14 Best Automotive M&A Advisory Firms and Investment Banks 2026

Automotive M&A is three separate markets with three separate adviser sets: franchised dealership buy-sells, tier one and tier two supplier deals, and the motor vehicle aftermarket. This guide profiles 14 verified automotive M&A advisory firms across all three, with deal bands and specialisms.

Dealership transactions are their own discipline. Value is quoted as blue sky, a multiple of adjusted pre-tax earnings, with the real estate valued separately, and every transfer needs manufacturer approval. A generalist investment banker who has never dealt with a framework agreement or a right of first refusal will lose weeks discovering how that works.

Supplier deals run on different logic. Buyers underwrite programme awards, platform life, customer concentration with the original equipment manufacturers, and increasingly the exposure of a product line to electrification. A stamping business supplying internal combustion powertrain components and one supplying body structures may look identical in the accounts and trade several turns apart.

The aftermarket is the third market and the most consolidated. Distributors, parts manufacturers, recyclers and service chains have been rolled up steadily by strategics and sponsors, and the advisers who work there know those buyers by name.

Working across more than one sector? The M&A advisors database holds every firm we have researched and opens filtered to Automotive, so you can line these 14 up against each other on deal size and coverage.

Quick list of automotive M&A advisory firms

• Kerrigan Advisors: Sell-side only advisory to franchised auto dealers nationwide.
• Haig Partners: Dealership buy-sell advisers running confidential sale processes for owners.
• The Presidio Group: Auto retail advisory and investment firm sitting at the centre of the sector.
• Dave Cantin Group: Automotive M&A advisory covering buy-side, sell-side and valuations.
• Performance Brokerage Services: High volume auto dealership brokerage for new car dealers.
• Tim Lamb Group: Dealership brokerage covering the United States and Canada.
• MD Johnson Inc.: Dealership M&A, valuation and exit planning specialist.
• Angle Advisors: Detroit middle market bank with heavy transportation and industrial coverage.
• Amherst Partners: Michigan investment banking and restructuring firm with supplier experience.
• PMCF: Michigan middle market M&A adviser covering manufacturing and mobility.
• Brown Gibbons Lang: Top middle market bank with industrial and automotive coverage.
• FOCUS Investment Banking: Middle market bank with a dedicated automotive aftermarket team.
• Schwartz Advisors: Advisory firm focused exclusively on the motor vehicle aftermarket.
• Livingstone Partners: International mid-market bank covering industrials and mobility.

How to get yes from automotive M&A advisory firms

What advisers screen for depends on which of the three markets you are in, but in all of them the question is the same: will a buyer pay a real number without a long negotiation about the earnings.

For dealerships, adjusted pre-tax earnings do the work. Advisers will normalise for owner compensation, rent charged to a related party, and one-off manufacturer money, then compare the result to what your franchise and market support. Bring your factory financial statements for three years, the current framework and facility obligations, and a clear statement of what the real estate is worth separately.

For suppliers, the screen is programme visibility. Buyers want awarded business by platform with expected volumes and end of production dates, customer concentration by original equipment manufacturer, and an honest view of which parts are exposed to powertrain change. A supplier that cannot produce awarded business by programme is asking a buyer to guess.

Across all three, document readiness decides pace. Automotive diligence pulls contracts, purchase orders, tooling ownership, warranty and recall history, environmental reports on the property, and factory correspondence, and several bidders want them at once. Staging that in a permissioned workspace is the fix, and our review of the best virtual data rooms covers what each tier costs.

Bring these to a first adviser meeting:

1. Three years of financial statements, factory statements for dealers, plus a trailing twelve month earnings bridge
2. An adjustment schedule with documentation behind every add back, including owner rent
3. For dealers: franchise agreements, facility obligations and the real estate appraisal or basis
4. For suppliers: awarded business by programme, volumes, and end of production dates
5. Customer concentration by revenue for the last three years
6. Tooling ownership, warranty and recall history, and any environmental reports

Start 7-day data room trial

No credit card required.

