How we verified this list
Every fact about every firm below came off that firm's own website, fetched between September 8 and September 14, 2026. Where a firm does not publish something, the profile says "Not published" rather than guessing. The full list of pages we pulled is at the bottom. Four filters decided who made it.
The four inclusion filters
1. A genuine Los Angeles metro office, named on the firm's own site. Los Angeles County or Orange County, with a specific city, not a mailing address and not "serves California." A registered office that the firm itself says does not accept mail does not count.
2. Sell-side M&A advisory capability for a private company. A firm that only raises capital, only advises buyers, or only lists businesses for sale does not qualify.
3. A checkable identity. A named legal entity, a disclosed broker-dealer relationship or FINRA/SIPC membership, or a named founder or CEO on the site. Anonymous firms are not on this page.
4. A site that renders. If a firm's website returned a blank page, a connection error, or would not resolve at all on the days we checked, we left it off rather than describe it from memory.
Los Angeles has no single incumbent "top M&A advisors" ranking the way New York has Crain's list, so this page is built from direct site verification rather than a cross-referenced local ranking. No firm paid for placement, and no firm reviewed its own entry before publication.
What we excluded, and why. The Advisory IB and Ocean Park Advisors both surface in general searches for Los Angeles M&A advisors, but neither publishes a Los Angeles metro office; Ocean Park Advisors' published address is in Edina, Minnesota, despite a name that reads like a Santa Monica neighborhood. Align Business Advisory Services returned only search-engine-optimized city landing text, not a verifiable staffed office. ASG is a business brokerage headquartered in San Diego, outside this metro. Palm Tree is a restructuring and interim-management firm rather than a sell-side advisor. Solganick & Co could not be confirmed on the firm's own website this month, so we left it off. Ceiba Financial, a Fullerton firm, is left off because we could not confirm its details on a working firm website.
We also excluded pure financing shops, marketplaces that list businesses rather than represent them, and firms whose only Los Angeles evidence was a logo or a phone number with no office named.
Quick comparison table
All 15 firms, before the profiles. Deal size is what the firm publishes, or "Not published" where it does not. Registration is what the firm discloses on its own site.
| Firm | Deal size (EV) | Sectors | Fee model | Registration disclosed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Greif & Co | Not published; described as midsize, entrepreneurial companies | Consumer products, food, aerospace and defense, healthcare, entertainment and media, technology, manufacturing | Not published | Not disclosed on the firm's site | Larger, multi-sector LA sellers wanting a long-tenured independent bank |
| 2. Salem Partners | Not published | Media, entertainment and technology, healthcare and life sciences, real estate, industrials, specialty and lender finance | Not published | Member FINRA/SIPC | Entertainment, healthcare and real estate sellers |
| 3. DelMorgan & Co | Not published; firm cites $300B+ of career transaction volume | Generalist advisory: M&A, capital raising, restructuring, valuation | Not published | Not disclosed on the firm's site | Senior-attention deals where a small partner-led team matters more than sector niche |
| 4. Imperial Capital | Not published | Aerospace/defense/government, energy, industrials, financial services, healthcare, media/telecom, technology | Not published | Member FINRA; MSRB registrant | Aerospace, energy and industrials sellers at scale |
| 5. Bardi Co | Not published; disclosed examples from $90M to $2B | Media and entertainment, apparel, natural resources and mining, general middle market | Not published | Not disclosed on the firm's site | Sellers in media, apparel or resources with a very large deal |
| 6. Objective Capital | $10M to $100M EV, published | Business services, consumer, healthcare tech and services, life sciences services and tech, manufacturing and distribution, technology | Not published | Securities offered through BA Securities, LLC, Member FINRA SIPC | Sellers who want a firm that states its exact band |
| 7. CriticalPoint Partners | Not published; describes itself as middle market | Not published as a specific sector list | Not published | Member FINRA SIPC | South Bay and El Segundo-area middle market sellers |
| 8. Anomalie Group | Not published | CPG, food and beverage, health and wellness, industrials, technology, healthcare, business services | Not published | Registered agents of Rainmaker Securities, LLC, a FINRA broker-dealer and SIPC member | Consumer and food and beverage founders |
| 9. Montminy & Co | Not published; describes itself as middle market | Business and financial services, consumer products and services, healthcare and life sciences, industrial and renewables, real estate and hospitality, technology, sport/media/entertainment | Not published | Not disclosed on the firm's site | Generalist middle-market sellers across most LA industries |
| 10. Avant Advisory Group | Not published; describes itself as middle market | M&A advisory, quality of earnings, CFO and interim C-suite services, forensics, turnarounds | Not published | Not disclosed on the firm's site | Sellers who also want financial and forensic advisory alongside the sale |
| 11. Intrepid Investment Bankers | Not published | Consumer products and services (beauty, food/beverage, lifestyle, restaurant/franchise), diversified industrials, financial institutions, healthcare and life sciences, technology and media | Not published | Member FINRA/SIPC | Consumer brands with national buyer lists |
| 12. Meritage Partners | Not published | Architecture/engineering/construction, healthcare, manufacturing, software and technology, industrial services | Not published | Not disclosed on the firm's site | Orange County AEC and construction-adjacent sellers |
| 13. AGRA Capital Advisors | $5M to $150M, published | Healthcare, service businesses, software technology, digital media and IP, manufacturing, consumer products | Not published | Securities offered through BA Securities, LLC, Member FINRA SIPC | Founders at the smaller end of the lower middle market |
| 14. NewCap Partners | Not published | Manufacturing, aerospace-adjacent and industrial technology, based on published transaction examples | Not published | Not disclosed on the firm's site | Long-established manufacturing and industrial sellers |
| 15. Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide | Not published locally | Broad multi-industry network coverage published globally, including aerospace/defense, healthcare, technology/media/telecom, manufacturing | Not published | Not disclosed on the firm's site | Orange County owners who want a global referral network |
Which LA advisor fits my deal?
Sector first, size second. Los Angeles is several industries sharing a metro, not one market. This table routes on the industries that drive the region's economy, per the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation's foundational and high-wage sector list, cited below.
| Industry | Firms to start with | The tell |
|---|---|---|
| Entertainment and media | Salem Partners, Greif & Co, Bardi Co | They name entertainment or media as a standing sector rather than folding it into "technology." |
| Aerospace, defense and government services | Imperial Capital, Greif & Co, NewCap Partners | They can discuss government contract transferability and security clearances without being prompted. |
| Apparel, consumer products and CPG | Anomalie Group, Bardi Co, AGRA Capital Advisors | They ask about wholesale versus DTC revenue mix before they talk multiple. |
| Healthcare and life sciences | Salem Partners, Montminy & Co, Meritage Partners, AGRA Capital Advisors | They separate services businesses from device and diagnostics businesses immediately, since the buyer lists do not overlap. |
| Manufacturing and industrial technology | NewCap Partners, Montminy & Co, Meritage Partners, Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide | They ask about customer concentration and tooling ownership in the first call. |
| Architecture, engineering and construction | Meritage Partners | It is one of a short published list of named sectors, not a generic "industrials" bucket. |
| Business and professional services | Montminy & Co, Avant Advisory Group, Objective Capital | They ask about revenue concentration by client and founder dependency before valuation. |
| Technology and software | Objective Capital, CriticalPoint Partners, AGRA Capital Advisors | They ask about gross margin and net revenue retention, not just growth rate. |
| Beauty, food and beverage, and consumer brands | Intrepid Investment Bankers, Anomalie Group | They can name which strategics and sponsors are actively buying in your specific sub-category this year. |
| Financial and lender services | Salem Partners, Imperial Capital | They ask about regulatory capital and licensing before revenue quality. |
Tier 1: larger LA boutiques, often above $100M EV
Five firms whose published deal examples, career volume, or sector scale skew above the core lower middle market. If your business is closer to $100M enterprise value than $10M, or your buyer list includes large strategics and sponsors, start here.
