High Street Overview

Although we work with buyers and sellers of Middle Market businesses, Sunbelt’s roots are in the High Street. At any given time, we have 10,000 to 15,000 High Street businesses for sale, including franchised and non-franchised restaurants and retail stores, home-based businesses of all types, business-to-business service companies and most any other type of business you can imagine. Sunbelt has a proven track record in successfully selling a wide variety of businesses so when the time comes to resell an existing local business more and more business owners are turning to their local Sunbelt business intermediary.

While there is not a universally accepted definition of the High Street and Middle Market market segments, at Sunbelt we most commonly define High Street business transactions as those that meet all or most of the following criteria:

• The business will likely sell for £2,000,000 or less;
• The business’ annual sales volume is less than £2,000,000;
• The business’ assets rather than shares will be offered for sale; and
• The most likely buyer for the business will be an entrepreneur who either lives in, or is relocating to, the local community where the business for sale is located.

Most businesses in your local community will meet the criteria above and will be managed as a High Street business transaction.

When preparing a business for sale, it is important to determine if it will be marketed as a High Street or Middle Market business opportunity, because the processes for selling the two types of businesses is significantly different. If you are contemplating selling your company and the status of the business (High Street or Middle Market) it is not readily evident to you, we encourage you to discuss this issue with your Sunbelt intermediary at the outset of the business sales process. Please refer to the High Street Seller Services section for an overview of our typical business sales process.

Are you interested in buying or selling a business? We encourage you to contact your local business broker for a confidential, no obligation conversation.