Everyone at the table is paid by the seller.
The broker
Engaged by the seller. Compensated as a percentage of the sale price. Their duty runs to the other side of the table.
The financials
The P&L, the member count, the car counts and the add-backs all arrive already assembled, by the party who benefits from how they are assembled.
The buyer
Frequently a first-time or small-portfolio buyer, working from a broker package, a spreadsheet and a lender's appetite. No independent verification of anything.
The buyer is the only party at the table without a professional working for them.
That is the entire reason this firm exists. We are engaged by the buyer, we are paid by the buyer, and we are never compensated as a percentage of what the buyer pays.
Four places a car wash deal is routinely mispriced.
The membership base
A member count is not a member base. Duplicates, phantom plates, dormant accounts, failing cards and promotional pricing sit inside almost every roster — and the price is usually set on the headline number.
The add-backs
Add-backs arrive as a single figure with a story attached. Owner compensation, "one-time" costs that recur, and personal expenses each deserve separate treatment and separate evidence.
The competitive pipeline
A tunnel under construction a mile away does not appear in trailing financials. It appears in year two, in the buyer's cash flow, after closing.
The capital structure
Coverage tested in the interest-only year. Seller notes carried as though they were free. A structure that looks financeable until the year the amortization starts.
Each of these moves the price. Together, on a single site, they routinely move it by seven figures.
We work for the buyer. Only.
We do not list assets. We do not represent sellers. We are not compensated as a percentage of the purchase price. Our entire value is whether the number we hand you survives contact with reality.
What we are
An independent buyer-side team combining institutional underwriting discipline with senior multi-site operating experience, and a family office capital relationship for principal transactions.
- Underwriting and valuation
- Membership and revenue verification
- Competitive and trade-area analysis
- Deal structuring and lender packaging
- Negotiation support
- Independent operating analysis
- Operating improvement and platform management
- Post-close operating stand-up
What we are not
A brokerage. A listing service. A generalist business-broker analyst who read a car wash primer last quarter. A model that outputs whatever the seller's assumptions produce.
- No seller engagements
- No listing fees
- No compensation tied to price
- No deal we would not fund ourselves recommended as one we would
A proprietary underwriting platform, built for one purpose.
To test what a seller states before a buyer believes it. Sixteen modules, from raw point-of-sale exports to a supportable price and a walk-away number.
Membership forensics
Roster inspection on every row. Duplicates, phantom plates, dormancy and card failure. Collectible recurring revenue, not claimed recurring revenue. Survival analysis and lifetime value. Promotional step-up exposure.
Market and operations
Three- and five-mile competitive modeling. Pipeline sites weighted by permit stage. Trade-area saturation. Throughput, capture and conversion measured against benchmark. Twelve-category trending.
Earnings and capital
Per-category add-back treatment. Fee-simple valuation on a sourced multiple. A purchase price bridge. Debt sizing, covenant testing and SBA injection rules. Scenarios, sensitivity and Monte Carlo.
Every figure it produces is traceable to an input, a benchmark with a cited source, or an analyst override recorded in an audit register. Nothing in it is a black box, because a number you cannot defend in a lender's office is worth nothing.
Independently audited and adversarially reviewed. Nine material defects were found and corrected in the course of that review — including one that would have overstated lender capacity by roughly three million dollars on a single site.
What a full underwrite actually changes.
A single-site express tunnel presented at $7,250,000. Modeled on the seller's own reported figures, then re-underwritten from source data.
- The member base was smaller than statedRow-level inspection found duplicate accounts, subscriptions with no vehicle attached, accounts outside the dormancy window and cards already failing. The collectible base is what a buyer inherits — 8.5% below the stated figure.
- Churn was being measured favorablyReported churn had been netted against expected recovery, which flatters it against the published industry blend and lifts the multiple a site earns. Measured on the same basis as the benchmark, it exceeded it.
- Add-backs needed separating, not acceptingOwner compensation, one-time items and personal expenses each carry different evidence and deserve different treatment. Credited by category, they came to 28.8% of earnings rather than the blended figure presented.
- The competitive pipeline was pricedA national brand under construction 1.1 miles out, weighted by how likely it is to open and phased over the years it opens, rather than ignored because it is absent from trailing financials.
- The structure failed in a later yearCoverage passed comfortably during the interest-only period and tightened materially once amortization began. Testing only year one would have cleared a structure that does not hold.
This is a demonstration model built on a representative site, used to illustrate method. It is not a client engagement and not a case study, and no figure here should be read as a result achieved for a specific buyer.
A defined protocol, not an opinion.
Every engagement runs the same eleven-phase accuracy protocol, with stop gates that halt the process when a figure cannot be tied out.
Request
The exact reports to pull, named per point-of-sale system, so nothing arrives as a summary.
Reconcile
Three-way tie-out between the P&L, the point-of-sale export and the member roster before anything is valued.
Verify
Roster forensics, trade-area work on the ground, and competitor counts confirmed against permit records.
Underwrite
Normalized earnings, valuation, structure and stress testing — a supportable price and a walk-away.
Negotiate
The findings become the retrade position, the lender package and the closing conditions.
If a number cannot be tied to source data, it does not enter the model. It becomes a question for the seller.
Findings you can act on and defend.