1Greif & Co
| Headquarters | 777 S. Figueroa Street, 38th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90017 |
| Founded | 1992 |
| Team | Lloyd Greif, Founder and CEO. No other individuals named on the firm's site. |
| Deal size | Not published. The firm describes itself as serving "midsize" and "entrepreneurial" companies. |
| Sectors | Consumer products and retail, food, aerospace and defense, healthcare, entertainment and media, technology, manufacturing |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide number on the firm's site. One named, dated transaction is published: the 2016 sale of C.R. Laurence Co. |
Greif & Co is the longest continuously operating independent M&A boutique headquartered in downtown Los Angeles that we could verify, dating to 1992 and still run publicly under founder Lloyd Greif. The firm's own site does not publish a current deal-size band or a recent transaction list beyond its signature deal.
The published sector list is unusually broad for a firm this size, spanning consumer products, food, aerospace and defense, healthcare, entertainment and media, technology, and manufacturing. That breadth fits a firm built around Los Angeles itself rather than around one vertical, since the metro's own economy spans exactly those industries. What the site does not do is break that list down by named, dated closes in each sector, so a founder in any one of those industries has to ask directly which of them the firm has closed in recently.
Recent closes: C.R. Laurence Co., Inc., sold to CRH plc for $1.3 billion, announced September 29, 2016. No more recent named transaction was published on the firm's site.
Best for: larger, multi-sector Los Angeles sellers who want a firm with three decades of continuous local operation under one founder.
Considerations: the only named, dated transaction we could verify is nearly a decade old. No deal-size band, current team beyond the founder, or recent named closes are published, so establish current activity level directly rather than from the website.
2Salem Partners
| Headquarters | 11111 Santa Monica Blvd, Suite 2250, Los Angeles, CA 90025 |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Team | John Dyett and Stephen Prough, Co-Founders and Managing Directors |
| Deal size | Not published |
| Sectors | Media, entertainment and technology; healthcare and life sciences; real estate; industrials; specialty and lender finance; valuation services |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide deal count or value on the firm's site. |
Salem Partners is one of the few firms on this list that names entertainment and media as a standing practice rather than folding it into a broader technology or consumer group, which matters in a metro where that industry has its own buyer universe. Co-founded in 1997 by John Dyett and Stephen Prough, both still listed as Managing Directors, the firm has nearly three decades of continuity under the same two principals.
The sector list also includes real estate and specialty and lender finance, two categories that show up on very few Los Angeles advisory sites we checked, and it publishes a standalone valuation services line rather than treating valuation as a byproduct of a sale process. For a founder who wants a fairness opinion or a standalone valuation ahead of a transaction, that is a distinct service line to ask about directly.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: entertainment, media, healthcare and real estate sellers who want a firm with a specific, named practice in those sectors rather than a generalist label.
Considerations: no named, dated transactions and no deal-size band are published, so confirm current activity level and typical check size in conversation rather than from the site.
3DelMorgan & Co
| Headquarters | 100 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 750, Santa Monica, CA 90401 |
| Founded | Not published on the firm's site. |
| Team | Not named on the firm's site. |
| Deal size | Not published as a band. The firm cites "over $300 billion of successfully completed transactions" across more than 80 countries, a career and firm-wide cumulative figure, not a per-deal range. |
| Sectors | Generalist: capital raising, M&A (sales, acquisitions, divestitures), restructuring advisory, strategic financial advice, valuation opinions |
| Track record | The $300 billion cumulative figure above is the only quantified track record published. |
DelMorgan & Co describes its own structure as a "reverse pyramid," meaning senior professionals outnumber junior staff, and positions itself as a purely advisory firm with no research, trading, or brokerage arm. Senior attention over headcount leverage is the clearest positioning point on the site.
The $300 billion cumulative transaction figure is a career and firm-level number spanning decades and dozens of countries, and it tells a founder that the firm's principals have worked at genuine scale somewhere in their careers. It does not tell a founder what a typical current DelMorgan mandate looks like, since no current deal-size range, sector focus, or named recent transaction is published.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: sellers who want a small, senior-led advisory team without financing or brokerage conflicts, and who are comfortable establishing fit through conversation rather than a published track record.
Considerations: no named leadership, sector focus, deal-size band, or recent transaction appear on the pages we could find. The $300 billion figure is impressive and unverifiable as a per-deal indicator; ask directly for three recent closed deal sizes before assuming fit.
4Imperial Capital
| Headquarters | 10100 Santa Monica Blvd, Suite 2400, Los Angeles, CA 90067 (Century City) |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Team | Not individually named on the firm's site; the firm references a Senior Management Team page. |
| Deal size | Not published |
| Sectors | Aerospace, defense and government services; airlines and transportation; business services; clean and traditional energy; consumer; financial services; gaming and leisure; general industrials; healthcare; homebuilding and real estate; media and telecommunications; security and homeland security; technology |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide deal count on the firm's site. |
Imperial Capital publishes the broadest sector list of any firm on this page, thirteen named industries, reading less like a boutique specialty and more like a full-service middle-market bank in one Century City office. Aerospace, defense and government services sits first, and combined with a separate security and homeland security category, it is the strongest published aerospace-adjacent coverage among the Los Angeles firms we verified.
The firm has operated since 1997 and discloses both FINRA membership and MSRB registrant status, meaning it is registered to advise on municipal securities activity in addition to standard broker-dealer functions, a disclosure we did not see on most other firms on this list. What the site does not do is name current bankers or recent transactions, so the sector breadth has to be tested directly against your specific industry rather than assumed from the list.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: aerospace, energy, industrials and homeland-security-adjacent sellers who want a firm with a broad, named sector list and multiple securities registrations.
Considerations: no named bankers and no recent transactions are published, and the firm shares its Century City address with at least one other firm on this list at a different suite, so confirm the specific team and legal entity before engaging.
5Bardi Co
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, CA. The firm's own site did not return a specific street address in the pages we could find. |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Team | Not individually named on the firm's site. |
| Deal size | Not published as a band. The firm's own site displays disclosed examples of a $300 million media and entertainment M&A deal, a $90 million apparel refinancing, and $2 billion of mining-related work, with no counterparty names or dates attached. |
| Sectors | Media and entertainment, apparel, mining and natural resources, general middle market |
| Track record | Described on the site as "hundreds of transactions"; no firm-wide dated count published. |
Bardi Co, founded in 2012 and headquartered in Los Angeles, stands out among the boutiques on this page for the sheer size of the deal examples it displays publicly: up to $2 billion in mining-related work and a $300 million media and entertainment transaction. Neither example carries a counterparty name or a date, which is unusual among firms that disclose sizes at all.
