Exit Readiness for Founders.
Sell for more, on your terms, when you choose.

The 18–36 month program that prepares founder-led mid-market businesses for a premium sale — cleaner financials, real optionality, stronger valuation.

Free tools below — scorecard, valuation, net proceeds. Bring the output to our first call.

Core promise

Most exits happen too early, at a discount, and with terms founders regret. We work with owners 18–36 months before a likely transaction to change that. Structured preparation, a clean data room, a clear equity story, and a tested buyer universe consistently translate into higher multiples and greater deal certainty.

Empirically, well-prepared mid-market businesses close at EBITDA multiples 10–25% higher than reactive sales of comparable companies. On a €30m EBITDA business, that is €30m–€75m of incremental enterprise value — versus a €300k–€800k preparation cost.


Who this is for

Founder-led businesses, €10m–€250m revenue.

  • Founder-led or founder-majority-owned mid-market businesses.
  • 2–4 years from a likely exit event.
  • Revenue €10m–€250m, EBITDA €2m–€40m.
  • Open to senior advice on structural issues — not just transaction execution.
What we don't do

Boundaries, stated upfront.

  • We don't take over your company.
  • We don't replace your CFO.
  • We don't sell your business — that's the M&A team's job, and it comes after.
  • We don't promise valuations we haven't stress-tested.
Engagement structure

Diagnostic · roadmap · dry run — monthly cadence in between.

PHASE 01

Readiness diagnostic

A senior team reads your business the way a buyer would. Output: a scored Deal Readiness assessment across five pillars — Marché, Finance, Opérationnel, Management, Juridique — prioritised value-creation roadmap, indicative valuation range, and the three issues most likely to reprice your deal.

4 weeks
PHASE 02

Value roadmap execution

Quarterly working rhythm against the top value-drivers: equity story, financial quality, founder dependency, and buyer universe mapping. We define the probable acquirer set — strategic and financial — early, and prepare the business against their real criteria. Not a generic checklist. Monthly cadence between sessions.

Ongoing — quarterly
PHASE 03

Pre-market dry run

Vendor-side due diligence. A third party stress-tests the business against real buyer questions — you remediate before go-to-market, not during exclusivity. The data room is clean. The equity story is pressure-tested. Buyers find no surprises.

6–8 weeks
PHASE 04

Hand-off to sell-side process

The same senior partner leads the sell-side mandate. Curated buyer outreach to the universe defined in Phase 02 — no re-learning the business, no cold buyer list assembled from scratch at the last moment.

Go-to-market

Frequently asked

What founders ask us most.

How long before selling should I start preparing?
Most founders benefit from 18–36 months of preparation. That window is long enough to clean up financials, reduce founder dependency, and strengthen the growth story — all of which drive multiples at exit.
What multiple will my business sell for?
It depends on sector, growth rate, margin profile, recurring-revenue share, and customer concentration. Mid-market EBITDA multiples currently range from 5x for low-growth services businesses to 12x+ for software with high NRR. We give every client an indicative range in the first 30 days of engagement.
What's the difference between exit readiness and an M&A process?
Exit readiness prepares the business to sell well. An M&A process sells it. Preparation happens 18–36 months before; the M&A process typically takes 6–12 months. The same firm can do both, but the work is distinct.
Do I need an M&A advisor if I already have offers?
Almost always yes. An unsolicited offer is rarely a fair process — the buyer anchors at the lowest price that might work. A competitive process, run by an experienced advisor, typically delivers a 15–40% price uplift versus a single-buyer negotiation.
Should I use a broker or an investment bank?
For mid-market businesses (€10m–€300m EV), specialist mid-market M&A firms typically outperform both. Brokers are priced for very small transactions and lack process discipline; bulge-bracket banks under-resource deals below €500m.
What is Quality of Earnings?
Quality of Earnings (QoE) is an analysis that normalises your EBITDA — removing one-offs, owner expenses, accounting distortions — to produce the number the buyer will use to negotiate price. A seller-side QoE, run before the process, prevents surprises. Request a seller-side QoE review →
How long does a sell-side process take?
From kick-off to closing: typically 6–9 months for a well-prepared business, 9–15 months if diligence surfaces material issues.
What is an earn-out and should I accept one?
An earn-out is a portion of the purchase price contingent on post-close performance. Accept only when the performance metrics are within your control, the measurement period is ≤24 months, and the earn-out is ≤20% of headline price. Otherwise, renegotiate.
Will I have to stay on after the sale?
Typically yes — 12–24 months is the norm for founder-led businesses. The terms, scope, and exit mechanism should be negotiated as part of the sale and purchase agreement (SPA), not left to post-close discussion.
What does engagement look like?
We start with a 4-week diagnostic, then run a quarterly working rhythm for 12–24 months. The engagement is structured as a monthly retainer plus a success fee tied to the eventual transaction — payable only if a deal closes. Scope and cost are discussed in a 20-minute discovery call once we understand the business.

