The value is won
before the process starts
and kept after it ends.
Most of what determines a transaction outcome happens outside the transaction itself. We work with owners in the years before a sale, and with acquirers through the first year of ownership.
Either side
of the signature.
These are standalone engagements. You do not need to be selling with us to be prepared by us, and you do not need to have bought through us to be supported afterward.
A buyer will find it.
Better that we find it first.
Diligence is adversarial by design. Every weakness you have not already addressed becomes a price adjustment, an indemnity, or a reason to walk away. Little of it is expensive to fix three years out. All of it is expensive to fix at the table.
Add-backs argued for the first time during diligence get discounted or dropped — and each one dropped comes straight off the multiple. The evidence gets attached before a buyer asks.
The most common reason a good business trades at a mediocre multiple. It cannot be fixed in the six months before a sale. It can be fixed in the three years before one.
If the owner holds the relationships, the pricing judgement, and the supplier terms, a buyer is not purchasing a company. They are purchasing an employment agreement, and will price it that way.
Contracts, cap table, change-of-control clauses, working capital history. We run the process a buyer will run and hand you the findings, ranked by what costs you most.
Closing is not
the finish line.
The model assumed key people stay, customers do not notice, and the founder hands over what only they know. None of that is automatic. The first year is where those assumptions get tested, and where the return is made or quietly lost.
What changes on day one, what deliberately does not, and who tells the staff. Drafted while you still have leverage and the seller’s cooperation — not improvised in the first week.
Value concentrated in individuals is value that resigns. Not who holds the title — who holds the relationship, the process knowledge, or the licence, and what would actually keep them.
The undocumented pricing rules, the supplier who bends on terms. Captured while the seller is still contractually present and still motivated to help.
Where well-negotiated deals turn into disputes. Measurement depends on accounting choices made after close, and both sides discover they read the clause differently.
The earlier the call,
the wider the options.
Preparation compounds. Most of what raises a multiple takes several reporting periods to demonstrate — which means the useful conversation happens well before you are ready to sell.
Request a
scoping call.
Tell us where you are — considering, preparing, or newly acquired. We will tell you the right level of engagement.
Schedule a call →