Three Retail Locations Sold to Franchisee

Situation

The owners of this second-generation, family-owned business wanted to retire. They owned three successful dry cleaner drop locations in the Greater Charlotte area, where their loyal customer base dropped off and picked up their dry cleaning.

The Result

Business Broker Randy Mitchell led the VR Business Sales Charlotte team in meeting with the owners and preparing to take the three drop store locations to market in early 2023. A combination of a broad marketing strategy with targeted outreach to prospective buyers was implemented to attract high interest in the locations.

Unlike many dry-cleaning businesses that did not survive the pandemic, these locations made it through and then thrived as their loyal customers fueled incredible growth when life returned to a new normal.

Out of many prospective buyers, the eventual buyer was the top producing owner in the Tide Cleaners franchise looking to continue to expand in the Charlotte area in addition to having locations across the country.

In order to acquire the drop off shops in highly attractive locations, the prospective buyer needed to expand its dry-cleaning plant to support the volume of business generated by the three locations. Randy Mitchell facilitated the agreement between the sellers and the prospective buyer with the closing contingent on the expanded plant capacity to be constructed and operational.

With an agreement in place, Mitchell’s role as business broker shifted to keeping the relationships in place as permitting, construction, and inspections were sequenced to get the capacity operational. In parallel, the leases of each retail location needed to be prepared to be reassigned as part of closing.

While the timeline to close was extended to enable the construction to take place, the owners benefitted from continued growth of their business and reaped the profits of their successful business up until the closing.

Construction finished two weeks in advance of the close, and in spring of 2024, the three retail locations were sold to the Tide Cleaners franchisee. The transition was efficient as the buyer and his transition team had previously acquired other stores. The buyer achieved his goal of continued expansion in the Greater Charlotte market and the sellers were thrilled to move on to their next chapter in life.