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Independent review
A bespoke assessment of how prepared the business is for a future exit: financially, operationally and organisationally. Set out with the context to judge it against, and a prioritised set of actions.
Fixed fee: £995. No success fees. No obligation.
The problem
Owners rarely know how ready their business actually is. Not because they lack information, but because readiness is judged from outside, against expectations they have never had cause to learn.
The answer tends to arrive at the worst possible moment: during a process, from someone with a financial interest in the answer, about matters that needed years rather than months to change.
An honest picture, early, is worth considerably more than the same picture delivered under pressure.
Purpose
The review establishes where the business genuinely stands across the things that determine readiness: its financial position, how it operates, and how much depends on the people running it.
It is deliberately not a sale process. There is no marketing, no introduction to buyers and no transaction to earn from, which is what allows the assessment to be plain.
The purpose is not to persuade you to sell, but to make sure that when you decide something, you are deciding with an accurate picture.
When it helps
Most valuable while there is still time to act on what it finds, which in practice means earlier than most owners expect.
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 discussion.
Profitability, margin, cash and the consistency of the information behind them, read as somebody seeing the business for the first time would read it.
Whether several years of information tell the same story from different angles, or whether they need explaining before they make sense.
How much of the business relies on the owner personally: relationships, decisions, technical knowledge and day-to-day involvement.
The capability beneath the owner, and whether it has demonstrably made decisions of consequence without them.
How the work actually gets done, how repeatable it is, and how much of it would transfer with the business rather than with a person.
How revenue is distributed across customers, sectors and contracts, and how durable that revenue looks from outside.
How much income is genuinely committed rather than repeated by habit, and how a buyer would distinguish between the two.
How ownership is held, whether the arrangements between shareholders are current, and anything that would need resolving before a transfer.
The agreements a buyer or successor would expect to review, and any that are missing, informal or out of date.
Whether the records that support the story of the business are organised and available, rather than assembled under pressure.
How the business compares with what is typical for its size and sector, drawn from public information and experience of comparable businesses.
The questions a serious buyer or adviser is likely to ask, and how comfortably the business could answer them today.
Within the Aston Finch Value Framework, this engagement draws most heavily on strategic readiness and financial performance, while considering the business as a whole.
Deliverables
The report is written to be shared with the people you trust. It is yours.
Boundaries
Please note
Where the review identifies a matter needing specialist input, it says so plainly and explains why, so that it can be dealt with properly rather than discovered later.
Prioritisation
Readiness findings differ enormously in how long they take to act on. Putting contracts in order is a matter of weeks. Reducing how much the business depends on you is a matter of years, because the evidence a buyer responds to is elapsed time rather than intention.
So the report separates them. Each finding carries a horizon of immediate, short-term, medium-term or strategic, chosen by how soon it is worth starting rather than by how quickly it could be finished. Where something needs three years to become visible, saying so early is the useful part.
The fee
Fixed fee
£995
Exit Readiness Review. One fee, agreed before any work begins.
Arrange an initial discussionWhat the fee includes
Afterwards
Most engagements end with the report and the discussion, and that is a perfectly good outcome. The findings are yours to act on in whatever order suits the business.
Where an owner would rather not work through the priorities alone, post-review support can be scoped separately. So can a follow-up review, once enough has changed to be worth measuring. Neither is assumed, and neither affects what the review said.
Questions
No. Many owners commission a review because they want to understand their options, not because a sale is planned. It is just as useful if you decide to keep the business and reduce how much it depends on you.
No. The review is a strategic assessment of readiness, and it does not produce a formal valuation. Where expectations about value are relevant, we discuss them as commercial expectations rather than as valuation advice.
Context rather than a proprietary dataset. We set the business against what is typical for its size and sector, drawing on public information and experience of comparable businesses, and we are explicit about which is which. We would rather give you a defensible comparison than a precise-looking number we could not stand behind.
No. Aston Finch does not sell businesses, introduce buyers or act on a transaction. We carry out the review, explain what we find, and step back. If you later appoint a broker or corporate-finance adviser, we take no fee from that decision.
A proportionate amount: recent financial statements and management information, an outline of how the business is structured and operates, and a sense of the main customers, contracts and commitments. We agree the list with you before starting.
Yes. Discussions and any information you share are treated as confidential and used only for the purpose of the review. We are happy to sign a confidentiality agreement before you send anything.
The initial discussion is short. The written review is usually within two to three weeks of receiving the information required. That is an estimate rather than a guarantee, and we confirm expected timing at the outset.
Yes. The Exit Readiness Review is £995, agreed before any work begins, and it does not change with the outcome. There are no success fees and no commission on a future sale.
Yes, and it is often sensible. They know the business and the history. With your permission we are glad to speak with them, and the findings are designed to be shared with the advisers you already use.
No. This is our flagship review and the one most owners begin with, but it is not a gateway to anything else. If commercial performance or how the business presents itself is what actually concerns you, approach us about that directly.
What can be tidied in months and what takes years, why two to three years is not an arbitrary figure, and what belongs three years out, two years out and one.
Value reflects risk as much as profit. Dependency, concentration, undocumented knowledge, unconvincing numbers and informal contracts: how each is priced, and which to address first.
Owners and buyers are answering different questions, which is why the two figures rarely meet. Where value quietly leaks, and why the gap is usually discovered too late to close.
Most owners find this review most useful when nothing is imminent. A short, confidential discussion is enough to establish whether now is a sensible time to look.
Fixed fee: £995. No success fees. No obligation.