How to sell a dry cleaning business.

Selling a dry cleaning business comes down to six steps: know your numbers, gather the documents, separate the building from the business, deal with the environmental question, take an offer and get through diligence, and close. Done right, the whole process typically runs 30 to 90 days from the first serious conversation.

1. Know your EBITDA

EBITDA is what the business earns in a normal year after every operating cost: counter and route revenue in, minus rent, utilities, payroll, solvent and supplies, insurance, and the rest. It is the number buyers and their capital partners price from. Dry cleaning runs on labor in a way coin laundry does not, so payroll is usually the line that decides the answer.

If you work in the plant, your own labor is a cost the business has been getting free. A buyer has to pay someone to press, spot, and run the counter. That replacement cost comes out before any multiple is applied.

2. Gather the documents

Two to three years of tax returns, the lease or the deed, an equipment list with ages, twelve months of utility bills, payroll, and your solvent and waste records. Our document checklist covers each one and why it matters. Owners who have the file ready move in weeks. Owners who assemble it mid-deal lose months.

3. Separate the building from the business

Many dry cleaner owners own their real estate, and a good number stopped charging the business rent years ago. Those are two assets with two values, and running them together hides both. The business carries market rent in any calculation that holds up, whether or not you own the walls. The building guide walks through it.

4. Deal with the environmental question early

Perchloroethylene, the solvent most plants ran for decades, is the reason lenders require a Phase I environmental site assessment before they will lend against a property with a dry cleaning history. This is normal and it is expected. It is also the most common reason a dry cleaner sale stalls late, because owners leave it alone until a buyer raises it. What a Phase I is and who pays for it is its own guide.

5. Take a real offer and get through diligence

A real offer names a number and the shape of the deal, and it comes from someone who can close it. After that the buyer verifies that the business is what the documents say: revenue against deposits, the lease, equipment ages, utilities, payroll. It is confirmation, not an audit. Our guide to what buyers verify covers the sequence.

6. Close

Purchase agreement, the lease assignment with your landlord or the real estate closing if you own the building, and a closing date. From a signed letter of intent to keys is usually 30 to 60 days. What happens after the LOI has the detail.

Where we fit

We are Valemont Group. We buy dry cleaners, laundromats, and wash-and-fold operations, and we run them after closing. We are straight with owners about what we see in a plant, including when the answer is not the one they hoped for. A first conversation is confidential and commits you to nothing.