Confidential business sales · California CA DRE #02111340
RLC Business Brokers
About the firm

Built by an operator. Run like one.

RLC Business Brokers is a California-licensed business brokerage representing owners across a wide range of industries, founded by a broker who spent two decades on the ownership side of the table first.

Rebecca Chatham, Principal Broker
Rebecca Chatham · Principal Broker

Twenty years on your side of the table.

Before RLC, Rebecca built businesses: a document destruction company, a landscaping company, and a cleaning company. She operated them through the unglamorous realities of payroll, leases, equipment, and customers, and successfully sold each one. She knows what it feels like to sign as the seller, because she has.

She then spent eleven years as a Field Sales Leader at a Fortune 100 insurer, advising agency owners on growing, valuing, and transitioning their businesses, work that made her fluent in the financial mechanics of owner-operated companies long before she brokered her first deal.

RLC represents California business owners across industries: service, retail, e-commerce, industrial, and more, typically between $200K and $3M in value. These are the businesses big M&A firms overlook and generalist agents misprice. Every engagement is built on a rigorous SDE recast, structured for real-world financing (including SBA), and marketed with strict confidentiality.

Credentials

  • California DRE Licensed Broker · #02111340
  • Brokerage services through Main Street Properties · DRE #00481220
  • Previously held Series 6 and Series 63 securities licenses
  • Member, California Association of Business Brokers (CABB)
  • Office: 201 S Lakeview Ave Suite A, Placentia, CA 92870
Case studies

How engagements actually go.

Client identities are protected. The situations, and the results, are real.

Sell-side · Auto repair

Positioned turnkey, not owner-dependent.

The challenge

An auto repair shop with strong revenue but no documented systems. Other brokers quoted 1.8–2× SDE off "industry averages."

The work

Sixty days tightening operational documentation, customer-retention tracking, and growth positioning, presenting the business as turnkey rather than owner-dependent.

The result

Sold at 2.5× SDE to a qualified buyer within 90 days of listing, roughly $70K more than other brokers' estimates.

"She knew exactly what to fix before we went to market — and how to bring the right buyers."

Buy-side · Buyer advisory

The deal we walked away from.

The challenge

A buyer deep in escrow on a service business acquisition when a critical lease contingency expired unresolved, and closing meant inheriting a fatal flaw.

The work

Rather than pushing to close, RLC exercised the purchase agreement's termination provision cleanly and by the book.

The result

Full deposit returned. The buyer avoided a business that would have failed them, and came back for the right one.

Every broker promises to close your deal. RLC will also kill a bad one.

Valuation · Family succession

Pricing a father-to-son transfer on evidence.

The challenge

A son buying his father's HVAC company, initially framed around $400K. Family deals are emotional, and mispricing them strains more than the balance sheet.

The work

A full SDE recast revealed the true earnings picture and the son's majority contribution to revenue, supporting a revised valuation in the mid-$500Ks with an SBA structure and seller note built for both generations.

The result

A price grounded in documented evidence rather than family emotion, with both sides able to trust the number.

Complex transactions · Business + real estate

Four owners, one building, one business.

The challenge

A 46-year industrial distributor owned by four parties, offered together with its real estate, and courted by buyers with fundamentally different structures, from SBA individuals to all-cash investors.

The work

Unified offer templates covering business and property, structured counters, commercial comp analysis, and communications keeping four co-owners aligned through every decision.

The result

An active engagement being run the way complex deals should be: every party informed, every offer comparable, nothing left to chance.

Your business deserves this level of care.

Start with a confidential conversation, about selling, buying, or simply understanding what you've built.

Schedule a consultation