By Mergers.co.uk · Last reviewed: · All sectors
In short: how do you sell a software or SaaS business?
Selling a UK software or SaaS business starts with establishing sustainable revenue and earnings and understanding the quality of the recurring revenue: how much is contracted, how well customers are retained and how concentrated the customer base is. The strategic value in the product, code and intellectual property is identified, and the financial, customer and technical data buyers will ask for is prepared. Likely strategic and financial buyers are then researched and approached confidentially under a non-disclosure agreement. Offers are compared on valuation and deal structure, including cash at completion, earn-outs and retained equity, and the seller's adviser manages due diligence and negotiation through to completion. Owners can sell all of the business or only part of it.
Software and SaaS businesses we advise
Mergers.co.uk acts for founders, owners and shareholders of established software and technology-enabled companies, typically with £2m–£25m turnover, although scale is only one factor in whether a sale or investment is realistic. The list below illustrates the kinds of business this page is written for; it is not a list of completed transactions in each area.
- B2B SaaS
- Vertical SaaS
- Enterprise software
- Workflow software
- Cloud applications
- Subscription software
- Fintech software
- HR technology
- Property technology
- Health technology
- Compliance software
- Cybersecurity software
- Data and analytics platforms
- Managed software platforms
- Recurring licence businesses
- Specialist business applications
- Software-enabled services
- API and infrastructure platforms
- Proprietary software products
What makes a software or SaaS business valuable?
Software buyers pay for the durability of recurring revenue, the efficiency with which it grows and the ownership of the technology that produces it. These are the factors they examine most closely.
Annual recurring revenue (ARR)
ARR (annual recurring revenue) is an operating metric: the annualised value of contracted recurring revenue in force at a point in time. ARR is not the same as the revenue reported in the statutory accounts, which can differ because of contract timing, billing and accounting treatment, and ARR does not by itself determine what a company is worth. Buyers value ARR because it is expected to repeat without being resold each year. What matters is whether the figure is genuinely recurring and contracted: buyers will strip out one-off fees, implementation income, unsigned renewals and discounts that expire, and reconcile what remains to invoices, cash receipts and the statutory accounts.
Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
MRR (monthly recurring revenue) is the recurring revenue a software business earns in a month, and ARR is often calculated as MRR multiplied by 12. A consistent month-by-month MRR trend, broken down into new, expansion, contraction and churned revenue, shows buyers where growth is coming from and whether it is steady or driven by a few large wins. Lumpy MRR is not a problem in itself, but it needs explaining.
Revenue retention
Revenue retention measures how much recurring revenue from existing customers is still there a year later. Gross revenue retention (GRR) looks only at losses, from cancellations and downgrades, and cannot exceed 100%. Companies calculate retention in slightly different ways, for example over different periods or customer groups, so buyers will ask how the figure is defined. Revenue retention is one of the clearest signals of how durable the revenue base is.
Churn
Churn is the rate at which customers (logo churn) or recurring revenue (revenue churn) are lost over a period. The two can tell different stories: losing many small customers may matter less than losing one large one. Buyers want to see churn reasons, not just rates, and whether churn is concentrated in a particular customer type, product or year of acquisition.
Net revenue retention (NRR)
Net revenue retention (NRR) measures recurring revenue retained from an existing customer group after cancellations and downgrades, plus upgrades, extra users and cross-sales. NRR above 100% means the existing base grows even without new customers, which can indicate the product becomes more embedded over time. Buyers will check how expansion is generated: price increases alone tell a different story from customers buying more.
Gross margin
Software is often assumed to be highly scalable, but not every software business is. Hosting costs, third-party licences, customer support, onboarding and embedded professional services all sit in cost of sales. A business whose gross margin is diluted by heavy services or rising cloud costs will be viewed differently from one where each additional customer costs little to serve. Buyers will also check that costs are classified consistently.
Customer concentration
Where a small number of customers account for a large share of ARR, a buyer has to consider what happens if one of them does not renew, is itself acquired, or uses the change of ownership to renegotiate. Enterprise-heavy software businesses often have this profile. It does not make a business unsaleable, but it affects perceived risk and can shape structure, such as deferred or contingent consideration.
Contract length and renewal profile
Multi-year contracts, annual terms with auto-renewal and limited cancellation rights give buyers more confidence than rolling monthly terms. Buyers will map when contracts renew, whether renewals cluster around the likely completion date, what notice periods and termination-for-convenience rights apply, and whether key contracts contain change-of-control provisions.
