Sectors
The sectors we actually know
Six of them. We cover these because we know them, not because they make a tidy list, and the honest position on anything outside them is that we will tell you if we cannot add much.
Why sector matters more than size
In these businesses the value is in contracts, not in things
What these six have in common is that the asset you are buying is largely invisible on a balance sheet. It is a book of maintenance contracts, a monitoring base, a fee block, a service round, a schedule of retentions. The vans and the tools are the smallest part of the price.
That is precisely where a generalist lender struggles. Faced with a business whose value is contractual, the template asks about tangible security, finds very little, and prices the deal for the uncertainty rather than for the risk. A lender who has funded that sector before asks about contract length, renewal history, client concentration and who does the work after completion, because they already know those are the questions.
Our job is to put the second kind of lender in front of you instead of the first. That is the entire value of the introduction, and it is why the first thing we ask is what sector you are in. Read why Reads for the honest version of that argument, including when you would be better off going direct.
The six
Where we know something worth knowing
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Sector
Buying an accountancy practice, and how lenders look at it
What carries value in a fee block, what makes a lender nervous, and the deal shapes that get funded.
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Sector
Buying an electrical or M&E contractor, and how lenders look at it
Retentions and work in progress are the whole problem. Why contracting is funded differently, and what a...
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Sector
Buying a facilities management business, and how lenders look at it
Contracts and people transfer together in FM. What a lender tests, and why mobilisation cost decides the...
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Sector
Buying a fire and security business, and how lenders look at it
Monitoring income is the asset and accreditation is the risk. What a lender tests, and what catches buyers...
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Sector
Buying an HVAC business, and how lenders look at it
Why the maintenance book is the asset, what a lender tests in it, and where HVAC deals go wrong.
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Sector
Buying a pest control business, and how lenders look at it
Route density is the economics. What a contract round is worth, and what a lender tests before funding one.
Outside these six
If your business is not on the list
Tell us anyway. Plenty of what is on this site is sector-neutral: how a lender rebuilds your profit figure, how deferred consideration is treated, what equity contribution is expected, why applications get declined. Start with what lenders look for in a business acquisition and the buyer journey.
What we will not do is pretend to specialist knowledge of a sector we do not have. If we cannot add anything beyond what you could get from your own bank, we will say so, which is a shorter conversation but a more useful one.
Tell us which sector, and what you are buying
The sector is the first thing we want to know, because it decides who we go to. Tell us that and the shape of the deal, and we come back to you with who can fund it.