ClearPath Business Advisors, Inc.
ClearPath Business Advisors provides M&A advisory and business consulting services from Pleasanton, California. Its M&A page lists agriculture, construction, service businesses, manufacturing, distribution, and technology, with technology identified as coming soon, and states a typical client size of $5–$200 million in annual revenue.
What stands out about ClearPath Business Advisors, Inc.
ClearPath Business Advisors publicly offers sell-side and buy-side M&A advisory, ESOP advisory, debt advisory, valuation, exit planning, and related consulting. Its stated typical client size is $5–$200 million in annual revenue, with lower-revenue companies considered when they intend to grow.[1][2][4][5][6][7][9]
What does ClearPath Business Advisors, Inc. do?
ClearPath Business Advisors is a business consulting and M&A advisory firm operating from Pleasanton, California. The company adopted the ClearPath Business Advisors name in 2004 after earlier operations under Crawford & Associates and Bay Area Business Solutions.
In a September 2024 announcement, ClearPath stated that Kristianna Adkins, Patrick Bormann, and Patrick Wilkie acquired the business from founder Chris Crawford.[1][2][3]
ClearPath publicly offers sell-side M&A advisory, buy-side M&A advisory, ESOP advisory, and debt advisory services. Its valuation and exit-planning services include business valuation, salability assessments, succession strategies, acquisition analysis, ESOP and equity-compensation matters, and multiple exit options.[4][5]
Owners comparing advisory firms can also review Auxo’s M&A advisor vs. business broker vs. investment bank comparison, advisor-selection guide, and sell-side advisor evaluation framework.
Published criteria: ClearPath identifies $5–$200 million in annual revenue as its typical client size and says it may work with lower-revenue companies when the client thinks big and wants to grow.[6]
What should a business owner evaluate before hiring ClearPath Business Advisors, Inc.?
For an owner evaluating a sale, ClearPath publicly emphasizes valuation, salability analysis, exit planning, seller representation, and consulting intended to increase value and salability before market outreach. Its stated typical client size is $5–$200 million in annual revenue, while the firm says it may work with lower-revenue companies that intend to grow. Owners should verify the proposed engagement economics, conflicts approach, buyer-access strategy, legal and regulatory structure, and the individuals who would lead the process.[1][4][5][6][9]
What is the current legal contracting entity, and does any affiliate hold broker-dealer, investment-adviser, valuation, or other financial-services registrations
What are the success-fee percentage, minimum fee, retainer, expense policy, tail period, and termination terms for the proposed engagement
How many sell-side transactions has the current team completed in the owner’s industry and revenue band during the last three years
What size transactions and clients does ClearPath Business Advisors, Inc. focus on?
The firm’s M&A page lists agriculture, construction, service businesses, manufacturing, distribution, and technology as industry coverage areas. Technology is identified there as coming soon.[4]
ClearPath served as exclusive financial advisor to A Plus Tree, Inc. in its acquisition by Hyperion Capital Partners, effective October 3, 2022; the acquisition amount was not disclosed in the official announcement.
ClearPath publicly reported the acquisition of TTS Wireless by Amdocs on August 7, 2019, for approximately $50 million in cash, with possible additional consideration based on performance metrics.
ClearPath announced that it represented the seller in the $361M sale of Mann Packing Co., Inc. of Salinas, California, to Del Monte Produce, Inc. in the first quarter of 2018. Its official history states that it negotiated the 2016 sale of All Systems Broadband to a multi-billion-dollar public company after a two-year effort to position the company for sale.[2][7][8][9]
ClearPath’s publicly described transaction work includes seller representation, buyer-side acquisition support, ESOP transactions, and debt financing. Its public materials also describe exit options that include a sale to another company, a sale to employees or management, and other business-transition paths.[4][5]
What does ClearPath Business Advisors, Inc. publicly disclose about fees, process and engagement terms?
The official A Plus Tree transaction announcement does not disclose the acquisition amount. The official 2018 transaction announcement states that three other first-quarter 2018 transactions were not publicly disclosed and does not identify their counterparties.
The official M&A and debt advisory page does not publish a universal success-fee percentage, minimum fee, retainer, tail period, termination schedule, or complete deal-by-deal consideration schedule.
The official contact page identifies ClearPath’s services but does not state a firm-level broker-dealer, investment-adviser, or other financial-services registration or license.[1][4][7][9]
The official contact page identifies ClearPath’s business-consulting and M&A advisory services but does not state a firm-level broker-dealer, investment-adviser, or other financial-services registration or license. The legal contracting entity, any affiliated registrations, and the scope of regulated activities should be verified directly.[1]
ClearPath states that it can run an entire buy-side process or support a specific stage, including target identification, financial due diligence, quality-of-earnings work, and geographic or capability-expansion analysis. For debt advisory, it states that it presents a business to different banks or private lenders to create a competitive financing process.
ClearPath also states that it commonly performs hands-on consulting to increase a client’s value and salability before taking the business to market.[4][9]
Questions to ask before hiring ClearPath Business Advisors, Inc.
What is the current legal contracting entity, and does any affiliate hold broker-dealer, investment-adviser, valuation, or other financial-services registrations?
What are the success-fee percentage, minimum fee, retainer, expense policy, tail period, and termination terms for the proposed engagement?
How many sell-side transactions has the current team completed in the owner’s industry and revenue band during the last three years?
Will ClearPath represent only the seller, and how are conflicts handled if it has prior or simultaneous relationships with potential buyers?
Which current team members will lead valuation, marketing, diligence, negotiation, and closing?
Can the firm provide anonymized examples of recent transactions, buyer types, transaction structures, and owner-transition terms?
Sources & research notes
- Official website / firm overview
- Official website / firm overview
- Structure / regulatory context
- Services / capabilities
- Services / capabilities
- Transaction size / criteria
- Transaction / portfolio evidence
- Transaction / portfolio evidence
- Transaction / portfolio evidence
How this profile was researched
Auxo profiles are prepared from publicly available primary and authoritative sources and reviewed for entity identity, factual support and disclosure consistency. When a fact cannot be supported by the reviewed public record, the profile identifies it as something to confirm directly rather than inferring it.
Independent research profile
This profile was prepared by Auxo Capital Advisors from publicly available information believed to be reliable and is provided solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not an endorsement, recommendation, ranking, solicitation, or representation regarding the profiled firm, its services, qualifications, transaction experience, regulatory status, financial condition, or suitability for any particular person, company, transaction, or investment.
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