Franchise Intermediary Group (FIG) is a Huntington, New York-based brokerage that focuses exclusively on franchise resale transactions, meaning it helps existing franchisees sell their units and helps buyers acquire operating franchise locations rather than new territories.
The firm is run by Stuart Levenberg, who spent more than 20 years as a business broker and franchise consultant before founding the company.
This review looks at what the firm actually does, how its process compares to the broader business brokerage market, and what buyers and sellers should know before reaching out.
Key Takeaways
- Franchise Intermediary Group specializes only in franchise resales, not startup franchise sales or general small business brokerage.
- The firm reports experience across more than 70 franchise brands and hundreds of completed transactions, spanning single-unit and multi-unit deals.
- Franchise resale values track closely with national business-for-sale data, where median multiples currently range from about 2.0x for the smallest deals to over 5x for larger ones.
What Franchise Intermediary Group Actually Does
Most business brokers handle a mix of restaurants, service companies, retail shops, and the occasional franchise. FIG narrowed its focus to one lane: franchise resales.
That means an owner who bought into a brand like Massage Envy, Great Clips, JAN-PRO, or Retro Fitness and now wants out works with a broker who has likely closed deals in that exact category before.
The firm's site lists a long roster of brands its team has completed transactions with, including Massage Envy, F45, Orangetheory, Club Pilates, Baskin-Robbins, SERVPRO, Sylvan Learning, The Goddard School, Edible Arrangements, and dozens more.
That breadth matters in franchise resales specifically, because a buyer isn't just underwriting a business, they're underwriting a brand's franchise agreement, royalty structure, territory rights, and transfer approval process.
A broker who has navigated a Massage Envy transfer before knows what that franchisor's approval committee will ask for. A generalist broker learns it for the first time on your deal.
Three core services show up across the site:
| Service | Who It's For | What It Involves |
|---|---|---|
| Sell your franchise | Existing franchisees exiting a unit or network | Listing, marketing, buyer vetting, negotiation, closing coordination |
| Franchise resale listings | Buyers looking for an operating unit | Access to active listings across industries and markets |
| Valuation | Owners weighing an exit or refinance | Franchise-specific valuation accounting for royalty terms, remaining lease, and brand health |
Buying a resale franchise is a different animal than buying a new franchise from a franchisor's development team.
A resale unit comes with real financials, an existing customer base, trained staff, and a transfer process the franchisor has to approve.
New franchise sales are development deals. FIG doesn't do those. It sticks to the secondary market, and it lists that distinction as a deliberate specialty rather than a limitation.
The Track Record, In Plain Terms
Stuart Levenberg's bio states he has personally led hundreds of franchise transactions across more than 70 brands and participated in over 50 franchise industry conferences and trade shows over a 20-plus year career.
Before narrowing to franchise resales, he worked as a general business broker and separately as a franchise consultant helping entrepreneurs pick brands to invest in.
That combination is fairly specific. It means the firm understands both sides of the table: what a franchisor wants to see in a transfer package, and what an SBA lender or private buyer needs to underwrite the deal.
The company is small. Its own site describes "a small team of experienced professionals," and it leans on AI-driven marketing automation and a proprietary buyer database to source leads rather than a large bullpen of junior brokers.
For sellers, this usually means fewer hand-offs and more direct contact with someone who has closed similar deals before. It also means capacity is finite. A boutique shop can't run 40 active listings the way a national platform can.
Where Franchise Resales Sit in the Broader Market Right Now
Here's where the numbers matter. Franchise resales don't trade in a vacuum, they're priced against the same M&A backdrop as any small business sale, adjusted for brand-specific factors like royalty rate and remaining franchise term.
According to the IBBA and M&A Source Market Pulse Q3 2025 survey, the most recent full quarterly dataset available, median sale multiples ran from 2.0x for the smallest businesses to 5.3x for lower-middle-market companies, a spread driven mostly by size, not sector.
Breaking that down further, the median multiple ran 2.0x seller's discretionary earnings under $500,000, 2.8x at $500,000 to $1 million, and 3.3x at $1 million to $2 million, then shifted to 4.0x EBITDA at $2 million to $5 million and 5.3x EBITDA at $5 million to $50 million.
Most single-unit franchise resales fall into that Main Street bracket, under $2 million in enterprise value, priced on SDE rather than EBITDA.
Deal activity itself is holding up. The same Market Pulse survey found 72% of business intermediaries expect market conditions in 2026 to be on par with or stronger than the 2021 peak, and 54% expect deal volume to increase over the next three months.
On the pricing side, 71% of respondents anticipate multiples will hold steady rather than move sharply in either direction.
Franchising as a category is also expanding. The International Franchise Association's 2026 Franchising Economic Outlook, produced with FRANdata, projects the number of U.S. franchise establishments will grow from 832,521 to 845,000 units, an increase of 1.5%, with franchise employment rising by more than 150,000 jobs to nearly 8.9 million.
More units in the system generally means more resale inventory down the road, since every franchise sold today is a potential resale candidate in five to ten years.
A quick snapshot of where things stand:
- Sub-$500K deals: median 2.0x SDE
- $500K-$1M deals: median 2.8x SDE
- $1M-$2M deals: median 3.3x SDE
- $2M-$5M deals: median 4.0x EBITDA
- $5M-$50M deals: median 5.3x EBITDA
If you're a franchisee weighing an exit, that table is a rough starting point, not a valuation. Your actual number depends on your royalty rate, remaining lease term, franchisor transfer fees, and how owner-dependent the location is.
How the Process Tends to Work
Selling through FIG follows a pattern that's fairly standard for franchise resale brokers, though the emphasis on franchisor relationships is more pronounced than you'd get from a general business broker.
First comes a conversation about goals, financials, and reasons for selling. The firm states there's no upfront cost to start that process.
Then comes valuation, which for a franchise has to account for things a standalone business doesn't: remaining term on the franchise agreement, royalty and marketing fund obligations, territory protections, and whether the brand itself is growing or contracting nationally.
After that, the listing goes to market, typically through the firm's own database plus traditional business-for-sale platforms.
Buyer vetting matters more in franchise deals than in most small business sales because the franchisor has final say on any transfer.
A buyer can agree to a price and still get rejected by the brand if they don't meet financial or operational qualifications.
A broker who has been through that approval process repeatedly can flag disqualifying issues before they blow up a signed deal.
Strengths Worth Naming
The specialization is real, not marketing language. Franchise transfers involve a layer of approval and paperwork that general business brokers often underestimate, and a firm that's done it across 70-plus brands has almost certainly seen the specific quirks of major franchisors' transfer requirements before.
The firm's relationship network with franchise attorneys, accountants, and lenders is also a practical asset. Franchise deals frequently stall on financing or legal review, not on finding a buyer. Having those relationships pre-built shortens that part of the timeline.
What to Weigh Before Reaching Out
A boutique team means less bandwidth than a national brokerage with dozens of agents.
If you're selling a large multi-unit portfolio across several states, ask directly how the firm would staff and market that specific deal.
The firm's public completed-transactions list and brand roster are useful for confirming category experience, but they don't substitute for asking current or recent clients about responsiveness and how closely the final sale price tracked the initial valuation estimate.
That's a fair question for any brokerage, not just this one.
Conclusion
Franchise Intermediary Group fills a narrow but real niche: franchise-specific resale brokerage backed by two decades of transaction experience and a broad brand roster.
Whether it's the right fit depends mostly on whether your deal is a franchise resale in the first place, since that's the one thing this firm is built to handle.