Exit & Succession Planning
Every exit is won years before the deal.
One day, this business changes hands. A sale, a buyout, a successor, the next generation. The owners who get the number they want aren't lucky: they started early, and their finance function was built for the moment. That's why we exist.
The honest problem· 01
Most businesses aren't ready to be bought.
Buyers walk, chip the price, or drag diligence out for months, and it's almost always the same reasons: numbers that don't reconcile, profit that depends on the owner, cash that can't be forecast, records that can't survive a data room. None of it is fatal. All of it is fixable, given time.
Exit readiness· 02
What exit readiness means in practice.
Four tests. One prepared business.
04 gates
- 01
A valuation you can defend
Know what the business is worth now, what drives that number, and what moves it.
- 02
Diligence-proof numbers
Three years of clean, consistent, explainable financials. The data room builds itself.
- 03
A business that runs without you
Management information, controls and a finance function a buyer can inherit.
- 04
The route mapped
Trade sale, management buyout, employee ownership trust, family succession. Each has different preparation. We help you choose early and build toward it.
Cleared early, before a buyer or successor asks.
Succession without a sale· 03
Handing over is an exit too.
Succession planning isn't only for sellers. Passing to family, promoting a management team, or moving to employee ownership all demand the same thing: a finance function that tells the truth without the founder in the room. Whoever takes over inherits the engine, so we build one worth inheriting.
Book a True North Diagnostic.
Find out what a buyer would see, before a buyer sees it.
Book the diagnostic