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A founder holding an unsolicited offer from a consolidator, with no independent basis to judge the number.
INDUSTRIES
Business Services
The revenue is real. The question every buyer asks is whether it survives the founder. Services firms are built on relationships, and too many are priced as if the relationships leave at completion. The discount is not a judgement on the business. It is a judgement on its transferability.
Consolidators understand this better than owners do. Accounting, facilities, testing, staffing: every fragmented service vertical is being rolled up by acquirers who buy founder-led firms at a discount and sell the aggregate at a premium. The owner who accepts the first approach funds that arbitrage. The owner who runs a process captures a share of it.
We prepare founder-led services firms for the consolidators already circling them. Our appetite is the gap between a practice and an enterprise: the discount owners accept when the business cannot be transferred.
We prepare founder-led services firms for the consolidators already circling them. Our appetite is the gap between a practice and an enterprise: the discount owners accept when the business cannot be transferred.
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Where we engage
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Sell-side processes for founder-led services firms fielding consolidator approaches
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Buy-side programmes for platforms consolidating fragmented service verticals
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Recapitalisations that fund partner buy-ins, succession, and partial founder exits
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Preparation mandates that convert owner-dependent practices into transferable enterprises
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Cross-border structuring for services groups operating across jurisdictions
Typical situations
Typical Situations
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A firm where the earnings are strong but every material client relationship runs through the founder's desk.
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A partnership approaching succession, where the next generation cannot fund the buy-in and the founders will not gift it.
If this is your position, or that of a client, it is worth a conversation.