How to find automotive M&A advisory firms

Match the adviser to the market first. A dealership broker and a supplier investment bank have almost no overlap in buyer relationships, and neither knows the aftermarket distribution buyers well.

• Market match: Dealership buy-sell, supplier M&A and aftermarket are three separate adviser pools.
• Brand or segment evidence: For dealers, ask which franchises they have closed; for suppliers, which processes.
• Buyer coverage: Ask which public retailers, sponsors or strategics they have actually closed with.
• Factory relationships: For dealership deals, ask how they manage manufacturer approval timelines.
• Deal band honesty: Request the median closed transaction over 24 months, plus the smallest and largest.
• Fee model: Dealership brokerage is usually a success fee only; supplier mandates add a monthly retainer.
• FINRA registration: Securities transactions require a registered broker dealer, so ask which one.
• References: Two sellers who closed in the last 18 months, including one deal that got difficult.

How to approach automotive M&A advisory firms

Approach three or four advisers in parallel with the same information, then compare their views on value and on process length rather than on presentation quality.

Confidentiality is critical in dealership deals in particular. Staff, factory representatives and competing dealers in the same market all talk, and a rumour costs you sales people before it costs you anything else.

1. Decide whether you are selling the operating business, the real estate, or both.
2. Shortlist four advisers whose closed transactions match your market and franchise or product line.
3. Send a blind summary: franchise or product, geography, revenue, adjusted earnings, timing.
4. Ask for a written valuation view with the comparable transactions behind it.
5. Ask who the ten most likely buyers are and which of them they have closed with.
6. Check the engagement letter for exclusivity, tail period, expense cap and fee schedule.
7. Set the document policy before signing: tracked links, watermarks, no unrestricted downloads.
8. Require weekly written updates on buyer contact and factory approval progress.

Comparing the automotive M&A advisory firms

1. Kerrigan Advisors

Kerrigan is sell-side only, which removes the conflict that comes with representing buyers in the same market, and it publishes quarterly blue sky multiple data that owners can use to sanity check any valuation they are given.

• Market: Franchised dealership buy-sell, single stores through large groups
• Focus: Sell-side advisory and consulting to auto dealers nationwide
• Location: Incline Village, Nevada, with offices across the United States
• Website: Kerrigan Advisors
• Notable: Sell-side only advisory firm to auto dealers, publisher of recurring blue sky multiple research

2. Haig Partners

Haig runs confidential, customised sale processes for dealership owners and its principals come from both auto retail groups and financial institutions, which shows in how they handle buyer negotiation.

• Market: Franchised dealership buy-sell
• Focus: Sell-side representation for dealership owners and groups
• Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• Website: Haig Partners
• Notable: Team drawn from leading auto retail groups and financial institutions, publisher of quarterly market research

3. The Presidio Group

Presidio combines advisory with its own investing activity in auto retail, which gives it an unusually direct view of what buyers will actually underwrite rather than what they say in a meeting.

• Market: Dealership buy-sell and capital advisory
• Focus: Auto retail M&A, capital raising, strategic advisory
• Location: Denver, Colorado
• Website: The Presidio Group
• Notable: Advisory and investment firm focused on the auto retail sector

4. Dave Cantin Group

DCG works both sides of the dealership market and adds valuation and growth consulting, which suits owners who are two or three years out rather than ready to sign.

• Market: Dealership buy-sell, buy-side and sell-side
• Focus: Automotive M&A advisory, business valuations, strategic growth consulting
• Location: New York, with a national footprint
• Website: Dave Cantin Group
• Notable: Provides buy-side and sell-side representation for dealerships and investors

5. Performance Brokerage Services

Performance is one of the highest volume dealership brokerages in the country and covers the smaller single point stores that larger advisory firms often decline.

• Market: Dealership buy-sell, weighted to single and multi point stores
• Focus: New car dealership brokerage across the United States and Canada
• Location: Irvine, California, with offices nationwide
• Website: Performance Brokerage Services
• Notable: Auto dealership brokerage assisting new car dealers with buying and selling stores

6. Tim Lamb Group

Tim Lamb Group is a dealership brokerage covering the United States and Canada, and it is a practical option for owners who want a broad buyer canvass rather than a targeted process.