The named sector mix, media and entertainment, apparel, and mining and natural resources, is distinctive on this list and reflects industries where Los Angeles leads: the city is a global media capital and a major apparel design and sourcing hub. A founder in either of those industries who wants a firm that has clearly touched large transactions in the category has reason to have a direct conversation with Bardi Co about which specific deals those size examples refer to.
Recent closes: Not published with names or dates on the firm's site. See deal-size examples above.
Best for: media, apparel or natural-resources sellers considering a large transaction who want evidence the firm has handled size before.
Considerations: the firm's published deal-size examples carry no counterparty name and no date, so they function as evidence of capability rather than a verifiable track record. No street address, named leadership, or deal-size band appear on the pages we could find; ask directly for a referenceable, named recent closing.
Tier 2: the core lower middle market, $10M to $100M EV
Ten firms that either publish an explicit enterprise-value band inside this range or describe themselves specifically as middle-market advisors without the larger deal examples seen in Tier 1. This is where most owner-run Los Angeles and Orange County companies sell.
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Get Matched with an LA M&A Advisor →6Objective Capital
| Headquarters | 10100 Santa Monica Blvd, Century City, Los Angeles, CA 90067. The firm's registered office is listed separately at 11622 El Camino Real, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92130, which the firm's own site notes does not accept mail. |
| Founded | 2006, firm-wide. The Los Angeles office opened March 7, 2017. |
| Team | Channing Hamlet, Managing Director, leads the Los Angeles office per the firm's own opening announcement. |
| Deal size | $10M to $100M enterprise value, published |
| Sectors | Business services, consumer, healthcare tech and services, life sciences services and tech, manufacturing and distribution, technology |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide deal count on the firm's site. |
Objective Capital is one of only two firms on this list, alongside AGRA Capital Advisors, that publishes an explicit enterprise-value band on its own site: $10M to $100M. That single published number does more for a size-checking founder than most firms' entire sector page.
The Los Angeles office is a genuine branch opening, dated March 7, 2017 on the firm's own announcement, led by a named Managing Director, Channing Hamlet, rather than a shared or generic listing. The firm's six named sectors, business services, consumer, healthcare tech and services, life sciences services and tech, manufacturing and distribution, and technology, are broad but specific enough to be checkable; a founder outside those six categories should ask directly whether the LA office covers their industry.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: sellers between $10M and $100M enterprise value who want a firm that states its band rather than describing itself only as "middle market."
Considerations: the registered office is in San Diego and does not accept mail, with Los Angeles operating as a branch; no recent named transactions are published, so confirm recency directly with the Century City office.
7CriticalPoint Partners
| Headquarters | 2101 Rosecrans Avenue, Suite 4255, El Segundo, CA 90245 |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Team | Matt Young, Founder |
| Deal size | Not published as a band. The firm describes itself as serving "the middle market." |
| Sectors | Not published as a specific list on the firm's site; the firm references an industry-experience section covering multiple industries. |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide number on the firm's site. |
CriticalPoint Partners is headquartered in El Segundo rather than the more commonly cited Century City or Santa Monica clusters, placing it inside the South Bay aerospace and technology corridor along Rosecrans Avenue near LAX. Founded in 2012 by Matt Young, the firm describes both M&A advisory and private capital investing as parts of its business, a dual mandate worth clarifying up front since the two carry different conflict profiles.
The firm discloses that its securities products and investment banking services run through CriticalPoint Partners, LLC as a FINRA and SIPC member, which is a straightforward registration disclosure. What is missing from the firm's site is a specific named sector list or deal-size band, so a founder cannot tell from the site alone whether a given industry or check size is a fit.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: South Bay and El Segundo-area middle-market sellers, particularly in aerospace-adjacent industries given the office location.
Considerations: no published sector list, deal-size band, or recent named transactions. The firm's description of both advisory and private-capital-investing activity is worth clarifying directly, since it affects whether the firm could ever sit on both sides of a transaction.
8Anomalie Group
| Headquarters | 9465 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 300, Beverly Hills, CA 90212 |
| Founded | Not published on the firm's site. |
| Team | Rahn Amitai, David Barnes, Chandler Buie and Tracy Albert are named as registered agents and principals. |
| Deal size | Not published |
| Sectors | CPG, food and beverage, and health and wellness; industrials; technology; healthcare; business services |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide number on the firm's site. |
Anomalie Group operates from Beverly Hills and names four individuals directly on its site as registered agents and principals, more named, checkable people than most smaller firms on this list disclose. Securities transactions run through Rainmaker Securities, LLC, a FINRA-registered broker-dealer the firm states is not its affiliate, so your engagement letter and any securities work will sit with a separate legal entity.
The named sector list, CPG, food and beverage and health and wellness leading it, fits a firm positioned toward Los Angeles' large consumer-brand economy. Industrials, technology, healthcare and business services round out the list, giving it reasonable breadth beyond consumer categories.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: CPG, food and beverage, and wellness-brand founders who want a Beverly Hills-based team with named principals.
Considerations: no deal-size band, founding year, or recent named transactions are published. Because securities work runs through Rainmaker Securities rather than Anomalie Group itself, confirm which entity signs your engagement letter.
9Montminy & Co
| Headquarters | 201 Santa Monica Blvd, Suite 480, Santa Monica, CA 90401 |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Team | Joel Montminy, Founder |
| Deal size | Not published as a band. The firm describes itself as a "boutique investment bank providing middle market clients with the highest level of strategic and financial advisory services." |
| Sectors | Business and financial services, consumer products and services, healthcare and life sciences, industrial and renewables, real estate and hospitality, technology, sport/media/entertainment |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide number on the firm's site. |
Montminy & Co has operated from the same Santa Monica address since founder Joel Montminy started the firm in 2009. Its seven named sectors are among the most evenly spread on this list, and the combined sport, media and entertainment category is a distinctly Los Angeles grouping not seen elsewhere on this page.
The generalist positioning, "the highest level of strategic and financial advisory services" for middle-market clients, is common language among boutiques of this size, and it is not backed on the firm's site by a deal-size band, a named additional team member beyond the founder, or a recent transaction list. That makes Montminy a firm to have a direct conversation with rather than one to size up from the website alone.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: generalist middle-market sellers across business services, consumer, healthcare, industrials, real estate or the combined sport/media/entertainment category.
Considerations: no deal-size band, no team beyond the founder, and no recent named transactions are published on the pages we could find.