Product-market fit
Buyers look for evidence rather than assertion: strong retention, genuine product adoption and usage, customers expanding over time, and the ability to win similar customers repeatedly without bespoke development for each one. A product that needs heavy customisation to sell can look more like a services business.
Intellectual property
The source code, proprietary technology, algorithms, databases, trade marks, technical documentation and, where relevant, patents are often the core of what is being bought. Buyers need confidence that the company owns them outright, including code written by founders before incorporation and by contractors, and that the documentation would allow someone other than the original developers to maintain the product.
Development team
Engineering capability is part of the asset. Buyers will look at team size and structure, reliance on contractors or offshore partners, retention of key developers, and whether knowledge of critical parts of the code base sits with one or two people. A team that can keep shipping after completion is worth more than a product that only its original author understands.
Founder dependency
Many software businesses are founder-led, which is not a problem in itself. A founder-dependent business is different: one where the founder still owns the product roadmap, closes the main deals, holds the key customer relationships and is the final technical authority. Buyers will price in the risk of that knowledge and influence leaving.
Growth
Buyers distinguish sustainable growth from growth bought at any cost. Growth funded by heavy sales and marketing spend with weak retention is viewed differently from growth built on retained, expanding customers. The trend of growth, its sources and its cost all matter more than a single year's rate.
Scalability
Scalability is the ability to add customers without costs rising in proportion. Buyers look at the infrastructure, the delivery model, how onboarding works, how support scales and whether the architecture can handle significantly more usage. Manual processes hidden behind a software front end can limit scalability.
Customer acquisition
Buyers want to understand how customers are won and at what cost: the customer acquisition cost (CAC), the sales cycle, the channels that work and how efficiently sales and marketing spend converts into new recurring revenue. Evidence that acquisition is repeatable and not dependent on the founder is often as important as the numbers themselves.
Market position
Leadership in a defined niche, vertical specialisation, regulatory or domain knowledge built into the product and a reputation among a specific customer group can all make a software business harder to displace, and more attractive to a buyer looking to own that niche.
Integrations and ecosystem
Software embedded in customers' daily workflows, integrated with their other systems or listed in a larger platform's ecosystem tends to have high switching costs. Buyers will value those integrations, but will also check the risk if a third-party platform changes its terms or access.
Which SaaS metrics do buyers examine?
Buyers commonly ask for the metrics below. Different buyers weight them differently according to the business model, its maturity and whether it is profitable: a private equity buyer of a profitable business may focus on EBITDA and retention, while a strategic buyer may care more about product, customers and growth. Mergers.co.uk does not publish generic "good" or "bad" benchmarks; the useful question is how your metrics compare with what a particular buyer expects, and how consistently they are calculated. Calculation conventions for several of these metrics differ between companies, so definitions should be stated alongside the numbers.
| Metric | What it shows |
|---|---|
| ARR and MRR | The size and trend of contracted recurring revenue; an operating measure, not statutory revenue. |
| Recurring revenue percentage | Recurring revenue as a share of total revenue; distinguishes a subscription business from a services business with some software. |
| Gross revenue retention | Recurring revenue kept from existing customers after losses, excluding expansion. |
| Net revenue retention | Recurring revenue kept from existing customers including expansion. |
| Logo churn and revenue churn | Customers lost, and recurring revenue lost, over a period. |
| Gross margin | How much of each pound of revenue remains after the direct cost of delivering the service. |
| Customer concentration | The share of ARR from the largest customers. |
| CAC | Customer acquisition cost: broadly, sales and marketing spend divided by the number of new customers won in a period. Which costs are included varies between companies. |
| LTV | Lifetime value: an estimate of the gross profit a customer will generate over the relationship. LTV depends heavily on churn assumptions, so buyers treat it as an estimate rather than a fact. |
| CAC payback | How many months of gross profit from a new customer it takes to recover the cost of acquiring it. |
| Annual contract value (ACV) | The average annual value of a customer contract, usually excluding one-off fees. |
| Sales pipeline | Qualified opportunities, stage, expected value and historic conversion. |
| Revenue growth | The rate and source of growth over several periods. |
| EBITDA | Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, often adjusted, and the basis for most profit-based valuations. |
| Cash burn | Where the business is loss-making, the rate at which it uses cash and its funding runway. |
Is a SaaS business valued on revenue or EBITDA?
