Sectors
Selling in your sector.
A buyer values a distribution business differently from a professional services firm, and scrutinises different things. These pages set out what is specific to selling in each sector we work in.
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Distribution and Wholesale
Distribution and wholesale businesses sell on the durability of their supplier and customer relationships, not on headline profit. Because margins are thin and the business runs on stock and debtors, most of the value question turns on working capital and cash rather than the profit line. Two things decide the outcome more than anything else: whether your key distribution and supply agreements survive a change of ownership (many contain change-of-control or exclusivity clauses that let a supplier walk or appoint a rival), and how concentrated your revenue and your supply are. Buyers are usually trade acquirers or private-equity-backed consolidators, and they will scrutinise obsolete stock, debtor quality and the real margin left after rebates. Expect the price to be quoted cash-free, debt-free with a normalised working-capital target, so how you manage stock and receivables in the year before sale directly affects what you bank.
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Professional Services
In a professional services firm the asset is people and client relationships, and both can walk out of the door. That makes the sale less about assets and more about proving the business wins and delivers work without you. Buyers price recurring, contracted revenue far above one-off project work, scrutinise how concentrated your clients and key staff are, and structure most of the consideration as an earn-out tied to those clients and people staying. The owners who sell well spend the years before a sale turning personal relationships into institutional ones and shifting the revenue mix towards retainers and recurring contracts.
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Specialist Manufacturing
Selling a niche or precision manufacturer turns on a few sector-specific questions: whether your reported profit survives the capital expenditure your plant actually needs, whether your quality accreditations and customer approvals transfer intact through a change of control, and whether the know-how sits in documented systems or in the heads of the owner and a few skilled staff. Buyers pay a premium for a genuine, transferable niche and discount hard for customer concentration, an ageing asset base and capability that could walk out the door. For the owner, the work that lifts the price is institutionalising the moat: getting the process knowledge written down, the approvals held by the company rather than by named individuals, and the skilled team incentivised to stay.
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Trade and Construction
Trade and construction businesses are valued on the quality of forward work, not just last year's profit. Because revenue is lumpy and project-based, a buyer pays most for a secured order book, repeat and maintenance income, and an owner who no longer does the estimating or personally holds the client relationships. Retentions, work in progress and contract liabilities make the accounts harder to read than in most sectors, so getting them clean, and getting yourself out of pricing, are usually the two biggest levers on price.
Whatever your sector, a buyer reads the same seven dimensions.
The free 7 Mills Score reads your business the way a buyer will. 15 minutes, results in writing.