacturers are common and often genuine. Handling one alone is the most reliable way to leave money behind.
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Call (704) 343-6770The call is real, and so is the problem
Private equity firms and strategic acquirers both run outbound programs, and a healthy $10M-revenue machine shop in Mecklenburg or Union County will hear from them. The letters are not spam, the funds are usually real, and some of them would be excellent owners.
The problem is structural rather than personal. A single buyer negotiating against nobody sets the price, controls the timeline, and knows the seller has no alternative. Every term in that negotiation, the multiple, the escrow, the earnout, the transition commitment, is decided in an environment where the seller's only leverage is willingness to walk away from a process they have already invested months in.
What happens without an alternative
The pattern is consistent. An initial number is discussed verbally and it sounds good, because it is quoted against revenue or against a multiple the owner has no context for. A letter of intent follows with sixty to ninety days of exclusivity. During that window diligence surfaces findings, some of them legitimate, and the price is revised downward. The seller, now five months in with no other option, accepts.
None of that requires bad faith from the buyer. It is simply what happens when there is only one bidder.
What to do instead
Answer politely and slowly. Sign nothing, including a confidentiality agreement with a standstill or exclusivity clause, without having it read by someone who negotiates them regularly.
Then get a valuation range from an advisor who has no stake in whether you sell, so you know whether the approach is in the neighborhood at all. If the number is serious, build an alternative, and it does not have to be an auction. Three or four other qualified buyers approached confidentially is enough to change the dynamic entirely, and the original buyer frequently improves their own offer once they know they are not alone.
The cost of finding out later
Owners who run even a small competitive process against an unsolicited approach routinely see the outcome move by an amount measured in years of profit. The approach itself is a useful signal: it means someone with capital has looked at your sector and decided companies like yours are worth buying. That is worth acting on deliberately rather than reactively.