Trends
Advantis adds business brokerage

by Rob Walker
for Virginia Business
June 2005

Advantis/GVA has opened its first business brokerage division in the Southeast at the Hampton Roads office, expanding traditional services to the buying and selling of privately owned business.

Heading the new division is Ross Weinstein, a lawyer, real estate broker and former financial adviser. He works primarily in the firm’s Hampton Roads and Richmond markets, offering what he describes as a natural business complement to the company’s commercial real estate services. “This adds to the synergy that already exists at Advantis,” which leases, manages and sells industrial, retail and other commercial properties
Weinstein approached Advantis with the idea for the division last year while working for Sunbelt Business Brokers in Virginia Beach. “I thought there was a big area where transactions were being missed by real estate firms that provided a broad array of services but didn’t have a business brokerage division,” he says.

About the time he took the idea to Deborah Stearns, Advantis’ managing director of the Greater Virginia region, Stearns had become increasingly aware of opportunities that were more appropriate to business brokerage. “So it seemed to be the right time to pursue it,” she says.

As a business broker affiliated with Advantis/GVA — which has offices throughout the Southeast — Weinstein says clients receive a broad range of expertise that will develop possibilities they might not have imagined. “It broadens the base of what is possible. They may start out selling what they see as a piece of property and find themselves selling a business.”

On the job less than a year, Weinstein has closed a few deals and has several others under contract. So far, the division’s listings have included a body piercing “alternative” retailer, a downtown Norfolk restaurant and a prime restaurant site in Richmond’s upscale Short Pump Town Center.

“Our goal is to get larger deals and to add a person to our office, probably in Richmond, as we build momentum,” says Weinstein. “We’d eventually like to see the division grow to include every Advantis office from Washington to Miami.”