Staying In Our Lane: How We Actually Approach Financial Due Diligence
The discipline behind independence, evidence, and knowing exactly where our job ends Someone building a genuine acquisitions strategy asked me recently how we actually work, before deciding whether to bring us onto a large upcoming deal. It is a fair question, and one worth answering properly, because the answer has far less to do with […]
Two Tax Reliefs Every Business Seller Should Know About: Instalment Relief and Qualified Corporate Bonds
One of the most common questions that comes up in business sale conversations is straightforward: What tax am I going to pay when I sell? More specifically, sellers are often concerned about deferred consideration. They may be happy to accept payment over time, but then the concern becomes: Am I going to be taxed on […]
The Journey of Acquisition
Buying a business is one of the biggest financial decisions you’ll ever make. Done well, it can accelerate growth by years. Done badly, it can drain cash, energy, and momentum. The key difference is preparation, structure, and knowing what comes next before you get there. This guide walks you through the typical buying journey, step […]
The Importance of Credit Reports in Business Acqusistion
When most people start looking at buying a business, they focus on the obvious things. Turnover, profit, client numbers, growth potential. All important, but also all very easy to dress up. What often gets missed at the early stages is one of the simplest and most revealing documents you can get your hands on: the […]
Financial Due Diligence Explained, The Documents Buyers Expect and Sellers Need to Prepare
When buyers and sellers hear the phrase Financial Due Diligence, the first reaction is often that it sounds heavy, invasive or overcomplicated. In reality, FDD is simply about proving that the business being bought or sold is what everyone thinks it is. The quickest way to make the process smooth is to understand exactly what […]
The One Question Every Business Buyer Should Ask, and Why It Matters More Than You Think
If you’re buying a business, there’s a question you should be asking the seller early on, and frankly, most buyers don’t. It’s simple, almost innocent on the surface, but it tells you more about the deal than half the due diligence pack ever will. That question is: when did you start planning to sell? Most […]
Are You a Financial or Strategic Buyer? Understanding Your Buyer Type Before Your First Acquisition
When buyers come into the market, most of the mistakes I see stem from one simple issue: a lack of honesty about the type of buyer they actually are. Not what they aspire to be, not what their adviser tells them they sound like, but who they are today. If you get this wrong, you […]
Choosing the Right Accountant When Buying a Business: The Questions That Separate Deal Experts from Everyone Else
When you’re buying a business, choosing the wrong accountant can cost you far more than their fee. Financial due diligence and deal support are not extensions of compliance work. They sit in a completely different skill set, one that blends technical accounting, commercial judgement, negotiation awareness, and lived experience of transactions. These are the questions […]
Speak the Seller’s Language
Business valuation is as much about communication as it is about calculation. You can run the numbers six different ways—EBITDA, net profit, gross profit, recurring revenue, balance sheet value—but if you don’t present the result in the language the seller understands, you risk hitting a wall. Too many buyers make this mistake. They do the […]
Turn Valuation Into Negotiation Leverage
A valuation isn’t just a number. It’s a weapon. Done right, it doesn’t only tell you what a business is worth—it gives you the leverage to negotiate smarter, faster, and with more confidence. Too many buyers treat valuations as a back-office exercise: tick the box, get a report, file it away. In reality, the best […]