Your life's work deserves the right next owner.
A confidential route to succession for owners who care what happens after they step back. Not a sale process, and never a listing.
A business carries years of judgement that appear nowhere in the accounts.
Which supplier will take a late call. Which customer needs to hear it from you personally. Which member of staff is quietly the reason a whole process works.
A buyer who does not understand this can price the company perfectly correctly and still damage it without ever intending to. The work has to begin where the accounts stop: who holds which relationships, which decisions only you make, and what would need attention if you were not there next week.
Why this decision has moved up the agenda.
Three changes have altered the position for owners who had been content to wait.
From 6 April 2026, 100% relief on business and agricultural property is capped at a combined £2.5 million per person, with 50% relief above that. The allowance is transferable between spouses. Continuing to hold a mid-sized family company is no longer a cost-free default.
For disposals on or after 26 November 2025, capital gains tax relief on a qualifying sale to an EOT was reduced from 100% to 50% of the gain. A clawback period also applies to the seller. A number of owners who were part-way towards this route have reopened the question.
The rate has stepped up over the past two years and the advantage it offers against the main rate of capital gains tax is now considerably narrower than most owners assume.
If you were part-way towards an Employee Ownership Trust and stopped last winter, the thinking you did still holds. What changed is the cost of one particular way of acting on it.
General information only, correct as at July 2026. It is not tax advice, and the position depends on your own circumstances. You should take advice from your own accountant or solicitor before making any decision.
We are one option among several, and the right one for a minority of owners.
There are more ways out of a British business than the two most owners are shown.
If your accountant tells you that an EOT or a management buy-out fits your company better, they are very probably right — and we would rather you heard that clearly here than after several months of conversation.
We may be a fit where the following are true.
Your questions.
Yes. Retaining the name, the premises and the way the company presents itself is the default. Where something does need to change, it is discussed with you first and justified on its merits.
The team is the reason the company works, and we would not acquire a business in order to reduce it. Employees are told in a sequence you agree in advance, by the people they already trust. What we will not do is promise that nothing will change for anyone over ten years — that is not a commitment anyone is in a position to keep.
A single named owner-steward, holding real equity and real accountability. Not a fund, not a rotating executive, and not a committee reporting to a distant board.
Your company is not advertised, listed, or circulated to a buyer list — there is no buyer list. Information is released stage by stage and only to those who need it: the prospective steward, any capital partner funding the transaction, and the professional advisers acting on it, each under confidentiality terms agreed with you. We will tell you which organisations are being given information, and why, before it is released. If a process stops, we will return or delete material on request, other than anything we are required to retain.
Our intention is to originate conversations directly rather than take part in marketed auctions, and that is how we plan to work. What we cannot promise is that no other buyer will approach you, since that is not within our control.
We would prefer it. Your accountant and solicitor already understand the business and your intentions. We work alongside them, and we do not introduce our own in their place.
No. The intention is that you stay for a defined handover and then step back gradually, and there is nothing in the model that prevents you retaining a minority stake or an advisory role. The shape is agreed before completion.
The route, stage by stage.
Confidential introduction
A private conversation, directly or through your adviser. No documents, no valuation, no obligation. We will tell you plainly if we are the wrong fit.
Understanding your objectives
What you want protected, what you will allow to change, how long you intend to stay, and what a good outcome looks like for your family and your team.
Business assessment
A proportionate review — trading history, customer concentration, key people, premises and equipment. Conducted quietly, at a pace that does not disturb the company.
Identifying the right steward
We propose one prepared candidate at a time, with our reasoning in writing. You meet them as a person, not as a bidder. If the fit is not credible, we go back to the search.
Structuring the transaction
The acquisition capital we arrange funds the transition alongside the steward’s own commitment. Consideration, timing and any continuing role are agreed with your advisers in the room.
Supported handover
Relationships, judgement and institutional memory transfer over seasons. You stay as long as it is useful — and no longer than you wish.
What we set out to preserve.
You do not need to have decided anything before you begin.
Private, practical, and without obligation.