• Market: Dealership buy-sell
• Focus: Auto dealership mergers, acquisitions and listings
• Location: Columbus, Ohio, serving North America
• Website: Tim Lamb Group
• Notable: States it is the number one auto dealership broker in North America and Canada

7. MD Johnson Inc.

MD Johnson concentrates on dealership M&A, valuation and exit strategy, and it is a common choice for West Coast dealer groups planning a transition rather than reacting to an offer.

• Market: Dealership buy-sell and valuation
• Focus: Dealership M&A advisory, exit strategies, valuations
• Location: Washington State, serving dealers nationally
• Website: MD Johnson Inc.
• Notable: Automotive dealership broker offering M&A advisory, exit planning and valuation

8. Angle Advisors

Angle is the Detroit middle market bank most commonly seen on supplier deals with an international dimension, and its offices in Frankfurt and Shanghai matter when the likely buyer is European or Asian.

• Market: Middle market suppliers and industrial businesses
• Focus: Transportation, industrials, business services, consumer
• Location: Detroit, with offices in Frankfurt and Shanghai
• Website: Angle Advisors
• Notable: Founded 2009, states over 325 completed transactions with 80% carrying an international component

9. Amherst Partners

Amherst pairs investment banking with restructuring and performance improvement, which is the combination a supplier needs when a programme has gone wrong and a sale is one of several options.

• Market: Middle market suppliers and manufacturers
• Focus: M&A advisory, restructuring, performance improvement
• Location: Birmingham, Michigan
• Website: Amherst Partners
• Notable: Michigan investment banking and advisory firm serving manufacturers and their lenders

10. PMCF

PMCF works the middle market from Michigan with heavy manufacturing and mobility coverage, and it publishes sector research that makes its view of supplier valuations easy to check.

• Market: Middle market suppliers and manufacturers
• Focus: Manufacturing, mobility, distribution, plastics and packaging
• Location: Michigan, with offices in the United States
• Website: PMCF
• Notable: Middle market M&A adviser guiding owners, chief executives and private equity firms through transactions

11. Brown Gibbons Lang

BGL is a top middle market bank with a large industrials practice covering automotive and mobility, and it is a credible alternative when a supplier process should be run nationally rather than out of Detroit.

• Market: Middle market
• Focus: Industrials, automotive and mobility, capital markets
• Location: Cleveland, Ohio, with offices across the United States
• Website: Brown Gibbons Lang
• Notable: Middle market investment bank providing M&A and capital markets advisory

12. FOCUS Investment Banking

FOCUS runs a dedicated automotive aftermarket team alongside its wider middle market practice, covering tyre and service chains, parts distribution and collision repair.

• Market: Middle market aftermarket and services
• Focus: Automotive aftermarket, tyre and service, parts distribution, cross-border M&A
• Location: Washington DC, with offices across the United States
• Website: FOCUS Investment Banking
• Notable: Middle market investment bank with a dedicated automotive team and cross-border capability

13. Schwartz Advisors

Schwartz works only in the motor vehicle aftermarket, covering parts distribution, manufacturing, recycling and telematics, and its transaction list shows repeat buyers such as Genuine Parts Company and Transtar Industries.

• Market: Motor vehicle aftermarket
• Focus: Parts distribution, specialty manufacturing, recycling, telematics
• Location: United States, serving the aftermarket nationally
• Website: Schwartz Advisors
• Notable: Sell-side, buy-side and strategic growth advisory focused exclusively on the motor vehicle aftermarket

14. Livingstone Partners

Livingstone is an international mid-market bank with industrial and mobility coverage across the United States, Europe and Asia, which suits a supplier whose realistic buyer list is not domestic.

• Market: Mid-market, international
• Focus: Industrials, mobility, business services, consumer
• Location: Chicago, with offices across Europe and Asia
• Website: Livingstone Partners
• Notable: International mid-market investment bank with cross-border industrial coverage

Why you need secure document sharing in an automotive sale

Automotive diligence is heavy on documents that live outside the accounting system. A dealership process pulls franchise agreements, facility obligations, factory correspondence, service contracts, environmental reports on the property and employee records, while a supplier process pulls purchase orders, tooling agreements, programme awards, warranty and recall history and quality audits.

