About

A new institution for the next generation of business ownership.

Built to make a considered succession an ordinary option for a British business owner rather than a fortunate exception.

01 — Why we exist

The problem is succession, not viability.

Britain has a great many capable companies whose owners are approaching the point of stopping without a successor in place.

Routes out do exist — family succession, a management buy-out, employee ownership, a trade sale, private equity, an individual buyer. But none of them suits every owner, and a significant group finds that none of them suits them: no family successor, a management team that cannot fund a purchase, and a real objection to being absorbed into somebody else's group.

We are building an additional route for that group. One named individual becomes the owner, the company continues as itself, and the capital sits behind the person rather than in front of them.

An owner working through the books at a works office desk

02 — Our stance

Responsibility before possession.

Ownership is not a trophy. It is a duty of care towards people who did not choose the new owner, and it is discharged over years rather than at completion.

Ownership principles we hold ourselves to publicly

Commitments that shape how we work day to day

Parties aligned in a single process

Hypothetical case studies presented as completed transactions

03 — Commitments

Five commitments that shape how we work.

Stewardship is a role, not a quality.

An owner-steward is a specific person who has been assessed against criteria we publish, has committed their own capital, and has taken the accountability. We use the word to mean that and nothing else.

Continuity first.

What works is carried forward before anything is improved. The burden of proof sits with the change, not with the thing that already works.

We expect to decline far more often than we proceed, and to say why.

A clear no, given early, is worth more to an owner and to their adviser than a long maybe.

No overstated record, no invented precedent.

We do not present hypothetical transactions or illustrative case studies as work we have done.

Succession is an operational problem before it is a financial one.

It is settled in rotas, relationships and on shop floors, not only in structures.

04 — What we are not

Four things we are not.

Not a broker.

We do not market companies and we do not collect listing fees.

Not a consolidator.

We do not merge acquired businesses into a group brand or a shared back office.

Not a turnaround investor.

We intend to acquire companies that work.

Not a fund with a fixed exit date.

There is no obligation to sell in year five.

05 — When we are not the right answer

It is more useful to say this at the outset.

Rather than after several months of conversation.

An empty meeting room at an established works

Where the business needs turning round.

We are not equipped for it, and we would do it poorly.

Where price is the priority.

A trade buyer will very often pay more. If that is what matters most, it is a perfectly legitimate choice and you should take it.

Where the timetable is a matter of weeks.

A considered handover cannot be compressed into one, and a buyer who says otherwise is describing a different sort of transaction.

Where a guarantee is needed that nothing will ever change.

We can commit to how change is made, to the first trading year, and to not acquiring companies in order to reduce them. We cannot commit to a decade in which nothing changes at all.

Where revenue depends on one customer and one personal relationship.

If that relationship does not survive the owner’s departure, no structure we can build will replace it.

Where there is a capable family successor, or a management team able to fund a buy-out.

Those are better answers, and we would say so.

A company can outlast its founder when the next owner is chosen with care.

Read the principles we hold ourselves to, or begin a conversation.

Ownership principles Start a conversation →