For independent shop owners
Private equity is coming. Keep your shop. Get paid like them.
Consolidators buy shops for 3–4x earnings and sell the group for 12x and up. Northmark is the owners' version: merge your shop in at 5x, keep running it, and split the upside when the group sells.
The deal, in one line
5x today.
Plus the upside.
A buyer pays about 3–4x your yearly profit and walks away with everything after that. Northmark merges your shop in at 5x, in ownership you keep, and splits the upside above it with you when the group sells, minus fees.
- 5x in, more than a sale. A buyer pays 3–4x. Your shop converts to units at 5x your profit.
- Keep running it. Your name, your team, 100% of the cash flow until the sale.
- Split the upside. When the group sells at the group multiple, the gain above 5x is split 50/50 with you, after fees.
Plus the cash flow you keep every year until the sale.
Get my real numberIllustrative only. Assumes a 3.5x cash sale (the middle of 3–4x), a 5x merger, a 14x group sale, a 50/50 split of the upside above 5x, and 5% fees at the sale. Not a valuation, forecast or guarantee.
Sold to Oak Hill about 25 months after its first deal. ~30 partner businesses.
Read the deal ↗ Oct 2025 · Tire & service $1.625B Big Brand Tire & ServiceRecapitalized by Percheron after growing revenue more than tenfold since 2021.
Read the deal ↗ Jan 2026 · Collision $1.3B Joe Hudson's Collision Center258 locations sold to Boyd Group, owner of Gerber Collision.
Read the deal ↗ Dec 2025 · Quick lube ~$625M Breeze Autocare (Oil Changers)About 200 stores sold to Valvoline.
Read the deal ↗Deal values from company announcements and press reports. Links open the original coverage.
The market
They're buying your
neighbors. Here's why.
Investors already own everything above your shop. The shop is the last layer still owned by owners, so that's what they're buying now.
Every layer above the shop sells to the same 167,000 shops. The shop is still up for grabs.
That gap is their whole business, and they close it by buying up a market, then squeezing everyone still in it. Collision went first: the top groups went from 11% to 27% of the industry in under ten years. The same buyers are now in mechanical repair.
buyer deals in auto service in 2026 so far, already more than any full year
of those deals made by just 13 repeat buyers
independent shops they plan to buy in the next five years (est.)
Two ways this ends
Their group.
Or ours.
A consolidator builds one company that owns every shop. Northmark builds one group that every owner owns. Same scale. Opposite direction.
One owner.
Hundreds of shops.
- They buy you out at 3–4x, then rebrand, restaff and run it from headquarters.
- The upside leaves town. The jump from 3–4x to 14x goes to the fund, not the owners who built the shops.
- Your name comes off the sign. Your customers become their customers.
Hundreds of owners.
One group.
- Nobody gets bought out. You merge in for ownership in the group and keep running your shop.
- The upside stays with the owners. One sale at the group multiple, split with you by the schedule in your agreement.
- Your name stays on the sign. We share the buying power and the back office. The shop stays local.
If you stay on your own
When they land near you, your margin is what they take.
A consolidator doesn't need to buy your shop to hurt it. Once they have a cluster in your market, they pay less for the same parts, outbid you for technicians, and outspend you on marketing. Every point of margin they gain comes from the independents around them. Collision owners who waited found that out.
How it works
Don't sell to them.
Build it with us.
A cashless merger: you trade your shop for a piece of the whole group. No check changes hands, and no lender is involved.
Merge your shop in
Your shop converts to units in Northmark at 5x your yearly profit, more than the 3–4x a buyer would pay, and you still own it.
Keep running it
Same name, same team, same bays. You keep 100% of your cash flow. We take the books, purchasing, HR and payroll off your plate.
Sell together
The group sells as one company at the group multiple. The upside above your 5x is split 50/50 with you, minus fees.
Questions owners ask
Common
questions.
Straight answers. If yours isn't here, ask us.
How is my shop valued?
At 5x your yearly profit, more than the 3–4x a buyer would typically pay. You get that 5x in ownership you keep, and when the group sells, the gain above your 5x is split 50/50 with you, minus fees. Your agreement includes a written schedule showing your entry value and exactly how the sale is split, so you know the rules before you sign.
Why not just sell to a PE buyer for cash?
You can. But you get 3–4x once, and the buyer keeps the jump to 12x+ when they sell the group. Merged into Northmark at 5x, a shop with $1M of profit works out to roughly $9M at a 14x sale after a 50/50 split of the upside and fees, plus the cash flow you kept. Illustrative, not guaranteed.
Do I still run my shop?
Yes. Your name, your team and your bays stay the same, and you keep 100% of the cash flow until the sale. We handle the back office: books, purchasing, HR, payroll and marketing.
What if I want cash now?
About one in four owners takes a buyout instead. We buy 75–100% for cash at 4–6x. You can roll the rest into units and stay on with a salary plus a bonus on growth.
When does the group sell?
The plan is one sale of the whole company once it's at scale. The closest model, Guild Garage Group, sold about 25 months after it started, at roughly 16x. We plan around 14x. No date is guaranteed.
I'm not ready. Is there anything for me now?
Yes. Our parts buying group, the Collective, is a separate company that cuts parts costs without asking you to sell anything. Joining it never obligates you to merge.
Talk to someone
Find out what
your shop is worth.
Fill this in and someone from our team, not a call center, will call within one business day.
- 15 minutes. A short first call to see if this fits you.
- Your real number. We run your shop through the same valuation schedule every owner gets.
- No obligation. Nothing is signed until you've seen your terms in writing.