Blue River

10/13/2026

Blue River Financial Group 📢 announced a promotion and welcomed a new team member in Q3 of 2026. The buy-side division promoted 📌Jason Warner to Managing Director & Software / Technology Segment Leader, and the sell-side welcomed 📌Austin Ursuy, Senior Investment Banking Analyst. Both moves reflect the firm’s continued investment in the talent driving its buy-side and sell-side advisory practices forward.🤝 Read the full press release.

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10/13/2026

Beyond the catalog. This month's Blue River Brief looks at a middle market that is selective rather than uniformly weak, and what industrial distributors can learn from September's deals about how buyers evaluate a business.

🔍 In this month's edition 🔍:

💡Why the market is selective, not uniformly weak, and why the direction of the deal count matters more than the latest month

💡How sponsors and strategic buyers both remain active, with sponsors at roughly half of transactions by count

💡Why valuation is differentiated by size and business model, from the $1M to $25M segment strengthening to the broad distribution average easing

💡How earnouts and seller financing remain part of the economic outcome, and why certainty and post-close risk belong in the same conversation as the multiple

💡What DSG's acquisition of American Fasteners shows about customer relationships, product expertise and strategic fit

Check out our September M&A Monthly Brief!

https://goblueriver.com/ma-monthly/

09/29/2026

Blue River Financial Group has advised Lawson Products, a leader in MRO distribution of C-parts and operating company of Distribution Solutions Group (DSG), on the recent acquisition of American Fasteners Corp. The acquisition strengthens DSG’s MRO business by expanding its customer base and presence in the South Florida market while providing additional reach into export markets throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Read the full press release.

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09/24/2026

Blue River Financial Group has advised Fortress Pest Brands, pest control platform and portfolio company of Riverarch Equity Partners, on the recent acquisition of Miche Pest Control. The acquisition reflects the company’s broader strategy of partnering with leading pest management businesses across the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast United States. Read the full press release.

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09/14/2026

🏭 For much of the last two years, the market rewarded asset-light, recurring-revenue businesses while manufacturers traded at a discount.

That may be changing. Manufacturing is the only major middle-market category seeing multiple expansion in 2026, with valuations rising to roughly 7.1x EBITDA, up from 6.7x last year. Meanwhile, several other sectors have seen multiples move lower.

The shift has now held for two consecutive quarters, and lenders may be signaling why. Debt availability for manufacturing platforms has largely returned to historical norms, while financing conditions for many services businesses have tightened.

The takeaway:

✅ Defensible customer relationships
✅ Pricing power
✅ Specialized capabilities that are difficult to replicate

Increasingly, buyers appear to be valuing durability over simplicity. Today, the businesses attracting premium attention aren't always the most scalable. They're often the hardest to replace.

Curious how buyers may view your business in today’s market? Let’s start a conversation 📩

09/12/2026

📊 If you're benchmarking an offer against last year's "market multiple," you may be comparing the wrong two things.

Middle-market valuations have remained remarkably stable, holding in a narrow range of roughly 7.0x to 7.3x EBITDA through the first half of 2026, but beneath those headline multiples, the market has changed. More than 55% of middle-market transactions this past quarter included an earnout, seller financing, or both. That's the highest level since 2009 and well above the long-run average of roughly 40%.

The implication is important:

Buyers aren't necessarily reducing valuation expectations, they’re changing how value is delivered. Instead of lowering the headline multiple, many are shifting more risk into contingent consideration, deferred payments, or performance-based structures. As a result, two transactions may carry the same stated multiple yet produce very different outcomes for the seller. For owners considering a transaction in the next 12 to 24 months, one question is becoming increasingly important:

How much of the purchase price is guaranteed at closing, and how much depends on what happens after the deal is signed? In today's market, that distinction often matters more than another half-turn of valuation.

💡 The headline multiple may look the same, but the structure behind it may not.

09/11/2026

AI is changing one of the fundamental assumptions behind software investing and software M&A 🤖

For years, the central diligence question was straightforward: Does the product solve an important problem? That question still matters, now we’re asking how quickly could someone else recreate what you've built?

With AI-assisted development helping teams produce software faster than ever, functionality alone is becoming less defensible. Buyers are increasingly looking beyond the product and evaluating the assets that are difficult to replicate.

Those assets often include proprietary datasets, workflow ownership, integration into mission-critical processes, system-of-record status, customer relationships, distribution channels, and regulatory complexity. In our view, AI is creating a growing separation between software businesses that own critical infrastructure and those that primarily own an interface.
The companies positioned to benefit most may not be those with the most code. They may be the ones that control the data, workflows, and customer relationships that sit beneath it.

That's becoming an increasingly important distinction in today's M&A market.

09/09/2026

🏭 The bid has moved to the factory floor. This month's Blue River Brief unpacks why manufacturing is the one corner of the middle market getting more expensive, not less, and what that means for owners weighing a sale.

🔍 In this month's edition 🔍:

💡Why deal value is surging even as overall transaction volume declines
💡How sponsors are holding steady in manufacturing while strategic buyers pull back
💡Why manufacturing is the only sector pricing above its 2025 levels and where the public-market premium for scale actually kicks in
💡How earnouts and seller financing are increasingly being used to close deals

Check out our August M&A Monthly Brief:
https://goblueriver.com/ma_monthly/ma-monthly-brief-august-2026/

09/02/2026

Blue River Financial Group has advised APPLIED Adhesives, North America’s custom adhesives solutions provider and portfolio company of Bertram Capital, on the recent acquisition of Industrial Sales and Distribution, Inc. The acquisition expands APPLIED’s adhesives and silicones portfolio, customer base and East Coast presence. Read the full press release.

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