Deal sourcing
Reach the owner before the process starts.
A deal that begins as a quiet conversation is a different deal from one that begins as an auction. Our work is getting you to that conversation first, across every private company in the UK.
The process
Five steps, in the same order, every time.
Brief
You describe the acquisition in plain language: sector, geography, size, and what a good target looks like to you.
Sector in your own words, geography as you think about it, size as a range, and the shape of a good target, including the things you would rule out. We translate that into a precise, repeatable search, and we show you the translation so you can correct it. A good thesis is specific enough to rank a market and honest enough to fail. If yours matches half the country, we will tell you and help you narrow it before any money changes hands.
Sourcing plan
We reply with the screens we would run, an honest read of how many companies your brief is likely to surface, and written terms.
The plan sets out the screens in plain terms: how the market is cut by sector, size and geography, and how succession and ownership signals order what remains. Every private company leaves a public trace of how it is held: how long it has been in the same hands, how concentrated its ownership is, and how its trading has moved. Read together, those signals say which owners are approaching a transition before they have told anyone. Companies already in a process, recently sold, or held by institutions are screened out early. They are somebody else’s deal.
Your approval
Nothing moves without you. Approaches begin only once you have approved the target list and the wording of the approach.
The screens produce a scored shortlist, not a data dump. Each company arrives as a one-page profile: what it does, how it has traded, who holds it, and precisely why it is on your list. Scores show their components so you can re-rank by what you weight, and estimated figures are labelled as estimates, always. You strike off anything that does not fit, and no owner is contacted until you have signed the list off.
Approaches in confidence
We contact owners in our own name, in confidence, with a straight account of why we are writing.
No scripts pretending to be someone else, and no pressure. We say who we are, why we are writing, and why this company in particular. Owners take the measure of a serious, specific approach very differently from a mail merge, and the difference shows in who replies.
Qualified introductions
Owners who are genuinely open to a conversation are introduced to you with their consent. You take it from there.
We qualify genuine openness to a sale in conversation before any introduction is made. What lands on your desk is not a lead. It is an owner who knows why you are interesting and has said yes to the meeting.
What reaches you
Three deliverables, no noise.
- A market mapHow many companies genuinely fit your thesis, how they cluster, and where the strongest succession signals sit.
- The scored shortlistOne-page profiles with transparent scoring. Every claim inspectable, every estimate labelled.
- Qualified introductionsOwners who have spoken to us, understood the interest, and agreed to meet you.
Illustrative. Fictional company, no real data.
What to expect
Patient work, honestly reported.
Off-market sourcing is not a volume game and we will not present it as one. A minority of owners respond to any approach, however well made. The ones who do are worth the call, because they were reached before anyone else thought to ask.
So we report the work as it actually goes: who has been approached, who has replied, who is qualified and why. What we promise is qualified conversations with genuine owners. Never a transaction, and never a pipeline dressed up to look further along than it is.
Our role
Research and introductions only. We do not advise on, value or negotiate transactions. Our work is limited to whole-business transfers and is not FCA-regulated activity. Your advisers stay yours.
Illustrative. Off-market response rates are always a minority.
Start
See what your thesis returns.
A paragraph on sector, geography and size is enough. We reply with a sourcing plan, an honest read on how many companies your thesis is likely to surface, and written terms.