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The service
An independent assessment of how prepared your business is for a future sale, succession or transfer, carried out before brokers or buyers are involved and while there is still time to act on what it finds.
Fixed fee: £995. No success fees. No obligation.
Purpose
Owner-managed businesses are usually built around the people who run them. That is a strength while the owner is there, and a question once the owner is not.
A transaction process tests that question quickly and in public. A readiness review tests it early and in private, so that any problems are yours to solve rather than someone else’s to price.
The purpose is not to persuade you to sell. It is to make sure that when you decide something, you are deciding with an accurate picture.
When it helps
The review is most valuable when there is still time to act on it: typically one to three years before anything happens, or when nothing is planned at all.
Scope
These are sensible areas of enquiry rather than a fixed checklist. The emphasis shifts with the business, and we agree what matters most during the initial conversation.
How much of the business relies on the owner personally: relationships, decisions, technical knowledge and day-to-day involvement.
The depth of the team beneath the owner, and how decisions are made when the owner is not in the room.
Whether the numbers are consistent, timely and straightforward to explain to someone seeing the business for the first time.
How revenue is distributed across customers, sectors and contracts, and how durable that revenue looks.
Whether the way the business works is documented and repeatable, or held informally by a small number of people.
The commercial arrangements a future buyer or successor would expect to review, and any that are missing, informal or out of date.
What would happen to trading, customers and staff if a key person were unavailable for a sustained period.
Whether the records that support the story of the business are organised and available, rather than assembled under pressure.
How readily the business could pass to a buyer, a family member or a management team, and what would need to change first.
The questions a serious buyer or adviser is likely to ask, and how comfortably the business could answer them today.
Deliverables
The report is written to be shared with the people you trust: an accountant, a solicitor, a co-owner or a family member. It is yours.
Boundaries
Please note
Where a matter needs a specialist, the review says which specialist and why. That is usually more useful than an opinion given outside its competence.
The fee
Fixed fee
£995
Confidential Exit Readiness Review. One fee, agreed before any work begins.
Arrange an initial conversationWhat the fee includes
Confidentiality
Exit and succession are sensitive subjects, often before staff, customers or family have been told anything. Enquiries and any information shared with us are treated as confidential and used only for the review.
We are glad to sign a confidentiality agreement before you send anything. If you would prefer the first conversation to stay entirely general, that is fine too.
A short, confidential discussion is enough to establish whether a review would be useful to you. If it would not be, we will say so.
Fixed fee: £995. No success fees. No obligation.