10Avant Advisory Group
| Headquarters | 355 S Grand Ave, Suite 2450, Los Angeles, CA 90071. Firm-wide headquarters is Newport Beach, California. |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Team | James F. Davidson is named as a featured advisor; his specific title was not detailed on the firm's site. |
| Deal size | Not published as a band. The firm positions itself as focused on middle-market transactions. |
| Sectors | Not published as a specific industry list; services span M&A advisory, quality of earnings analysis, CFO and interim C-suite services, financial forensics and fraud investigations, turnarounds and restructuring, and EBITDA improvement |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide number on the firm's site. |
Avant Advisory Group is headquartered in Newport Beach but maintains a named downtown Los Angeles office at 355 S Grand Ave, one of three Orange County firms on this list that also serve LA directly. Founded in 1997, it serves middle-market companies, private equity investors, family offices, banks, alternative lenders, attorneys and fiduciaries, a broader client list than a typical sell-side-only boutique.
What sets Avant apart on this page is the breadth of adjacent financial services it publishes alongside M&A advisory itself: quality of earnings analysis, CFO and interim C-suite placement, financial forensics and fraud investigations, and EBITDA improvement work. A founder who needs pre-sale financial cleanup as much as a buyer introduction has more to work with here than at a pure deal-execution boutique.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: sellers who want quality-of-earnings, CFO advisory or financial forensics work alongside the sale process itself, from a firm with both an LA and an Orange County presence.
Considerations: no deal-size band, no specific sector list, and no recent named transactions are published on the firm's site; its broader client base, including lenders and fiduciaries, is worth understanding relative to your own sell-side mandate.
11Intrepid Investment Bankers
| Headquarters | 11755 Wilshire Blvd, 22nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90025. The firm also lists offices in San Francisco, Chicago, Nashville, Charlotte and New York. |
| Founded | Not published on the firm's site. |
| Team | Not individually named on the firm's site. |
| Deal size | Not published |
| Sectors | Consumer products and services (beauty, personal care and wellness; food, beverage and agriculture; lifestyle brands; restaurant and franchise concepts); diversified industrials; financial institutions group; healthcare and life sciences; technology and media |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide number on the firm's site. Named clients without dates: Diamond Wipes; Astro Pak, across three acquisitions (Clean Sciences Inc, Frontline Global Services, Purepass Services Inc); Nationwide Legal, recapitalized with CIVC Partners. |
Intrepid Investment Bankers is a national consumer- and industrials-focused bank with a Los Angeles office on Wilshire Boulevard alongside five other US offices, more geographic reach than any other firm on this list. Its named client roster, Diamond Wipes, Astro Pak across three acquisitions, and a Nationwide Legal recapitalization with CIVC Partners, is more specific than most smaller LA boutiques provide, even without dates.
The consumer sector list is the most granular on this page, breaking beauty and personal care, food and beverage and agriculture, lifestyle brands, and restaurant and franchise concepts into named sub-categories rather than one broad "consumer" line. That level of detail suggests a firm that pitches and organizes around consumer sub-verticals specifically, which is worth testing against your own category in the first call.
Recent closes: Diamond Wipes; Astro Pak (Clean Sciences Inc, Frontline Global Services, Purepass Services Inc acquisitions); Nationwide Legal recapitalization with CIVC Partners. No dates published for any of these on the firm's site.
Best for: consumer brands, particularly in beauty, food and beverage, or franchise concepts, that want a national buyer network from a Los Angeles-based team.
Considerations: none of the named client transactions carry a publication date, so recency cannot be established from the site; ask directly when each of these closed and for a more recent reference if available.
12Meritage Partners
| Headquarters | 2901 West Coast Hwy, Suite 200, Newport Beach, CA 92663 |
| Founded | Not published on the firm's site. |
| Team | Not named on the firm's site. |
| Deal size | Not published |
| Sectors | Architecture, engineering and construction; healthcare; manufacturing; software and technology; industrial services; services |
| Track record | Not published on the firm's site. |
Meritage Partners, based in Newport Beach, is the only firm on this list to publish architecture, engineering and construction as a named, standalone sector, fitting Orange County's concentration of AEC firms. Its remaining sectors, healthcare, manufacturing, software and technology, and industrial services, round out a compact six-industry focus rather than a broader generalist list.
The site did not return named leadership, a founding year, or a deal-size band in the firm's site, which is a gap relative to most of the other Orange County and LA firms on this list. A founder in the AEC space specifically has reason to engage directly given the sector specificity, but should ask for named team members and recent closes before assuming current activity level.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: architecture, engineering and construction sellers in Orange County and the broader LA metro.
Considerations: no named team, founding year, deal-size band, or recent transactions are published on the pages we could find.
13AGRA Capital Advisors
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, CA. The firm's own site did not return a specific street address in the pages we could find. |
| Founded | Not published on the firm's site. |
| Team | Not individually named on the firm's site; the site references "our Investment Banking teams." |
| Deal size | $5M to $150M, published: "AGRA Capital bridges the market gap between transactions $5M to $150M, with lower & middle Market Companies." |
| Sectors | Healthcare, service businesses, software technology, digital media and intellectual property, manufacturing, consumer products |
| Track record | Not published on the firm's site. |
AGRA Capital Advisors is one of only two firms on this list, alongside Objective Capital, that states an exact enterprise-value band, and its published $5M to $150M range extends lower into small-business territory than most other names here. Securities work runs through BA Securities, LLC, the same broker-dealer disclosed by Objective Capital, a common overlap among independent LMM shops without their own broker-dealer license.
The sector list spans healthcare, general service businesses, software technology, digital media and intellectual property, manufacturing, and consumer products, a mix broad enough to cover much of the lower middle market without being so generic as to say nothing.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: founders at the smaller end of the lower middle market, from roughly $5M enterprise value, who want a published band that explicitly includes their size.
Considerations: no named leadership, founding year, street address, or recent transactions are published on the pages we could find.
14NewCap Partners
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, CA. The firm's own site did not return a specific street address in the pages we could find. |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Team | Not individually named on the firm's site; the site references a separate Team page. |
| Deal size | Not published. The firm describes itself as serving "middle market companies." |
| Sectors | Not published as a formal list; published transaction examples span advanced manufacturing, aerospace and composites, and business services. |
| Track record | Not published as a firm-wide number on the firm's site. |
NewCap Partners has served "entrepreneurs, family-owned businesses, and growing venture capital-backed companies" since 1987, making it one of the more established names on this list by tenure. Its published transaction examples cluster around advanced manufacturing, aerospace and composites, and business services, consistent with the South Bay and San Fernando Valley industrial base that supplies the region's aerospace primes.
The site does not publish a formal sector list, a deal-size band, or named current leadership in the firm's site, so its 1987 founding date and manufacturing-heavy transaction examples are the strongest signals of fit available without a direct conversation.
Recent closes: Not published with names or dates on the firm's site.
Best for: long-established manufacturing, aerospace-composite and industrial-technology sellers who value a firm with multi-decade tenure in the region.
Considerations: no named leadership, deal-size band, street address, or dated recent transactions are published on the pages we could find.
15Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide
| Headquarters | Laguna Hills, CA (Orange County). The firm's own site did not return a specific street address in the pages we could find; the network states offices across the United States and internationally. |
| Founded | 1956, network-wide: "Investment Bankers to the Middle Market Since 1956." |
| Team | Not individually named on the firm's site for the Laguna Hills office. |
| Deal size | Not published for the Laguna Hills office specifically. |
| Sectors | The network publishes coverage across roughly 100 named industries, including aerospace/defense/government, agriculture, healthcare, technology/media/telecom, financial services, energy and manufacturing. |
| Track record | Network-wide: "34 offices worldwide," "thousands of successful transactions" over more than 70 years. Not broken out for the Laguna Hills office specifically. |
Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide, known as CFAW, is the oldest network on this list by a wide margin, tracing to 1956, operating through independently owned local offices under one global brand. Its Laguna Hills office is a genuine Orange County presence distinct from Newport Beach, where Avant Advisory Group and Meritage Partners sit.
Because CFAW is a network of independently owned offices, the strength of any single engagement depends heavily on the specific local team, not just the parent brand's 70-year history and roughly 100 named industry categories. A founder considering CFAW should ask directly which named individuals at the Laguna Hills office would staff the engagement and what they have personally closed, since the network-wide statistics say very little about any one office's current activity.
Recent closes: Not published for the Laguna Hills office specifically on the firm's site.
Best for: Orange County owners who want access to a global referral and buyer network through a long-established brand, provided the local team is vetted directly.
Considerations: as an affiliate network rather than a single firm, quality varies by office; no named Laguna Hills leadership, deal-size band, or recent local transactions are published on the pages we could find.
Not Sure Which LA Advisor Fits Your Deal?
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Get Personalized Recommendations →What 2026 deal data shows for LA-area companies
ProCloser runs a public technology deal index. It records announced acquisitions from public sources, one source link per row, no estimates. Before writing this section, we searched the target, acquirer, summary and source fields of every row for Los Angeles metro terms: the city itself, Santa Monica, Century City, Beverly Hills, Culver City, El Segundo, Long Beach, Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Irvine, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Anaheim, Orange County, Southern California, Hollywood, and several nearby neighborhoods.
The honest result: across 1,740 tracked 2026 acquisitions, that search returned exactly one weak match, a target connected to the word "Hollywood" in a headline, which does not confirm an actual Los Angeles headquarters and is too weak to build a claim on. Public deal announcements almost never state a target's city, so a location-based cut of this index is not currently possible with real confidence, and we are saying that plainly rather than forcing a section that does not hold up.
What we can show honestly is the national technology M&A picture, labeled as national, not local, which at least tells an LA-area technology seller what the broader market they are selling into looks like.
Of those 589 US-target deals announced between January 2 and September 14, 2026, strategic buyers took 322 and public companies another 171, roughly 84 percent going to a strategic or already-public acquirer rather than a financial sponsor. Private-equity-backed strategics accounted for 72 and standalone PE firms 23. By sector, IT services led at 108, followed by SaaS at 102, other technology at 95, fintech at 66, data infrastructure at 52, healthcare technology and vertical AI at 49 each, martech at 31, and cybersecurity at 26. Ninety-one, about 15 percent, were cross-border.
Three national deals from the same window show what the disclosed end of this market looks like. OneStream's $6.4 billion sale to Hg, announced January 6, 2026, was advised on the sell side by J.P. Morgan and Centerview Partners. Accelerant's sale to Thoma Bravo, announced August 13, 2026 at over $4 billion, involved Morgan Stanley and Houlihan Lokey. DoubleVerify's $2.15 billion sale to Nielsen, announced August 6, 2026, was advised by PJT Partners. None of these three is confirmed as Los Angeles-headquartered; we present them purely as national market structure, not local comparables.
Why we are not forcing a local angle. Only 81 of the 589 US technology deals in our 2026 index named a sell-side advisor at all, and none of the firms on this page appeared in that credited list. That is expected: these are lower middle market and industry-generalist advisors whose clients are rarely public companies with press-release obligations, not a sign that any firm here is inactive. Use this section for market structure, and use the firm profiles above, verified from each firm's own site, for advisor selection.
The honest tier below this band
If your Los Angeles or Orange County business does under about $2M of revenue, most firms on this page will decline politely, costing you time. Several national brokerage networks, including Sunbelt Business Brokers, Transworld Business Advisors, Murphy Business & Financial, VR Business Brokers and First Choice Business Brokers, operate through independently owned local franchises and generally cover most major metros. We could not verify a specific staffed LA-metro office for any one of them this month; two location-finder pages returned an access-denied response, and the others listed no confirmable local address in what we could load. That does not mean none has an LA office, only that we could not confirm one, so we are not naming a specific address the way we did above.
The practical guidance is the same regardless: a marketplace listing or a local broker is fine for a business whose value is mostly the owner's relationships and whose likely buyer is an individual operator using SBA financing. It is a weaker fit for a software or technology business, where the buyer pool is national and the valuation logic is not simple multiple-of-earnings. Read our comparison of business brokers versus M&A advisors before you choose, and confirm any specific broker's actual local office and license directly rather than from a franchise network's national marketing page.
The honest tier above this band
Above roughly $300M of enterprise value, the list changes to firms whose Los Angeles metro office is a branch of a much larger national or global bank. All four addresses below were fetched from each firm's own site this month.
| Bank | Los Angeles metro office | Why it is usually wrong for a smaller deal |
|---|---|---|
| Moelis & Company | 10100 Santa Monica Blvd, Suite 1600, Los Angeles, CA 90067 (Century City) | A global advisory bank built for large-cap and public-company mandates. Below roughly $300M, expect a junior team and a long minimum-fee conversation. |
| Lincoln International | 633 W Fifth St, 66th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90071 (downtown) | Global mid-market reach that skews toward the upper end of "middle market." Senior partner time is scarce below the firm's typical range. |
| William Blair | 1900 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 500, Los Angeles, CA 90067 (Century City) | Full-service investment bank with both private wealth and investment banking desks at this address. A smaller deal competes for attention against much larger firm-wide mandates. |
| Piper Sandler | 2321 Rosecrans Ave, Suite 3200, El Segundo, CA 90245, and 16501 Ventura Blvd, Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA 91436 (the firm's own site lists this Encino-area address under "Los Angeles") | Public-company-oriented full-service bank. Two Southern California offices signal real regional commitment, but deal minimums still put most owner-run businesses out of range. |
We attempted to verify one additional well-known global M&A bank with a Los Angeles presence this month, so we are not publishing anything about it here rather than describe a firm from outside sources or memory. We also checked Robert W. Baird and B. Riley Financial; Baird's Los Angeles presence appears to be a fixed-income office rather than a full M&A advisory office, and B. Riley's current entity structure was unclear enough from the firm's site that we chose not to include it rather than guess.
