We work for buyers. Here is what that means for you.
If you own a propane business, you should know exactly who we are before you talk to us — so this page says it plainly rather than burying it.
We are not your broker, and we never will be
Hearthline is retained and paid by acquirers. We do not represent sellers, we do not run sale processes, and we never charge a business owner a fee of any kind. If you want someone whose job is to get you the highest possible price, you want a sell-side advisor, and we will tell you that.
So why talk to us at all?
Because a conversation costs you nothing and tells you things that are genuinely hard to find out.
- Who is actually buying. We track every propane acquisition in the country. We know which platforms are deploying capital right now, which have gone quiet, and which just changed hands themselves.
- What the market looks like. Published pricing in this industry is thin to the point of being unreliable. We publish what can be verified and are equally clear about what cannot.
- What a buyer will actually care about in your business. Tank ownership percentage, route density, customer mix, record quality. These drive value more than most owners are told.
- No process, no timeline, no obligation. Most of the owners we speak with are not selling. Some never will. That is a completely normal outcome of a conversation with us.
What we would not do
We would not put you into an auction. We would not shop your financials around. We would not introduce you to anyone without telling you exactly who they are, who pays us, and what our interest is. If our interests and yours diverge, you will hear it from us first.
If you are thinking about the next chapter
Whether that is this year or in five years, the owners who do best are the ones who understood their options long before they needed to act. A conversation now costs nothing and commits you to nothing.