Not every SaaS business is valued on revenue. Profitable, established software companies are often assessed primarily on earnings (EBITDA), in the same way as other profitable private companies. Some faster-growing recurring-revenue businesses may also be considered using revenue metrics such as ARR, particularly where a buyer is paying for future growth rather than current profit. The method a buyer uses for a software business can depend on its growth, profitability, recurring revenue, retention, maturity, customer concentration, scalability, cash generation, the type of buyer and its strategic fit with that buyer.
Mergers.co.uk does not publish SaaS valuation multiples. Ranges quoted without a documented basis rarely describe an individual business well, and they mix companies with very different growth, retention and margins. What any buyer will actually pay also depends on the strategic value to that buyer and on how much competition there is for the deal. Headline offers are usually expressed as enterprise value; see what happens to cash in the bank when you sell for how that becomes the equity value shareholders receive, where deferred income on annual prepayments can be a point of negotiation.
Read our business valuation guide
Not all recurring revenue is equal
Recurring revenue is revenue expected to repeat under an ongoing customer relationship without being resold each time; total revenue also includes one-off and project income. Buyers examine the quality and durability of recurring revenue rather than accepting a headline ARR figure. Two businesses reporting the same ARR can have very different revenue underneath it.
| Revenue type | How buyers tend to view it |
|---|---|
| Contracted multi-year subscriptions | Generally viewed as the highest-quality recurring revenue, subject to cancellation rights. |
| Annually renewable licences or subscriptions | Recurring, but each renewal date is a point of risk; renewal history matters. |
| Month-to-month subscriptions | Recurring in practice if churn is low, but carries no contractual commitment. |
| Usage-based revenue | Can grow with customers, but can also fall with their activity; buyers look at the stability of usage. |
| Recurring support and maintenance | Often durable, particularly on legacy licences, though sometimes at risk if customers migrate. |
| Implementation and onboarding fees | Normally one-off, even if every new customer pays them. |
| Professional services | Project-based and usually lower margin; valued differently from subscription revenue. |
| Hardware revenue | Normally one-off and lower margin, unless tied to a recurring service. |
| One-off project work | Not recurring, however regular it has been historically. |
Common issues include implementation fees counted in ARR, annual contracts with discounts that fall away at renewal, customers in a notice period still included, and usage revenue annualised from an unusually strong month. Correcting these before a buyer finds them protects credibility.
Why retention can matter more than new sales
Growth produced by continually replacing lost customers may be valued differently from growth built on durable retained revenue. Buyers therefore look at retention and churn alongside new sales, and often analyse customer cohorts: groups of customers won in the same period, tracked over time to show how much of their revenue is retained and expanded. Cohort data shows whether retention is improving, whether expansion is real, and whether recent customers behave like earlier ones.
Buyers will also consider concentration, renewal cycles, evidence of customer satisfaction and switching costs: how difficult and disruptive it would be for customers to move to an alternative. Software that is embedded in daily operations, holds customers' historical data or integrates with their other systems tends to have higher switching costs.
Is the business dependent on the founder?
Buyers will test how much of the business depends on the founder for product vision, sales, key customer relationships, technical decisions, fundraising and staff leadership. Heavy dependence is common in software and does not stop a sale, but it affects risk, and therefore structure: buyers may seek a longer handover, an earn-out or retained equity to keep the founder involved.
Building management depth before a sale, for example a product lead, a head of engineering and a commercial lead who own their areas, can improve transaction resilience and give the founder more choice about their role afterwards.
What will buyers examine in the technology?
The depth of technical review of a software business depends on the buyer and the product. A strategic software buyer may examine the code base in detail; a financial buyer may focus on risk. Areas buyers may examine include:
- Code and IP ownership, including founder and contractor-created code
- Open-source components and their licence obligations
- Source-code quality, documentation and architecture
- Scalability, technical debt and the development roadmap
- Cloud infrastructure, resilience and disaster recovery
- Security and cybersecurity controls
- Data ownership and customer data rights
- Third-party licences and dependencies
What buyers may examine depends on the product and the transaction; this is not a checklist every business must satisfy. Specialist technical review is usually commissioned by the buyer, and issues are best understood by the seller first. Whether the company legally owns its code and IP is a question for the owner's solicitor; see legal considerations when selling a business.
