Documents before opinions
Every position we take is traceable to something in writing: a ledger, a contract, a policy, a filing. When the documents contradict the story, we go with the documents.
Approach
Read the documents. Say the difficult thing. Move.
There is no proprietary methodology here and no forty-slide framework. There is a sequence that works, applied by someone who has been on the owner's side of it.
The engagement
Four stages, in order.
Each stage produces something you keep: a document, a decision, a system. You keep it whether or not you continue to the next one, and nothing is contingent on a long retainer.
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Stage one
Diagnostic
Two to three weeks. Accounts, contracts, org chart, systems, and a series of direct conversations. The output is a written assessment of where the value is, where it leaks, and what a buyer would object to.
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Stage two
Plan
A prioritised list, sequenced by effect on enterprise value and by how long each fix needs to show up in the numbers. Costed, with owners named against each item.
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Stage three
Execution
We work alongside your people rather than replacing them. Documented procedures, restructured reporting, cleaned-up financials, and the accumulation of the evidence file a transaction will eventually require.
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Stage four
Transaction or handover
Either we take the business to market and support you through diligence and structuring, or we hand over a company that runs without you and can be sold whenever you choose.
Principles
How we actually work.
Straight talk, early
Difficult conversations get shorter and cheaper the sooner they happen. If the business is not saleable, or the target is not worth buying, you will hear that in week one, not month six.
Diplomacy where it counts
Directness with the principal; care with the team, the counterparty and the family. Deals fail on relationships at least as often as on numbers.
Small enough to answer the phone
You work with a senior member of the team who stays on your file from the first call to completion, not a rotating case handler. The trade-off is that we take on a limited number of engagements at a time.
Built to be handed over
Anything we build for you, whether a procedure, a model or a data room, is yours in a form your own staff can maintain. No dependency by design.
Long horizon
The firm exists to build durable, transferable enterprise value. That is a different objective from maximising this quarter, and occasionally the two conflict.
Empowering simplicity
Complex is easy. Simple is the work.
A deliberate simplicity is built into how we work: making complex material readable for everybody in the room, and making processes function better and more efficiently than they did before.
That simplicity is not decoration. It lets your own people work more efficiently, and gives them a deeper understanding of what their position in the organisation is actually for. A business whose staff understand why they do what they do is worth more than one that runs on instruction alone.
Engagement terms
What to expect commercially.
- An introductory call at no cost, to establish whether the work is a fit
- A fixed-fee diagnostic, scoped in writing before it begins
- Project or retained work thereafter, with a defined scope and end point
- Transaction work quoted case by case, structured around the deal
- Confidentiality as standard; a mutual NDA before any figures change hands
Start with the diagnostic.
It is the cheapest way to find out what your business is actually worth and what stands between it and the number you have in mind.