The people asking for those files are frequently your competitors. Public retailers and large dealer groups buy stores in markets where they already operate, and the most likely buyer for a tier two supplier is often the tier two supplier down the road. Sending a folder of factory statements by email to eight parties, three of whom will not proceed, hands your gross-per-unit detail and your customer concentration to businesses you will still be competing with next quarter.

Confidentiality leaks in dealership deals also cost you staff. Sales people who hear the store is for sale start taking calls, and a rumour that reaches the factory representative before the paperwork does complicates the approval you are about to need. Email attachments cannot be recalled, cannot be watermarked, and tell you nothing about who actually opened them.

Data room for automotive M&A

Folder-level permissions let an adviser open the general file to ten buyers and factory correspondence to two.

A data room for automotive M&A is the permissioned workspace where your adviser stages the diligence file and runs several buyers through it at once, without any of them seeing what the others see. This is what advisers mean when they ask whether your documents are ready.

Papermark is a secure, fully customizable, and developer-friendly data room built for exactly this: a secure data room for your automotive M&A process that keeps the sensitive parts of the file locked while the process runs.

NDA agreements sit on the link itself, so a competing dealer or a rival supplier signs before your earnings detail renders. Dynamic watermarking burns each viewer's email and the timestamp onto every page, which is the practical deterrent when the file contains customer pricing a competitor would like to see. Granular file-level permissions let your adviser open the general folder to ten buyers while factory correspondence and programme pricing stay locked to the final two.

Page-by-page analytics tell your adviser where interest is real. When one public retailer spends twenty minutes on the parts and service margin schedule and another has not opened the room since day two, the follow-up list writes itself. The audit log records every view and download, which is useful when the same buyers will be looking at your competitors next quarter.

The Data Rooms plan is €149/month, or €99/month billed annually, with a 7-day free trial, and includes 3 team members, unlimited data rooms, unlimited documents, a custom domain, dynamic watermarking, NDA agreements, and granular file-level permissions. Open a secure data room before the teaser goes out and reuse it through diligence.

Why Papermark as a data room provider for M&A

Most virtual data rooms were built for bankers and priced for them. Papermark is a secure data room for modern dealmakers, and it is more customizable and more branded than any other VDR on the market.

• Security first. SOC 2 Type II, granular file-level permissions, dynamic watermarking on every page, and NDA agreements that sit on the link itself.
• Open source and self-hostable. The codebase is public, and Enterprise can run it in your own environment, which matters when a buyer's IT team asks where the documents actually live.
• Branded and white-labelled. Custom domain and full white-labelling, so the room carries your firm's name rather than a vendor's.
• AI and MCP. 57 typed MCP tools over the Model Context Protocol let Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT or your own code drive the room, plus a REST API for everything else.
• Chat with your data room. Papermark AI answers questions across the room and the documents in it, so you are not scrolling a folder tree to find one clause.
• Built for automotive deals. Permissions are set per file, so factory correspondence and programme pricing can stay locked to the final two bidders while the general file stays open.

Did not find the right automotive M&A adviser?

If your business is smaller than these firms take, or you want a valuation view before signing an exclusive, the alternative is approaching buyers directly with automotive counsel and a dealership accountant supporting you.

If none of the fourteen above fits, the M&A advisors database lists every firm we have researched by city and by industry, with deal sizes and sectors side by side. It opens filtered to Automotive so you can compare these fourteen against each other, or check your metro if you would rather work with an adviser locally.

Browse the M&A advisors database

FAQ

Related resources

• M&A advisors database with every firm we have researched, by city and by industry
• Best virtual data rooms for comparing providers before you go to market
• Papermark data room for sharing your CIM and diligence file securely
• M&A due diligence checklist with the full request list
• Financial due diligence on how buyers test your earnings quality
• Letter of intent in an acquisition explaining the terms you will negotiate
• Selling to private equity for owners weighing a sponsor deal