How does AI affect software business value?
Simply adding AI functionality does not automatically increase a software company's value. Buyers look at what the AI actually does, whether customers genuinely use it and how defensible it is. Using a third-party model does not in itself create proprietary intellectual property. Questions that commonly arise include:
- Is the functionality genuinely proprietary, or a thin layer over a third-party model or API?
- How dependent is the product on a model provider's pricing, access and terms?
- Does the business have the rights to use the customer and training data involved?
- Are customers actually adopting and paying for the AI features?
- What does inference or API cost do to gross margin as usage grows?
- Could the same capability be replicated easily by competitors or by the model providers themselves?
- Is the AI capability embedded in customers' day-to-day workflows, or an optional add-on?
- How are security and data leakage risks managed where AI features handle customer information?
- Does AI genuinely differentiate the product, or change the risk to it by making it easier to displace?
Where AI features process personal data or are used in sensitive decisions, legal and regulatory requirements may apply depending on the use and the markets served. Those questions are for the owner's legal advisers.
Who buys UK software and SaaS companies?
The main buyer groups for UK software companies are listed below. Not every group is active for every type of software business; which are realistic depends on the product, scale, profitability and growth.
Strategic software companies
Larger software businesses acquiring products, customers, technical capability, geographic reach or technology they would otherwise need to build. See selling to a trade buyer.
Vertical software consolidators
Groups building scale within particular industry niches by acquiring specialist software businesses serving the same or adjacent customer groups.
Private equity
Relevant where scale, recurring revenue, management depth and growth characteristics fit the investment strategy. Founders typically retain a stake. See private equity investment.
PE-backed software platforms
Existing private equity portfolio companies running buy-and-build acquisition programmes, adding products, customers or capability to a platform business.
International technology groups
Overseas businesses seeking UK customers, products, specialist capability or a base for European expansion.
Long-term investors and family offices
Where appropriate, investors seeking profitable, established software businesses and willing to hold for longer than a typical private equity fund.
Management teams
A management buyout can suit where a capable team is in place and funding is available.
If most of your revenue comes from delivering and supporting other vendors' technology rather than your own product, see selling an MSP or IT services business.
See also who buys stakes in UK SMEs.
Strategic buyer or private equity?
Neither is better in general. Different founders prefer different outcomes, and the comparison below describes common tendencies rather than rules.
| Strategic buyer | Private equity | |
|---|---|---|
| Rationale | Product, customers, technology or market access that fit its existing business | Investment return from growth, often through further acquisitions |
| Integration | Often integrated into the buyer's products, systems and teams | Usually run as a standalone business, sometimes as a platform |
| Management role | Founder role may be transitional | Management typically expected to stay and lead |
| Retained equity | Less common; often a full sale | Common; founders often roll over part of their stake |
| Future upside | Mostly realised at completion, subject to any earn-out | Potential further value on a later sale of the retained stake |
| Transaction structure | Cash, sometimes with earn-out or deferred payments | Cash plus rollover equity, often with debt finance |
| Speed | Varies with the buyer's internal approvals | Varies with investment committee and lender approvals |
| Operational independence | Usually reduced | Usually retained, with investor governance |
More in trade sale versus private equity.
Understand Your Transaction Options
A confidential discussion about how buyers are likely to view your recurring revenue, likely buyer types and whether a full or partial sale suits you.
Do you have to sell 100% of a software business?
No. Software founders may want to de-risk personally, release capital, fund growth, gain international distribution, strengthen the management team or retain future upside, and these objectives point to different routes. Read more about a partial business sale.
Full sale
The founder sells 100%, usually to a strategic buyer, and realises most of the value at completion, subject to any deferred consideration or earn-out. See selling your business.
Majority investment
An investor buys control, and the founder keeps a minority stake and often a leadership role. See majority stake sale.
Minority investment
The founder sells less than half to release some capital or fund growth while keeping control. See minority stake sale.
Strategic investment
An industry partner takes a stake, bringing distribution, integrations or customer access alongside capital. See choosing a strategic partner.
Two-stage exit
Part of the business is sold now and the rest later, often after a period of investor-backed growth. See two-stage exit.
