Welcome to your business appraisal.

If you're considering selling or exiting your business within the next three years, or joining us in acquiring other businesses, this appraisal is the first step in understanding what you need to do to achieve the outcome you want.

Before you decide where you want to go, you need to understand exactly where you and your business are today.

Every business has risks, weaknesses and areas of uncertainty. The important question is not whether they exist. It is whether you know what they are, understand their impact, and have enough time to address them before a buyer finds them.

An unprepared business can cost you millions

When you sell a business, particularly to private equity or a professional acquirer, the buyer will undertake detailed due diligence. They will examine every aspect of the business to identify risks, weaknesses, dependencies and uncertainties.

Every issue they uncover has the potential to reduce the value of your business.

• ◆Some issues may result in a reduction in price.
• ◆Others may lead to additional conditions, deferred consideration or earn-outs.
• ◆There are many issues that can be serious enough for a buyer to walk away altogether.

The good news is that many of these issues can be identified and addressed before you go to market.

The earlier you identify them, the more time you have to fix them. That foreknowledge can often create a return on investment many times greater than the cost of fixing the issues themselves.

This appraisal puts you in control

This appraisal has been designed around the areas that private equity investors and professional buyers will examine during their due diligence.

It is deliberately comprehensive and it will take a little while to complete. There is no shortcut.

Your answers will help identify the risks, weaknesses and uncertainties that could affect the value, saleability or attractiveness of your business. More importantly, it will show you where you are today and where you need to get to.

If you're joining us to acquire other businesses

There is another important reason for completing this appraisal.

If you're going to work with us to acquire other businesses, we want you to understand and experience this process from the business owner's perspective first. Before we ask another business owner to identify and address the risks in their business, we want you to have gone through the same process in your own.

You will work with our team to identify the issues, understand why they matter and, where appropriate, help put the solutions in place. That experience is invaluable.

When we acquire another business together, you will be able to speak to its owner with genuine authority and credibility, because you have been through the same process yourself. You will understand what it feels like to have someone examine your business in this way. You will understand why certain issues matter to a buyer. And, importantly, you will be able to explain how fixing those issues can make the business easier to operate, more profitable and more valuable.

We don't just want you to understand the process. We want you to experience it.

Our role

If we ultimately decide that your business is one we would like to acquire or invest in, we need to understand the same risks that a future buyer will uncover.

Our objective is therefore not simply to identify the problems. It is to help you fix them.

The stronger, more profitable and more predictable your business becomes, the more attractive it is to a buyer — and the greater the potential value you can realise.

A buyer is ultimately buying certainty:

• ◆Certainty that the revenues are sustainable.
• ◆Certainty that customers will stay with the business once it is sold.
• ◆Certainty that the management team can operate without you.
• ◆Certainty that the numbers are accurate.
• ◆Certainty that the business can continue to perform after the transaction.

This appraisal is designed to uncover the uncertainties that stand between where your business is today and the destination you want to reach. The earlier you identify them, the more options you have to fix them.

Ultimately, this is about building a better business

This is about much more than preparing a business for sale or for growth. It is about building a better business:

• ◆A business that is easier to run.
• ◆A business that makes more money.
• ◆A business that is less dependent on its owner.
• ◆A business that is more attractive to buyers.
• ◆And, if you're working with us to acquire other businesses, a business owner who understands exactly what it takes to help another business achieve the same.

Let's find out where you are today — and what it will take to get you where you want to go.