Trusted Corporate Finance

Increasing and realising value for business owners and managers

Corporate Finance means help at a significant moment in your ownership or stewardship of your business. Using the right help increases value and the likelihood of success whether you are considering an exit, finance raise, making an acquisition or confidently taking action in your business with the benefit of clear unbiased analysis.

We have the curiosity and ability to understand your business and your goals, and the experience to build a process and team that is best suited to you. We offer end-to-end process management together with honest, robust advice and the ability to tap into best-fit finance providers and potential investors.

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Business Sales

Realising the value you have built

Owners invest a huge amount of effort, risk and emotion in their business. Most will eventually want to realise the value of that investment. The timing of the decision to sell can be prompted by a mixture of aims such as focusing on family, de-risking and securing the succession of the business for the future.

We offer a straightforward explanation of the activities, timescales, teams and costs involved in taking a business to market. The aim is to provide an unbiased viewpoint of your options now and in the future, for no cost beyond your time.

Whatever your current stage of planning it is always worth discussing your goals and getting an explanation of what a sale process involves. Knowing a little more about the risks, potential buyer pools, valuations and alternative routes to exit can really help put yourself in the picture of the art of the possible.

Whether you are years away from seeking an exit or think you might instigate a process right now, this is always time well-spent.

Finance

The right funding for your plans

Refinancing. Acquisitions. Working capital headroom. Capital expenditure.

The best debt package and funding options will depend upon purpose as well as the position of the company. Take advantage of experience from the other side of the table, plus numerous debt raises across the spectrum of banks, debt funds and alternative lenders.

The UK's High Street banks are still extremely competitive and can often offer the most compelling debt packages. Debt funds, alternative lenders and challenger banks continue to expand the range of sensible options available to UK SMEs. The UK's vibrant private equity market can provide excellent finance aligned to a robust growth plan, as well as cash-out for acquisitions and management buyout transactions.

An early discussion about your plans can help to home in on the options with the best chance of success, together with likely costs and process.

MBO Succession

A low-risk route to exit with visibility on the outcome

A carefully structured management buyout can be risk-managed and tailored to reflect the current level of readiness within the management team. As well as taking cash now and over time, the exiting owners will usually retain an additional economic interest in the future growth of the business.

There are a number of pros and cons versus a traditional trade sale, making this a great option for some business owners depending on their situation.

There are many moving parts including funding sources, tax clearances, the formal balance of control post-MBO and the structure of the new ownership regime. An early conversation about this option and its nuances can give a good idea about whether it could meet your goals.

Acquisitions

Balancing opportunity and risk with clear information

Assessing an acquisition requires you to balance opportunities and risks. That can be made more difficult if you are also required to assemble the unbiased information and modelling required, while wrestling with the negotiation process and running business as usual.

Tap into experience of acquisition processes with values up to £70m to get help with prospecting and initial approaches, modelling of base case and downside scenarios, proposing and negotiating consideration structures, and the heavy lifting on process management.

The aim is to provide you with clear information and a structured process. This will allow you to exercise your commercial judgement free from the clutter and task overload that can arise from directly coordinating analysis, diligence, accountants, tax advisers and legal teams.

Modelling

Insightful analysis for confident decision making

We equip owner-managed businesses with insightful analysis for intelligence-led decision making. Our robust financial modelling and reporting dashboards provide simple tools to put a searchlight on current performance and show clear options for positive change.

Getting behind symptoms: The entry point is typically detailed financial analysis. Profitability and cash flow in your business are composed of a network of differing and offsetting contributions from your various products, clients, projects, divisions and processes. We cut through this complexity to clearly show how these elements make up the whole.

Making well informed decisions: Insightful, thorough analysis is essential in giving business leaders the clear view they need to confidently make decisions about investments in people, products and processes.

Bridging the gap: Most small to mid-sized companies cannot dedicate the time or resource to undertake this work. We bridge that gap at a low cost, enabling business owners to make confident decisions.

"Westgate gave us a really clear illustration of our existing profitability that we had not seen before. The model they built was vital in allowing us to make decisions about how to grow because it allowed us to see what our options looked like in the numbers, and the time frames and cash impacts involved under different scenarios."
— Watchfront Ltd

About Us

Dan Kirtley

Dan Kirtley is a veteran of Banking and Corporate Finance. He spent ten years in London-based banking roles within Credit and Structured Finance, primarily funding PE-backed buyouts. After moving to Chichester, Dan spent five years with a Southampton-based corporate finance house where he was a Director and was Highly Commended at the Solent Deals Awards in the Corporate Finance Adviser of the Year category.

His experience includes leading business sales to domestic and international trade buyers, Private Equity investors and public companies in the UK and overseas. Dan is also an experienced leader of finance raising across the full range of lenders available, for purposes ranging from acquisition to management buy-outs.

Completed transactions range in value from £0.5m to £70m across sectors including transport, consumer services, facilities management, online retail and oil and gas contracting.

Dan holds a Master's degree in Finance and has been awarded the CFQ by the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the highest level of Corporate Finance qualification awarded by the ICAEW.