Sunset Coast Partners · Practice II
M&A Advisory
When the decision is made, execution is everything. Process, positioning, and negotiation for founder-held government contracting companies.
The Practice
Sell-side and buy-side mandates, run with discipline.
Transactions in this market punish the unprepared. Recertification rules, customer concentration, and clearance-heavy workforces change what buyers will pay and how deals must be structured. We run focused processes for owners who want the outcome handled with the same rigor they used to build the company.
Sunset Coast Advisors is retainer-based. No success fees. Not a broker-dealer. Sunset Coast Partners, LLC does not provide legal, tax, or investment advice. Nothing on this site is an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security.
What We Do
Sell-side mandates
Preparation, positioning, buyer outreach, and negotiation through close. A process designed around your company, not a template.
Buy-side mandates
Thesis-driven acquisition searches for strategics and sponsors entering or consolidating the government contracting market.
Buyer landscape and positioning
Who actually pays for a company like yours, what they underwrite, and how to present the business so its strengths price.
Deal structuring and negotiation
Clear-eyed guidance on structure, earnouts, and terms, coordinated with your legal and tax counsel.
Who We Serve
Owners at the decision point
Founders ready to run a real process rather than respond to the first inbound letter of intent.
Strategics and sponsors
Acquirers who want a partner fluent in set-asides, recompetes, and the mechanics of this market.
How It Begins
Readiness review
Before anything goes to market, we pressure-test the numbers, the story, and the timing.
A deliberate process
The right buyers approached the right way, with materials that answer diligence before it starts.
Through the wire
Negotiation, diligence management, and closing coordination until the funds settle.
M&A Advisory · questions
Straight answers.
- How long does it take to sell a government contracting company?
- From readiness review to close, typically six to nine months for a run process, and three to five when a buyer is already at the table. Diligence in this market is slower than commercial deals because contracts, clearances, and recertification each need their own review.
- Who buys small government contractors?
- Private equity platforms and their add-ons, strategic acquirers, independent sponsors, search funds, and occasionally employee ownership trusts. Which of them can pay full value for your company depends on how much of your revenue depends on a status they do not hold.
- What is a recertification and why does it change the price?
- After a merger, acquisition, or sale, a company must recertify its size and status within thirty days. Since January 17, 2026, a disqualifying recertification ends eligibility for future set-aside orders and options under multiple-award contracts. Buyers price that revenue as gone unless they qualify to keep it.
- Do you represent buyers or sellers?
- Both, on separate mandates and never on the same transaction. Sell-side clients get a process built around their company. Buy-side clients get a thesis-driven search from a team fluent in set-asides and recompetes.
Set-asides assessment · About three minutes
Will my set-asides survive a sale?
Status is attached to the owner, not the company. See which of your set-aside revenue travels with a sale, program by program, and what protects it.