Sell your company to a direct buyer, not to a broker's mailing list.

No. I acquire between 40 and 100%. In most deals the owner keeps a meaningful stake, stays involved, and takes a second and larger payday when the group scales. If a clean full exit is genuinely what you want, that can be structured too. The point is that you choose from the whole range rather than the one option a single buyer happens to offer.

Both stay. Retention across partnership deals runs around 85%, against roughly 40% in straight buyouts, and that is deliberate. The name stays over the door and the people stay behind it, because the culture is a large part of what is being bought. Every company in the group still trades under its own name.

Completely, from the first call. There is no listing, no teaser document and no broker circulating your numbers. Nothing reaches your team, your customers or the market unless and until you decide it should. Most owners are twelve to thirty-six months from any decision when they first make contact.

Mainly UK HVAC, Renewable Energy and Construction businesses, established, owner-managed and profitable, with a South of England weighting. The preferred size is £5m to £100m in revenue, and I do look at businesses from around £1m. I already own companies in all three sectors, so the conversation tends to be quicker and better informed than it would be with a generalist buyer. I look at other sectors as well, because I have partners across multiple industries, so it is worth asking rather than assuming the answer is no.

On a multiple of sustainable, adjusted profit rather than turnover. That means normalising owner salary and any personal costs running through the business, stripping out one-offs, and looking at the quality of the earnings: contract cover, customer concentration and how much depends on you personally. Two businesses with identical profit can be worth very different numbers once those are accounted for.

Five things, in rough order of impact. Reducing dependence on the owner, because a business that cannot run without you is worth less to everyone. Recurring or contracted revenue rather than repeat project work. Spreading customer concentration. Clean, timely management accounts. And a second layer of management who will still be there after completion. Most take twelve to twenty-four months to put in place, which is why an early conversation is worth having.

From a first call to money in your account is typically four to eight months for a straightforward deal. Heads of terms are usually agreed within the first six to eight weeks, then diligence and legals run in parallel. It moves faster than a broker process because there is no marketing period and no waiting to find out whether a buyer is serious.

No. I am a direct buyer, not a broker, so there is no commission taken out of your proceeds and no retainer to engage. Business brokers typically charge both. You also get access to my lawyer panel, which usually lowers your own legal cost on the transaction.

That is common and it is workable. A partnership structure often suits it better than a full sale, because one shareholder can take liquidity and step back while the other stays in and keeps building. I have structured deals where the two founders wanted opposite things, and getting that on the table early is far better than discovering it halfway through diligence.

Normal trading debt, asset finance and leases are all standard and rarely obstacles. If you personally own the premises, you usually keep them and grant a lease, which many owners prefer because it leaves them an income after completion. Personal guarantees are released at completion, which for a lot of owners is the single biggest practical relief of the whole process.

For an acquisition, yes, in practice. I buy established, demonstrably profitable businesses. If yours has had a difficult year for an explainable reason, that is a conversation worth having rather than an automatic no. If it is loss-making with no clear route back, I am not the right buyer and you will be told that on the first call rather than three months in.

Most owners I speak to are twelve to thirty-six months out. An early conversation costs nothing and tends to make the eventual outcome better, because the things that raise a valuation take time to put in place. There is no pipeline you get pushed down and no follow-up sequence.