Last updated · April 2026

Free · 48-hour turnaround

Get a preliminary buyer landscape for your business.

Tell us your sector, size, and geography. We'll send you a curated list of strategic and financial acquirers actively buying businesses like yours — segmented, with a brief rationale for each category. No generic output. This is what Phase 02 of the engagement starts with.

  • Strategic acquirers by rationale
  • Financial sponsors with relevant platforms
  • France & Switzerland focus, EMEA coverage
  • Sent within 48 business hours
Going to market

The offer isn't the proceeds. The terms are.

A well-prepared exit gets you to a competitive process with a credible buyer universe. What lands in your account is determined by what happens after the letter of intent (LOI) — the working capital peg, earnout structure, vendor loan, tax treatment, warranties, and escrow position.

01 · Process

Competitive sell-side process

A curated buyer universe, structured auction, and senior-partner-led buyer management. Typically 15–40% higher headline price versus a single-buyer negotiation.

M&A execution →
02 · Terms

Whole Transaction Maximiser

Twelve levers — working capital peg, earnout, vendor loan, tax treatment, warranties, escrow, lock-up — reviewed from the seller's side before you sign anything. Three proceeds views: headline, risk-adjusted, and after-tax net.

Whole Transaction Maximiser →
03 · Negotiation

Buyer Q&A and closing

Senior partners stay in the room through diligence, buyer Q&A, and SPA negotiation. The same team that prepared the exit sees it through to closing — no handover, no re-learning curve.

Talk to a partner →
The 2026 method

We prepare the business backwards — from the buyer.

Start from the likely buyer

We define the probable acquirer universe early and prepare against their real criteria — not a generic checklist. Every workstream is chosen because a specific buyer will test it.

Six diagnostic lenses, five pillars

Revenue quality, pricing power, customer concentration, margin sustainability, scalability, cash conversion — each tied to a multiple or a discount, and each mapped into one of the five Deal Readiness pillars, not a separate scale of its own.

Beyond the margin illusion

Headline EBITDA is not the number a buyer pays for. We trace margin to its drivers — realised vs list pricing, hidden costs, procurement, profit by customer and segment — before the books open.

AI as value and as risk

Where AI drives earnings we evidence it as durable value; where it creates exposure we de-risk it — AI-durability and EU AI Act — so a buyer cannot reprice on it.

The backdrop we prepare for: buyers pay for the quality and sustainability of earnings, and — for sponsor-owned assets — LPs increasingly judge on distributions to paid-in capital (DPI), cash actually returned, not paper internal rate of return (IRR). That is why readiness is engineered from Day 1, not assembled six months before a sale.

Curious where you stand? Score yourself in 5 minutes.

Our Exit Readiness Scorecard runs ten diagnostic questions and returns a band from Not ready to Exit-ready, with a short read on what to work on next.

Run the scorecard Or book a call