Consulting & professional services
Buyers pay for a delivery model that keeps working without the partner who sold the work.
In professional services the asset and the risk are the same people. A process here is as much about the shape of post-deal partner economics as it is about the headline number, and the two are negotiated together.
Who acquires in this sector.
The buyer set determines the process. These are the parties we approach on a mandate here, and the reason each of them pays.
What moves the number, and what moves it back.
Both lists are what buyers in this sector actually examine. The first is where preparation earns its return. The second is where processes lose ground once diligence opens.
What lifts the multiple
Worth fixing twelve to twenty-four months before you go to market.
- Repeat and framework workPanel positions, frameworks and multi-year programmes are the closest thing this sector has to contracted revenue.
- A documented methodologyWork that runs off a codified approach transfers. Work that runs off judgment in one head does not.
- Utilisation and rate disciplineConsistent realised rates against the card show pricing power rather than a busy team.
- Bench depth below the partnersA senior tier that can win as well as deliver is what turns a practice into a business.
- Accreditation and preferred-supplier statusCredentials a buyer would otherwise spend years qualifying for.
What gets discounted
Found in diligence if it is not addressed first, and repriced when it is found.
- Revenue attached to one or two partnersThe most common reason a strong practice sells on structure rather than price.
- No contracted forward bookPure time and materials with nothing committed leaves the buyer underwriting a pipeline.
- Key-person clauses in client contractsContracts that let the client walk on a change of control or a named departure.
- Unbilled work in progress and long debtor daysWorking capital in this sector is a price adjustment waiting to happen.
- Sub-contracted delivery presented as in-houseCapability that sits outside the business does not come with it.
How a process runs here.
The negotiation that decides the outcome is usually about the partners, not the multiple: who stays, for how long, on what economics, and what happens to their client relationships in between. Getting that settled internally before going to market is what keeps a process from stalling at the letter of intent.