Founders and families come to us at the point where the next chapter — a sale, an MBO, an EOT, or simply stepping back — depends on someone else being able to run the business. We find that person, confidentially, and we help you hand over to them.
In most family and founder-owned businesses, the value sits in the same place as the risk: one person. The owner quotes the difficult jobs, holds the key accounts, signs off the technical decisions and knows why the business does things the way it does.
An acquirer looks at that and sees a business they are buying the day before it changes. It shows up as a lower multiple, a heavier earn-out, a longer tie-in, or a deal that quietly goes away during diligence.
The fix is not a document. It is a person: a credible senior leader, in seat long enough to have a track record, running the business while the owner steps back. That is the appointment we are built to make.
Rarely all four, and rarely in the order people expect. The right sequence depends on what the owner personally holds today.
A non-family chief executive who holds the customer relationships, the P&L and the decisions the owner used to make personally. Buyers price the certainty that trading continues after completion.
Proves the business runs without the family in the building — the single biggest driver of a clean valuation.
Often the first appointment rather than the last. Where the owner is the operational centre of a plant, depot or field team, a COO releases them fastest and creates the space for a CEO handover later.
Removes the owner from daily firefighting, so the business is not sold on the owner's diary.
Family businesses are frequently run on instinct and a good accountant. A commercial FD builds management information a buyer can underwrite, cleans up what diligence will find, and sits beside the owner through the process.
Produces the numbers, controls and forecasting that survive due diligence.
In engineering and manufacturing businesses the founder is usually the deepest technical mind on site. Until that sits with someone else, the know-how leaves with them on completion day.
Transfers technical authority off the founder — the risk buyers most often miss until diligence.
Anonymised. These searches are confidential, so we do not name clients or give figures.
Appointed an external chief executive to take over from the owning family in preparation for a trade sale. The family moved to non-executive roles.
Hired the company's first finance director to build a finance function capable of handling buyer due diligence.
The appointment needs a full trading year behind it before a buyer will credit it. That one constraint sets everything else.
Work out what the owner personally holds and which appointment releases the most. Agree a sequence — usually one hire now, one later — against the intended exit date.
Run the search confidentially and get the successor in seat. The appointment needs a full trading year before a buyer looks at it, so this is the step that dictates the timetable.
Decision rights transfer on a schedule. Customers and staff meet the successor as the person in charge, not as the owner's deputy. The owner starts genuinely stepping back.
A trading period with the successor running the business and the numbers to show it. Advisors take a business to market that already works without its founder.
Starting later than this is still worth doing. It simply changes what the appointment can prove by the time the business goes to market — and that is a conversation worth having honestly before you commit to a search.
The route you take changes who you need to hire, and when. We shape the brief around the transaction you are actually planning.
A trade buyer is buying capability and continuity. They discount hard for founder dependency, and they ask early who runs the business on day one after completion.
PE will back a management team, not a founder on the way out. A credible CEO and a CFO who can report to a board are usually preconditions rather than nice-to-haves.
An MBO needs a team that a lender believes in. That often means strengthening the existing management with one external appointment before the deal is fundable.
An EOT transfers ownership but not capability. The trustees inherit whatever leadership exists on day one, so the successor has to be in place and proven first.
Where the next generation is taking over, an external COO, CFO or non-executive can carry the experience gap while the family member grows into the role.
Not every owner wants to sell. Some want to move to chair, keep the dividends, and stop working weekends. That is a succession search with a different brief and a longer horizon.
Our succession work sits in the sectors we know. In these businesses the owner is rarely just the commercial lead — they are the technical authority as well, which makes the handover harder and the search more specific.
Because buyers price risk. If the owner personally holds the customer relationships, the technical knowledge and the decision-making, the buyer is acquiring something that changes materially on completion day — and they price, structure and earn-out accordingly. A business that demonstrably runs without its owner removes that argument before it starts.
How buyers price key-person risk in founder-led businesses, what they test in diligence, and the senior hires that reduce the discount before a sale.
What to decide before recruiting an MD for an owner-led business: the scope of the handover, internal versus external, equity, and timing against an exit.
In an EOT sale the founder is paid from future profits, so the leadership team left behind matters. The hires, governance and timing to plan for.
Tell us where you are in the process and what you are planning. We will give you a straight answer on what is achievable in the time you have.