Boost your firm’s activity
Bolster client loyalty and retention
Build your firm’s income
Is your client selling their business?
Discover a new way of generating income for your firm. As an accountant, your clients will without doubt have implicit trust in you, after having built up a solid relationship over many years dealing with both their business and personal financial affairs.
All owners of business will need to exit their business at some point. But when they decide to sell, will they come to you? Do you have the capability in-house to find them the right buyer and to negotiate the best deal?
If not, your clients may instruct a corporate finance firm or another business broker – you may only find out about the sale when a deal has been agreed. If you are not involved in the sale process, there is the risk of losing that client and income when the sale completes.
Make it work for you!
However, it does not have to end this way. Our Strategic Partnering Program for accountancy firms offers you a real opportunity to build another revenue stream for your firm when your clients think about their exit strategy.
How is it possible?
The program aims at increasing your firm’s income and retaining your clients by maximising the value of your clients’ businesses and ensuring a successful sale. Without any costs or obligations to us, you can benefit from the scheme in two main ways:
Additional services:
You can add immeasurable value to your clients’ businesses and the net proceeds they receive by assisting in the preparatory work ahead of sale, namely:
- Producing regular up-to-date management accounts
- Ensuring appropriate management systems are in place
- Demonstrating the true profitability and cash flow that a buyer can achieve
- Producing a comprehensive financial DD package
- Tax planning
Post sale, there are numerous opportunities to retain your clients in the future, for example:
- Inheritance planning and wealth management
- Pensions, EIS and SEIS investments
- Future entrepreneurial ventures, business acquisitions and/or start-ups
- Retaining the company accounts work for the buyer – and winning further business through the buyer’s organisation.
You may already have resources in place to provide these services. If not, we can help you locate appropriate providers.
Referral fees:
Whilst we hope that you will introduce Hornblower because you know we are good at what we do, if you introduce us to any of your clients and they retain Hornblower for the sale of their business, we will pay your firm an introduction fee of 10% from the fees we receive on completion of the deal;
How do we work together?
We manage the business sale / M&A mandates for you
Hornblower specializes in business sales and acquisitions for the industrial, engineering and professional B2B service sectors. With offices in London, Nottingham and Bristol, we operate across the UK and internationally. Our main activity is selling businesses and typical deal values are from £500k to £10m. Through our sector focused, hands-on approach to selling businesses, we sell 80% of our business sale assignments within 12 months.
One of our experienced Business Sale and Acquisition Consultants will handle your client’s business sale from the initial meeting through to successful completion of the sale. They will work closely alongside you to ensure that your client is well prepared with financial data and able to make sound decisions on the offers we receive and during the Due diligence process.
We work closely with clients from the outset to gain a full understanding of their business so that we can truly demonstrate the value of the business to interested parties.
Our marketing is highly process driven and designed to generate as much interest as possible in the shortest period of time so that we achieve the optimum range of offers.
Once the Heads of Terms agreement has been signed and the due diligence and transaction process begins, we will remain in close contact with both parties to ensure that issues on either side are dealt with effectively in order to keep the deal on track. Indeed we have a superb record of keeping our client’s legal costs under control through our tight control of the transaction process.
We work with fewer clients in order to provide a personal service with the attention to detail that is required to achieve a successful sale and which results in our high success rate.
Joint low cost marketing programme
We would like to build a long-term relationship with your firm and will put time into building a relationship which works well for us both. We have therefore devised a simple low cost marketing plan to build awareness amongst your client base of the potential value of planning for their succession and exit.
The marketing plan involves essentially 3 main avenues:
- Publishing the business sale and M&A service on your firm’s website
We will provide you with all the content required for your firm’s website to inform and educate your clients about the sale process and your firm’s capability to provide a business sale service in partnership with Hornblower.
- Organising joint informative seminars for your clients
We will partner with you to deliver a series of seminars on topics such as how to value and maximise the value of their business, advance tax planning and preparing for sale, deal structures to maximise the return and which businesses sell well and why.
- Leverage your firm’s social media marketing presence
We will provide you with all the content required for your firm’s Linked-in pages and Twitter posts regarding the sale process and your firm’s capability to provide a business sale service in partnership with Hornblower
A true partnership with Hornblower to build your firm’s business
With us, you can have another string to your bow and build your firm’s income. The end of the natural business cycle where your client exits their business need not be the end of your business with the client. Indeed it can be a real opportunity for your firm to expand and leverage the solid relationships you have with your clients.
We would like to offer you the opportunity to boost your firm’s activity on the back of the business sale process.
Who are we looking to partner with?
We are looking to partner with accountancy firms who take an active role in the development of their clients’ businesses.
As we are sector focused and work with owner managed businesses with annual revenues between £1m and £10m, your firm’s client base ideally needs to reflect this and include companies which are in the following sectors:
- Engineering, industrial and manufacturing
- Professional B2B services
- Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
- Facilities management and commercial cleaning
For examples of the type of businesses we deal with, please see our current Businesses For Sale and Recent Deals on our website.
Next step
To find out more, please contact Henry Campbell-Jones and he will arrange a meeting with you and your partners to illustrate all the benefits of the program and how to start this strategic partnership with us.
Henry Campbell-Jones | t. 020 8090 9380 | e. [email protected]
Or come and visit us at the Accountex Exhibition – May 2023