Valuation ladder by industry
Los Angeles does not have a published city-specific multiple set, so the table below pulls the industries most relevant to the metro's own foundational and high-wage sectors, per the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, from ProCloser's own published industry multiple guide.
| Industry | Typical multiple | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| MSP and IT services | 5.0x to 9.0x | EBITDA |
| SaaS and software | 4.0x to 9.0x | EBITDA |
| Healthcare and medical practices | 4.0x to 7.0x | EBITDA |
| Manufacturing | 4.0x to 6.0x | EBITDA |
| Logistics and distribution | 4.0x to 6.0x | EBITDA |
| Marketing and creative agencies | 3.0x to 6.0x | EBITDA |
| Professional services | 3.0x to 5.0x | SDE/EBITDA |
| Construction and trades | 3.0x to 5.0x | EBITDA |
| E-commerce and retail | 3.0x to 5.0x | SDE |
Los Angeles' own largest named industries, entertainment and media, and aerospace and defense, are not covered in ProCloser's published general industry multiple guide, since both trade on deal-specific factors, content libraries and IP in the case of media, government contract backlog and clearances in the case of aerospace, that a general multiple table cannot represent responsibly. For those two sectors, ask any advisor you meet for named, dated comparable transactions rather than a rule-of-thumb multiple. See ProCloser's full EBITDA multiples by industry guide and the deal index valuation benchmarks for the broader technology-sector picture.
What do these advisors charge in 2026?
None of the 15 firms above publishes a rate card. The ranges below are ProCloser's own published guidance from our M&A advisory fees guide, describing the middle market generally. Use them to sanity-check an engagement letter, not to negotiate from.
| Deal size (EV) | Retainer, monthly | Success fee | Approx total at close |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2M to $5M | $0 to $5,000 | Around 6% to 10%, often with a minimum fee | $150K to $500K |
| $5M to $15M | $5,000 to $10,000 | Around 4% to 6% | $300K to $800K |
| $15M to $50M | $10,000 to $20,000 | Around 3% to 5% | $600K to $2.0M |
| $50M to $100M | $15,000 to $25,000 | Around 2% to 3% | $1.2M to $3.0M |
| Above $100M | $20,000 to $50,000 | Under 2%, often tiered | Negotiated, minimums apply |
Two things matter more in Los Angeles specifically than the raw percentage. First, whether the monthly retainer is credited back against the success fee at close, since several firms on this list disclose no fee terms at all and that detail has to come from the engagement letter itself. Second, minimum fees bite hardest on smaller deals in expensive markets: a $400,000 minimum on a $6M Los Angeles business is well over the top of the 4% to 6% band for that size. Run the numbers on our advisory fee calculator before you sign anything.
The frames we use in this guide
Five lenses we apply to every Los Angeles mandate. Each has a rule, a number and an action.
1. The Shared-Tower Test
Rule: a Century City address tells you which building a firm sits in, not which firm you are talking to. Number: Imperial Capital (Suite 2400) and Moelis & Company (Suite 1600) both list 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard, and Objective Capital's own office announcement names the same street. Three firms, one tower. Act: get the suite number and the exact legal entity name before you search FINRA BrokerCheck.
2. The Sector-Before-Size Test
Rule: in Los Angeles, industry fit determines the buyer list more than revenue size, because entertainment, aerospace and apparel draw from almost entirely separate buyer pools. Number: the 15 firms here collectively name more than a dozen distinct industries, and no single firm credibly covers them all. Act: ask which finalist has a named, dated closed deal in your specific sub-sector, not just a listed vertical.
3. The Published-Band Test
Rule: a firm that states an exact enterprise-value range on its own site is telling you where its senior people spend their time. Number: only 2 of the 15 firms on this list, Objective Capital at $10M to $100M and AGRA Capital Advisors at $5M to $150M, publish a specific band; the rest describe themselves only as "middle market." Act: ask every firm you meet to state their last five closed deal sizes in writing before your first real meeting.
4. The Orange County Overlap
Rule: because this metro includes Orange County, a firm headquartered in Newport Beach, Laguna Hills or elsewhere in OC is a legitimate local option, not an out-of-town referral. Number: 3 of the 15 firms ranked here, Avant Advisory Group, Meritage Partners and Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide, are based in Orange County rather than Los Angeles proper. Act: do not rule out an OC-based firm because your business sits north of the 405; ask about its specific LA buyer relationships instead.
5. The Local Deal-Data Gap
Rule: public deal announcements almost never state a target's city, so no one, including us, can honestly publish a "most active Los Angeles advisor" ranking from deal data alone. Number: across 1,740 acquisitions ProCloser's technology deal index tracked in 2026 through September 14, searching every target, acquirer, summary and source field for Los Angeles metro terms returned effectively zero confirmable matches. Act: treat any list that claims to rank advisors by "LA deals closed" as unverifiable unless it names the specific deals, with dates and confirmed target cities.
How to verify an advisor is legit and unconflicted
Five checks, none of which take more than an hour, and all more important in a market where several firms share a building.
- Look up the exact legal entity, not the brand. Anomalie Group discloses that securities transactions run through Rainmaker Securities, LLC, a separate FINRA-registered entity; Objective Capital and AGRA Capital Advisors both disclose BA Securities, LLC. Ask which entity signs your engagement letter, then search that exact name on FINRA BrokerCheck.
- Confirm the office is staffed, not just listed. Objective Capital's LA office opening was announced with a named Managing Director and a date; a firm that cannot name who works from its LA address may be using the city as a marketing line.
- Ask for the suite number in Century City specifically. Given how many firms share 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard, confirm you are meeting the firm you think you are meeting.
- Ask who else the firm works for in your niche. It may have relationships there, and it may have a conflict on the one buyer you most want.
- Ask for two references from deals that did not close. Everyone will give you a happy seller. The instructive call is with the founder whose process broke down.
The traps in a "best LA advisor" list
Including this one. Read these before you act on any ranking, ours included.
- A recognizable Los Angeles name is not proof of fit at your size. Several firms on this page work deals with nine and ten figures in them. A boutique brand does not guarantee a boutique's worth of attention on a $6M sale.
- Sector pages are marketing, not track record. Most firms here publish a sector list; very few publish dated, named closes in each one. That gap is the whole game.
- A shared office building is not a shared reputation. Three firms at one Century City address have three different histories, sizes and specialties.
- "Middle market" means almost nothing without a number. Thirteen of the 15 firms on this page use that phrase and do not attach a dollar range to it.
- Local deal-count claims are currently unverifiable. Neither we nor, as far as we could find, any other source can currently back a "most active Los Angeles advisor" ranking with named, dated, city-confirmed deals at scale.
- Los Angeles is not one industry. A list that treats entertainment, aerospace and apparel sellers as needing the same advisor has not done the work.
Where ProCloser fits
ProCloser is not an M&A advisor and does not sell companies. We run a deal-matching network and a public technology deal index, and we publish research on advisor selection. When a founder tells us their industry, size and timing, we introduce them to firms in our network that fit. We are paid by advisory firms, not by sellers, which is a conflict worth knowing about before you use our matching service. Everything factual on this page about a named firm is sourced to that firm's own website, listed in full below.
The bottom line
Route on industry first, size second, address last. Entertainment, media and healthcare sellers start with Salem Partners. Aerospace, defense and industrials sellers start with Imperial Capital, Greif & Co or NewCap Partners. Apparel, CPG and consumer-brand sellers start with Anomalie Group, Bardi Co or Intrepid Investment Bankers. If you want a firm that states its exact deal-size band in writing, Objective Capital and AGRA Capital Advisors are the two that do it. Orange County owners should not overlook Avant Advisory Group, Meritage Partners or Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide simply because their address says Newport Beach or Laguna Hills instead of Los Angeles. Below about $2M, a business broker is the honest option, though confirm the specific local office yourself. Above roughly $300M, Moelis, Lincoln International, William Blair and Piper Sandler all keep a genuine Los Angeles metro office. And whichever firm you pick, confirm the exact legal entity and suite number before you sign anything, because in this metro more than most, the building name tells you less than you think.
