The exit path most architecture and engineering firm owners miss is the one sitting right in front of them: sell the firm to your key employees, and let a bank finance the deal. You get paid at closing, your employees become owners with as little as 5 percent down, and you never have to become their lender. Owners overlook it because they assume employees cannot afford to buy them out. With SBA financing, they can.
Why owners never hear about it
Business brokers push third-party sales because that is how they earn their fee. ESOP advisors sell ESOPs. Almost no one is positioned to tell an A/E firm owner that a bank will lend their key employees the money to buy the firm outright. So the owner defaults to what they know: sell to an outsider, carry a note themselves, or keep working with no plan at all.
Meanwhile the SBA 7(a) program exists precisely to help individuals buy businesses. One loan can cover the purchase price, goodwill, working capital, and closing costs. The mechanics of SBA financing are well understood by the banks that specialize in it. The gap is not the financing. It is that no one connects the owner to it.
How the money actually works
SBA loans call for a 10 percent equity injection. In an employee buyout, that is often split 5 percent from the buyers and 5 percent from the seller through a standby note. The bank funds the remaining 90 percent. The SBA loan limit is $5,000,000 per loan, and our banking partners will frequently lend their own money on top of that to reach $10,000,000 or more.
The result for you: 95 to 100 percent of your proceeds in cash at closing. The result for your employees: ownership of a firm they already run day to day, financed by a lender rather than by you. This is the structure behind the Step-Up Legacy Plan, and it is why buyouts that once looked impossible now close in three to six months.
Why sellers prefer it to seller financing
If you finance the sale yourself, you carry the note, collect payments for years, and hold the risk if the firm stumbles after you leave. A bank-financed buyout flips that. The lender takes the repayment risk, your exposure is capped at whatever small standby note you agree to, and your liquidity does not wait on anyone's future performance.
Who it fits
This path works best for firms with $1,000,000 to $10,000,000 in sales that generate enough cash flow to cover the loan payments. Banks look at three years of historical performance, not projections, so a firm with steady, provable earnings is a strong candidate. If that describes your firm, selling to your key employees may be the cleanest exit available to you, and the one you were never told about.