About Us
We educate and empower business owners so they can finish on their own terms.
Duran Advisors is a credentialed sell-side M&A and exit planning practice headquartered in Metairie, Louisiana. We work with main street and lower middle-market owners across the five regions below, and we run confidential, structured engagements that close on terms aligned to the owner's personal, financial, and legacy goals.
Our sweet spot
Businesses with $1 million to $25 million in annual revenue, across New Orleans, the New Orleans North Shore, Baton Rouge, Houma–Thibodaux, and South Mississippi.
What sets us apart
Three things show up at the negotiating table on every engagement.
Regional Market Expertise
We know the buyers, the industries, and the deal dynamics in our five regions. We are not an out-of-region firm sending in junior staff.
Coordinated Advisor Collaboration
Most professional service advisors create strife with other advisors for fear of losing the client. That is not what we do. We work with your CPA, your attorney, and your financial advisor, and we fill only the gaps in the deal team when there are any.
Education-Driven Advisory
Most business owners have no clue about their sale price. We walk you through the math, the methodology, and the numbers so you can make a confident decision on your own terms. No opaque expertise.
What we stand for
Six values that show up in who we hire and how we work an engagement when no one is watching.
Principled
We live our lives and handle our business by principles bigger than ourselves.
Accountable
We own our actions, our responsibilities, and our outcomes, and we hold each other to it.
Customer Focused
The client's outcome is the thing we measure ourselves against. Not our fee, not our timeline.
Improvement Driven
The deal landscape changes every year. We change with it. New credentials, new methodologies, new tooling, whatever closes a better deal for the client.
Results-Oriented
We are paid to close the deal that matches the owner's goals, not to look busy. That is the whole job.
Work-Life Balance
Our team has families. So do our clients. We protect the time that matters on both sides of the desk.
Get to know the firm
A note on buyer-side strategy
Most M&A advisors at the size of businesses we serve are private-equity-focused and have no idea how to work with sophisticated individual buyers or shepherd them to closing. We work both pools. The cream-of-the-crop individual buyer network that often makes higher offers with less invasive due diligence, alongside the PE firms and strategic acquirers that genuinely fit your business.
The credential set, in one block
Joel holds eight active certifications spanning sell-side M&A, exit planning, value growth, main street brokerage, and post-closing integration. Plus IBBA Past Educator and an IEPA board role. The breadth is intentional, so one credentialed lead advisor can cover work that often gets handed off at other firms. Team credentials extend further: John adds CM&AA and Louisiana real estate brokerage; Jeff adds JD and an LLM in Taxation across five states. See full credential detail →
- M&AMI
- CM&AA
- CM&AP
- CEPA
- CVGA
- Certified Value Builder™
- CAIM
- CMSBB
- IBBA Past Educator
- IEPA Board
- 15+ Years
Talk to Joel
The fastest way to know if we're a fit is a 30-minute confidential conversation. No obligation.
Start the conversation