Related resources
- Best M&A advisory firms in New York. The largest US metro, ranked the same way: verified office by office.
- Best M&A advisory firms in Chicago. The Midwest's largest deal market.
- Best M&A advisory firms in Florida. A statewide cut for founders comparing coasts.
- Best M&A advisory firms for the lower middle market. The national version of the $10M to $100M band this page covers locally.
- Best boutique M&A advisory firms. Broader boutique ranking across sectors and geographies.
- Best firms for sell-side M&A advisory. Firms built specifically to represent sellers.
- Best M&A advisors for mid-sized companies. A size-first ranking if industry fit matters less than scale for your deal.
- Best M&A advisors for manufacturing. Relevant to the region's aerospace-adjacent and industrial sellers.
- Best M&A advisors for healthcare. For LA and Orange County healthcare and life sciences sellers.
- Best exit planning advisors. For owners still a year or more from a sale process.
- Best business brokers in the United States. The honest step-down tier, ranked nationally.
- ProCloser Tech M&A Deal Index. All 1,740 tracked 2026 technology acquisitions, updated regularly from public announcements.
- Deal index insights. Most active acquirers, advisor credits and buyer-type splits nationally.
- Valuation benchmarks. Median disclosed deal value by sector across the national technology index.
- Most active acquirers. Who is buying repeatedly in 2026 nationally.
- EBITDA multiples by industry. The source table for this page's valuation ladder.
- M&A advisory fees guide. The full breakdown of monthly work fees, success fees, minimums and tail periods by deal size.
- M&A advisory fee calculator. Run your own deal size through the fee bands before you sign an engagement letter.
- Business broker versus M&A advisor. Which one you need, and what the registration difference means.
- How long it takes to sell a business. General timelines for planning a Los Angeles or Orange County process.
- What's my business worth?. ProCloser's free valuation starting point.
- Get matched to an advisor. Tell us your industry, size and timing and we will introduce you to firms in our network that fit.
Frequently asked questions
I run a $14M apparel brand in the Fashion District. Do I need an LA generalist or a consumer specialist?
A consumer specialist, and the reason is buyer overlap rather than any judgment on the generalist firms. Apparel buyers, whether strategic consolidators, licensing platforms or private equity roll-ups, look for very specific signals: wholesale versus direct-to-consumer revenue mix, chargeback and return rates, and how concentrated your sales are in a handful of retail accounts. On this list, Anomalie Group names CPG, food and beverage, and health and wellness as standing sectors, and Bardi Co publishes apparel specifically among its disclosed deal-size examples, including a $90 million apparel refinancing. A generalist firm from the Tier 1 or Tier 2 groups above can still run a competent process, but ask directly in the first meeting how many apparel-specific buyers they can name off the top of their head. If the answer is vague, that is your signal. At $14M of revenue you are also squarely in the $10M to $100M band that Objective Capital publishes explicitly, so it is worth a call regardless of sector specialization, provided its team can speak fluently about your specific retail channel mix.
Two banks pitched me and both listed 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard as their address. Are they the same firm?
No, and this is a common mix-up in Century City specifically. We independently verified that both Imperial Capital (Suite 2400) and Moelis & Company (Suite 1600) list that exact street address, and Objective Capital's own office-opening announcement names the same street. These are three unrelated firms of very different scale sharing one tower, normal in a building with dozens of financial services tenants. The fix: always get the full suite number and the exact legal entity name for your engagement letter, then verify that entity on FINRA BrokerCheck rather than assume a shared address implies any relationship.
My aerospace supplier does $22M in revenue and three primes are circling. Do I need Imperial Capital or someone smaller?
Talk to both, and let the conversation itself be the filter. Imperial Capital publishes aerospace, defense and government services as its first-listed named sector, alongside a separate security and homeland security category, giving it the broadest published aerospace-adjacent coverage of any Los Angeles firm we verified. But the firm does not publish a deal-size band, and a $22M supplier sale may or may not be the kind of mandate that gets senior partner time at a firm with a thirteen-sector book. NewCap Partners, by contrast, publishes transaction examples specifically in aerospace and composites and has served the region's industrial base since 1987, which may translate into more senior attention at your specific size. Ask each firm directly for the size of its three most recent aerospace-adjacent closes before you decide, since neither firm's website answers that question for you. The fact that three primes are already circling is itself valuable: it tells any advisor you hire that a targeted process against a known, short buyer list may be more efficient than a broad auction.
I'm selling a $6M marketing agency in Culver City. Is the $10M to $100M tier too big for me?
Likely yes for the firms that publish that exact band, and this is worth knowing before you spend time on outreach that goes nowhere. Objective Capital states $10M to $100M enterprise value directly, which puts a $6M agency below its stated floor. AGRA Capital Advisors publishes a wider $5M to $150M band that would technically include you, so that is the more realistic first call among the two firms on this list with published ranges. Below either range, or if neither responds with real interest, the honest options are a business broker, covered in the tier below this band, or a smaller generalist firm from the list above willing to take a mandate under its usual size for the right business. Marketing and creative agencies specifically trade at 3.0x to 6.0x EBITDA per ProCloser's published industry multiples, which on $6M of revenue and a typical services margin likely puts your enterprise value at the very low end of what any advisor on this page, published band or not, would consider a standard mandate. Ask directly rather than assuming either way.
Why does almost every firm on this list say "Not published" for deal size and team?
Because most Los Angeles M&A boutiques are small, private and deliberately low-profile, which is a legitimate way to run this business, not a red flag by itself. Of the 15 firms we verified, only 2, Objective Capital and AGRA Capital Advisors, publish a specific enterprise-value band, and only a handful name more than one team member. Compare that to Intrepid Investment Bankers, which names specific past clients even without dates. The pattern is that smaller, founder-led firms tend to protect client confidentiality by not publishing case studies, while larger platform firms with public-company clients disclose named, dated transactions because those clients already announced the deal. The practical response is the same throughout this guide: ask directly for three referenceable transactions and a specific deal-size range.
Should I hire a Newport Beach or Laguna Hills firm if my business is in Los Angeles proper?
Yes, if the sector and size fit; geography alone should not rule a firm out. Three firms here, Avant Advisory Group, Meritage Partners and Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide, are headquartered in Orange County rather than LA County, and Avant keeps a separate downtown LA office because it serves both markets. Southern California's buyer universe does not stop at the Orange Curtain; a strategic looking at an LA healthcare business will just as readily look at a comparable OC one. What matters more than mailing address is whether a firm can name buyers active in your specific industry. A firm whose only local-market argument is its office location, not its buyer relationships, is pitching you something weaker than it sounds.
How do I verify a firm's FINRA registration before I sign anything?