Why software founders often consider retained equity
Rollover equity is where a seller reinvests, or keeps, part of their shareholding in the business or the acquiring group instead of taking it all as cash. In software, where an investor may plan to accelerate growth or acquire other businesses, founders often keep a minority stake with a view to a second-stage exit.
Retained equity carries real upside potential but no guarantee of a second return. Its value depends on future performance, on the investor's plans and debt, on dilution from future funding and on the terms agreed for a later sale. It should be negotiated as carefully as the cash at completion; see negotiating business sale deal terms.
Preparing a software or SaaS business for sale
Much of the value in a software sale is protected by preparing the data buyers will test. Having the following ready shortens due diligence and reduces the scope for price reductions. See our full guide to preparing a business for sale.
- An ARR and MRR bridge reconciled to invoices, cash and the statutory accounts
- Recurring revenue analysis separating subscription, usage, support, services and one-off income
- Customer cohort data showing retention and expansion by year of acquisition
- Customer churn and downgrade history with reasons
- Customer concentration analysis
- Gross margin with hosting, licences, support and services correctly classified
- Monthly management accounts and a clear revenue recognition policy
- Customer contracts, including renewal terms, cancellation rights and change-of-control clauses
- Evidence that the company owns its IP and code
- Signed IP assignment terms in employee and contractor agreements, including for founders
- An inventory of open-source components and their licences
- Technical documentation and an architecture overview
- A product roadmap that is realistic and resourced
- Data protection records, policies and data processing agreements
- Cybersecurity policies, testing history and any incidents
- Major supplier and cloud hosting contracts
- A plan to reduce key-person dependency in product, sales and engineering
- Sales pipeline with stage, value and conversion history
- Customer acquisition metrics: CAC, sales cycle and channel performance
- A structured data room, prepared before buyers ask
What will buyers examine during due diligence?
Due diligence on a software business combines commercial, financial and technical review. These are the areas where issues most often arise.
- Revenue recognition
- Whether revenue, deferred income and multi-year prepayments are recognised consistently and in line with the business's accounting policies.
- Recurring revenue reconciliation
- Tracing ARR to contracts, invoices and cash, and removing anything that is not genuinely recurring.
- Churn and cohorts
- Retention by customer cohort, reasons for churn, and whether recent cohorts behave like earlier ones.
- Contracts
- Renewal dates, termination rights, service levels, liability caps, pricing commitments and change-of-control provisions in key customer agreements.
- Customer concentration
- Exposure to the largest customers and the health of those relationships.
- Pipeline
- Whether forecast growth is supported by qualified opportunities and historic conversion rates.
- IP and code ownership
- Chain of title to the code, including founder and contractor contributions, and any third-party claims.
- Open-source and third-party dependencies
- Open-source licence obligations and reliance on third-party platforms, APIs or models that the business does not control.
- Development team and key employees
- Retention of critical engineers and leaders, incentive arrangements and knowledge concentration.
- Security
- Security controls, penetration testing, incident history and access management.
- Infrastructure
- Cloud architecture, hosting costs, resilience, backups and disaster recovery.
- Technical debt
- Parts of the code base that would need rework to scale or maintain, and the likely cost.
- Data protection
- How personal data is processed and stored, where it is hosted, and the contractual position with customers.
- Product roadmap
- Whether the plan is credible, resourced and consistent with the forecast.
Legal, tax and technical advice on these matters comes from the owner's own solicitors, accountants and specialists. See the due diligence checklist, legal considerations when selling a business and whether a buyer can reduce their offer.
How do you sell a software company confidentially?
Confidentiality matters in software because developers are in demand and can leave quickly, customers may worry about product continuity, competitors can use information against you, and existing investors and key suppliers may have their own interests. A disciplined process controls who learns what, and when:
- Targeted outreach to selected buyers, each approved by the owner.
- Anonymised initial positioning, so the business is not identifiable.
- Buyers qualified for strategic fit and ability to fund before they progress.
- A non-disclosure agreement signed before any detailed information is shared.
- Staged disclosure, with customer names, pricing and source code released last.
- Controlled data-room access, logged and limited by stage.
More on selling without employees finding out and the sell-side process.
Comparing offers for a software business
Software offers often differ more in structure than in headline price. Founders should compare the headline valuation, cash at completion, any earn-out and how it is measured, deferred consideration, rollover equity and its terms, the management commitment expected, the buyer's integration plans, how the buyer is funding the deal, the conditions attached, the founder's future role and overall execution certainty. There is no universally best buyer type; the right offer depends on the founder's priorities. See how to compare business sale offers.
