Exits

Why we start the exit conversation five years early.

A paid, retained engagement: we join your team as strategic advisor, billed monthly. The first conversation is free. The work is not.

Most owners first think seriously about selling when something forces the question. A health scare. A difficult year. A competitor's sale that makes them wonder what their own business might fetch.

The usual route is a broker, who values the business on last year's numbers, writes a one-page summary and starts ringing round buyers. It is transactional by design. The business sells for whatever it happens to be worth today, not what it could have been worth with a few years of deliberate preparation.

We prefer to start five or even ten years before you think you might want to sell. Here is why.

The value gap

Every business has two valuations: what it is worth today, and what it could be worth with the right changes in place. The gap is often large. The right adjustments a couple of years out can double or treble a company's value in a buyer's eyes.

Low profitability, dependence on the founder, informal processes: all of these drag a valuation down, and all of them can be fixed. But they are fixed over time, not in the three months before you start talking to buyers. We work with you on a retained basis, so we become part of your team, and if you choose to sell with us we represent you with a genuine understanding of your business and your market.

The one non-negotiable is trust

Every company has problems a buyer will weigh up. Founders often assume one issue or another means they cannot sell. In our experience there is only one thing without which a deal will not happen: the buyer has to trust the information they receive and the people they deal with. With trust in place, there is a way to construct a deal that gets good value.

Clean accounts, documented processes, transparent customer data and a clear story about the future do not just make the business look better on paper. They build trust, and trust translates directly into a higher price and a smoother negotiation. A broker is paid when a deal completes, so their interest is speed. Ours is the price you achieve and the buyer you end up with.

What “sale ready” actually looks like

Five things a buyer will ask about, and that are far cheaper to fix years out than months out.

01
Financial clarity
A clear picture of true underlying profit, the number a buyer will base their offer on, with the one-offs and owner costs separated out.
02
Owner dependency
If the business cannot run without you, it is worth less. We help you build systems and processes that move your knowledge into the organisation.
03
Customer concentration
We analyse your customer data to understand how much depends on a few accounts, and help you address it before a buyer uses it to negotiate.
04
The likely buyers
A trade buyer, a private equity firm and a management team all value different things. Knowing who is likely to buy shapes how the business is positioned.
05
The shape of the deal
Share sale or asset sale, and how the price is paid, make a big difference to what you take home after tax. These are best thought through years ahead.

Big-company rigour, applied to businesses your size

Before founding Peatling Group, John spent years at PLC level in corporate strategy and mergers and acquisitions, including a spell as Head of Strategy at Blue Prism, a technology company ultimately acquired for over £1bn.

The frameworks and thinking behind billion-pound deals are rarely applied to smaller businesses, even though the principles are the same. That is the gap we exist to fill: practical, hands-on advice for founder-led businesses with one to fifty million in turnover, that changes how you run the business now and how you sell it later.

Happy to talk years before you are ready.

Whether it is a screen your team keeps asking for, or a sale that is a decade away, the most valuable work happens early. The first conversation costs nothing. For software, neither does the first proof of concept.