Start with the exact legal entity, not the brand name on the website. Several firms here disclose that securities work runs through a separate broker-dealer: Objective Capital and AGRA Capital Advisors both name BA Securities, LLC, while Anomalie Group names Rainmaker Securities, LLC. Ask which specific entity will appear on your engagement letter, then search that exact name on FINRA BrokerCheck. A clean record confirms registration status and discloses disciplinary history; it does not confirm deal quality or sector fit. If a firm cannot say which broker-dealer entity handles its securities work, or claims it needs none, ask a securities attorney to confirm before proceeding.
Your deal index tracks 1,740 companies. How many are Los Angeles businesses?
We could not confirm a single one with confidence, which is more useful to you than a fabricated number. ProCloser's technology deal index records announced acquisitions nationally and globally; it has no city field, because most press releases and SEC filings never state where a target is headquartered. Searching every target, acquirer, summary and source field in all 1,740 rows for Los Angeles metro terms returned only one match, a company connected to the word "Hollywood" in a headline, too weak to confirm an actual headquarters. That is precisely why we did not attempt a "most active Los Angeles advisor" ranking anywhere on this page, and why you should be skeptical of anyone who claims to, absent named, dated, city-confirmed transactions.
A strategic buyer called me directly. Do I still need one of these firms?
Generally yes, and the reasoning holds regardless of city. A buyer who calls you directly is trying to negotiate a proprietary deal, meaning one without competing bids, which nearly always produces a lower price than a run process with several credible buyers at the table. You also cannot run diligence and operate your company at the same time, particularly in Los Angeles' entertainment, aerospace or apparel industries, where diligence goes deep into content rights, government contract transferability, or wholesale customer concentration respectively. The practical move is to keep talking with the buyer who called, take detailed notes on what they say they value about your business, and then hire an advisor from the tier that matches your size and sector to run that buyer plus a wider list against each other. An unsolicited call is leverage, not a reason to skip representation.
What's the real difference between Objective Capital's $10M to $100M band and a firm like Imperial Capital that skews larger?
The difference is where senior attention concentrates, not necessarily deal quality. Objective Capital states its band explicitly, which tells you the firm actively pursues and staffs mandates across that entire $10M to $100M range as its core business. Imperial Capital publishes no deal-size band at all, but its thirteen named sectors and its founding date of 1997 suggest a broader, more scaled practice; a firm with that sector breadth typically finds its most profitable, senior-staffed mandates skewing toward the upper half of the middle market or above, even without saying so publicly. Neither pattern is wrong, but a founder at $15M of enterprise value is statistically more likely to get a senior partner's full attention at a firm whose stated range includes $15M than at a firm whose website gives no indication of where its real focus sits. Ask directly, in the first call, what the firm's typical current deal size is, and treat hesitation on that question as information.
Is a business broker enough for my $2M Orange County HVAC company?
For a business at that size, probably yes, provided you verify the specific local broker rather than trust a franchise brand alone. National brokerage networks generally serve most major metros, LA and Orange County included, though we could not confirm a staffed local office for any single network this month on the networks' own location pages. An HVAC business at $2M of revenue is usually valued on seller's discretionary earnings and sold to an individual buyer using SBA financing, exactly what business brokers are built for, and below the stated or implied floor of every firm ranked here. Verify the broker's license, ask for two recent local closings with dates, and read our business broker versus M&A advisor comparison before signing.
My board wants a globally recognized bank for the brand name. We do $20M in revenue. Realistic?
Probably not on the terms your board is imagining, though the four firms in our honest tier above are worth knowing. Moelis & Company, Lincoln International, William Blair and Piper Sandler all maintain genuine Los Angeles metro offices, verified directly on each firm's own site this month. But all four are built around large-cap or upper-middle-market mandates; at $20M of revenue you would likely be pitched by a senior banker and staffed by a junior team, if accepted at all. The brand argument also rarely survives contact with your actual buyer list, since the strategics and sponsors who would acquire a $20M business already know the credible players without needing a bank logo. If your board's real goal is process credibility, several Tier 1 firms above, including Greif & Co with three decades of continuous LA operation, can make a similar case at a size where you are more likely to get senior attention.
Sources
Every page below was fetched between September 8 and September 14, 2026. Firm facts come from the firm's own site unless noted. Deal facts come from the ProCloser deal index or the announcing party's press release.
Firm websites, Tier 1
- Greif & Co: greifco.com
- Salem Partners: salempartners.com/team
- DelMorgan & Co: delmorganco.com
- Imperial Capital: imperialcapital.com/our-firm
- Bardi Co: bardico.com, /about
Firm websites, Tier 2
- Objective Capital: objectiveibv.com/about-us, LA office opening announcement
- CriticalPoint Partners: criticalpoint.com/about
- Anomalie Group: anomaliegroup.com/about-us
- Montminy & Co: montminyco.com
- Avant Advisory Group: avantadvisory.com
- Intrepid Investment Bankers: intrepidib.com
- Meritage Partners: meritage-partners.com/contact
- AGRA Capital Advisors: agracapital.com
- NewCap Partners: newcap.com
- Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide: cfaw.com
The honest tier above, firm websites
- Moelis & Company: moelis.com/locations
- Lincoln International: lincolninternational.com/worldwide/united-states
- William Blair: williamblair.com/Who-We-Are/Locations
- Piper Sandler: pipersandler.com/locations
Firms we checked and could not verify or confirm as a fit
- The Advisory IB and Ocean Park Advisors: no verifiable Los Angeles metro office found on either firm's own site.
- Align Business Advisory Services: page returned search-engine-optimized city landing content rather than a verifiable staffed office.
Deal and market data
- ProCloser Tech M&A Deal Index: 1,740 tracked 2026 technology acquisitions as of September 14, 2026, one source link per row.
- OneStream to Hg: acquisition release, January 6, 2026.
- Accelerant to Thoma Bravo: acquisition release, August 13, 2026.
- DoubleVerify to Nielsen: SEC exhibit, August 6, 2026.
- Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation: 2026 Economic Forecast Recap.
- ProCloser EBITDA multiples by industry: source for the valuation ladder table.
- FINRA BrokerCheck: brokercheck.finra.org.
Disclosure
Disclosure: ProCloser.ai operates a deal-matching network and may connect sellers with some of the firms named on this page. We are paid by advisory firms rather than by sellers. ProCloser is not an M&A advisor, is not a broker-dealer, and does not represent companies in transactions. No firm paid for placement in this ranking and no firm reviewed its own entry before publication. Verify any advisor on FINRA BrokerCheck before you sign an engagement letter, and confirm which legal entity is signing it. Nothing here is investment, legal or tax advice. Valuation ranges are published market data, not an opinion about your business. Report factual errors to corrections@procloser.ai.
About the author
Tania Kozar spent over a decade advising founders and business owners on exit strategy and M&A readiness before joining ProCloser.ai, across manufacturing, business services, healthcare and technology. She writes ProCloser's advisor rankings and updates them as firms, teams and deal records change. This guide was built from firm websites fetched between September 8 and September 14, 2026 and from the ProCloser Tech M&A Deal Index. More about Tania.