Software & SaaS business sale FAQs
How much is my SaaS business worth?
A SaaS business's value depends on the quality of recurring revenue, retention, growth, gross margin, profitability, customer concentration, founder dependency and how much competition there is among buyers. Two SaaS businesses with the same ARR can be valued very differently. A reliable view needs a review of your figures rather than a published multiple.
Are SaaS businesses valued on ARR or EBITDA?
SaaS businesses can be valued on either, or both. Established, profitable software businesses are often assessed on EBITDA. Higher-growth businesses with strong recurring revenue and retention may also be assessed on revenue-based measures such as ARR. The appropriate method depends on the business, its stage and the buyer.
What is ARR?
Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is an operating metric showing the annualised value of contracted recurring revenue in force at a point in time. ARR is not the same as revenue in the statutory accounts. It excludes one-off fees, implementation income and professional services, and buyers will reconcile it to contracts, invoices and cash.
Does churn affect SaaS valuation?
Yes. Churn reduces the durability of recurring revenue, so higher churn generally increases the risk a buyer sees. Buyers look at both customer and revenue churn, the reasons behind it and whether it is improving or worsening across customer cohorts.
Does customer concentration reduce value?
It can. Reliance on a few large customers increases the impact of any single non-renewal, which may affect price or lead to more consideration being deferred or linked to performance. Long contracts, strong renewal history and deep integration can reduce that risk.
Who buys SaaS businesses in the UK?
Buyers include strategic software companies, vertical software consolidators, private equity funds, PE-backed software platforms pursuing buy-and-build strategies, international technology groups, long-term investors and, in some cases, management teams. Which are realistic depends on the business.
Can I sell part of my software business?
Yes. Options include a minority investment, a majority sale with retained equity, a strategic investment by an industry partner, or a two-stage exit. Which is realistic depends on the business and on what investors in the market will accept.
Can I remain involved after selling a majority stake?
Yes. Founders often stay on in a product, commercial or leadership role and keep a minority shareholding. Your role, rights and the terms on which the retained stake can later be sold should be agreed as part of the deal.
Does the buyer need access to my source code?
Usually, at some stage. Buyers normally review the code and architecture during technical due diligence, often through a specialist reviewer and under strict confidentiality. Access is typically given late in the process, once the buyer is committed, and can be controlled.
What happens to employees after a software company is sold?
In a share sale, employees normally stay employed by the same company on the same terms. What happens next depends on the buyer's plans. Retention of key developers is often a buyer priority and may be addressed through incentives agreed as part of the deal.
How important is IP ownership?
IP ownership is central to a software sale. Buyers need confidence that the company owns its code and technology, including work done by founders and contractors. Gaps in IP assignment can delay a deal or affect its terms, so they are best identified and corrected before a sale.
Will buyers examine cybersecurity?
Yes. Buyers will usually review security controls, testing history, incident records and data protection compliance, and the depth of review increases where the software handles sensitive data.
Can the sale remain confidential?
In most cases, yes, until telling staff and customers becomes necessary. Targeted approaches, anonymised initial information, non-disclosure agreements and staged release of data, with source code and customer names disclosed last, limit who knows and when.
How long does a software business sale take?
A well-prepared sale commonly takes several months from preparation to completion. Technical due diligence, IP clean-up, international buyers or reconciliation issues in recurring revenue data can lengthen it; preparation before going to market usually shortens the live process.
Should I approach competitors about buying my software company?
Competitors can be logical buyers, but direct approaches carry risk: they may learn about your product, pricing, customers and team and then not buy. Approaches are best made through an adviser, with your approval of each name, anonymised initial information, an NDA and staged disclosure.
Why speak to Mergers.co.uk rather than advertise the business?
Advertising a software company for sale exposes it to competitors, customers and developers, and tends to attract whoever happens to be looking rather than the buyers with the strongest reason to pay. Mergers.co.uk acts on the sell side only, for owners and shareholders, never for buyers. It combines valuation advice, targeted buyer research, confidential approaches and negotiation through to completion, for both full sales and partial transactions. Legal, tax and technical advice remains with your own professional advisers. How a sell-side adviser works.