The underwriting report
A complete written analysis: verified membership, normalized earnings, competitive position, valuation and price bridge, capital structure, projection, risk register and improvement plan.
A supportable price and a walk-away
Not a range and not an opinion — two numbers, with the reasoning and the arithmetic behind each one.
The underwriting workbook
Every module, every input, every calculation, in a spreadsheet your lender or your accountant can open and interrogate.
A retrade position
Where the seller's figures do not hold, stated specifically enough to negotiate from, item by item.
A lender package
The analysis assembled the way a credit committee reads it, which is not the way a broker package is written.
A post-close operating plan
The improvement initiatives the analysis identified, sequenced, with the earnings each is worth and the confidence attached.
Three ways to engage us.
Deal Screen
A fast read on whether a deal deserves diligence. An engine underwrite from the broker package and the point-of-sale exports, a supportable price, a walk-away number, and a written go / no-go with the reasoning.
- Turnaround in days
- Priced per deal
- Credited toward a full engagement
Full Buy-Side
Everything in Deal Screen, plus complete diligence management, on-the-ground trade-area verification, retrade strategy and support, lender packaging, and closing-condition drafting. We sit on your side of the table throughout.
- Engaged per transaction
- Fee on engagement plus success
- Direct principal involvement
Retained Advisory
Ongoing representation for buyers working a pipeline. Continuous market and pipeline monitoring, unlimited deal screening, target sourcing, and portfolio-level modeling across sites under consideration.
- Monthly retainer
- Reduced per-deal fees
- Priority capacity
Fees are quoted per engagement and are never calculated as a percentage of the purchase price.
The same discipline, applied to what you already own.
Most of what we built to protect a buyer is worth more to the person who already owns the asset. The engine does not care which side of the table it is pointed at.
Independent operating analysis
A third-party read on how a site or a portfolio is actually performing. Membership, labor, throughput, pricing, capture and conversion measured against benchmark rather than against last year — with no transaction attached to the answer, and no incentive to flatter it.
The growth roadmap
Where the next level of earnings comes from, sequenced. Each initiative carries the earnings it is worth, the capital and time it takes, and the confidence we attach to it — plus the systems, SOPs and training required to hold the gain once it is made.
Platform management
Ongoing operating leadership across a portfolio: KPI and labor modeling, membership programs, pricing and promotional structure, vendor and capital planning, and site-level P&L management. Senior operating depth without carrying it on your payroll.
Turnaround
Diagnosing an underperforming site against benchmark and standing up the operating plan to correct it.
Recapitalization
Restructuring debt and ownership on sites carrying more leverage than the current market supports, including partner and lender negotiation.
Exit preparation
Presenting an asset the way a disciplined buyer will test it, so diligence confirms your numbers rather than dismantling them.
Real estate
Trade-area feasibility, site quality and lease or fee review, with the dirt underwritten as rigorously as the operation and valued on what it does for the deal.
An operator who knows exactly how a buyer will test the asset is an operator who negotiates from evidence rather than hope.
What a buyer usually has to choose from.
| Option | What it gives you | What it leaves uncovered |
|---|---|---|
| The listing broker | Represents the seller. Paid on price. | Cannot advocate for the buyer, by definition. |
| A generalist business broker or analyst | No sector depth. Applies a generic small-business template. | Misses the two things that decide a wash deal: the membership base and the competitive pipeline. |
| A quality-of-earnings firm | Rigorous on the financial statements. | Tests the accounting, not the trade area, the roster or the operation. Expensive, slow, and silent on whether the price is right. |
| An operating consultant | Knows how to run the asset. | Arrives after you have bought it, at whatever price you paid. |
| Wise Wash Partners | Buyer-side only, sector-specific, operating and real estate depth, with a proprietary underwriting platform. | One team from screening through closing and into the first operating year. |
Who we do our best work for.
We are a strong fit for
- First-time buyers acquiring one to three sites, who need a professional counterweight to a professional seller
- Operators expanding a small portfolio who lack an in-house underwriting function
- Family offices and independent sponsors entering the sector who want operating depth alongside the financial work
- Owners preparing an exit who would rather find the problems before a buyer does
We are probably not for
- Buyers who have already decided and want the analysis to agree with them
- Anyone looking to list an asset — we do not represent sellers in a sale
- Deals where the seller will not release roster and billing data, because there is nothing there we can verify
- Engagements where the fee depends on the transaction closing at a particular price
An operator, not an analyst.
Most buy-side advice in this sector comes from people who have read about the business. Ours comes from running it.
Frank Harris
Former multi-site EVP of Operations in express car wash, multi-state across a portfolio exceeding one hundred locations. Labor models and KPIs, membership sales and pricing, training curriculum and SOP development, site-level P&L, and greenfield development. Owner-operator. Built the Wash Deal Engine, the underwriting platform behind every number this firm produces.
Capital is accessed through an established family office relationship. We are not the balance sheet, and we say so in writing before any engagement begins.
Send us the deal you are looking at.
A broker package and a point-of-sale export are enough for us to tell you whether the asking price is defensible. If it is, you will hear that too.
Request a deal screenFrank Harris
(214) 000-0000
frank@wisewashpartners.com
Capital
Accessed through an established family office relationship.