How to sell your business in the UK
Selling your business in the UK can be complex. Our specialist M&A Advisory team has provided insurance due diligence and broader transactional insurance support to over 50 deals in the last year, working with our trusted Ecosystem of specialist Investors, Corporate Finance and other M&A specialists to help businesses prepare for sale, protect their valuation, due diligence with confidence — giving clarity, reassurance, and a smoother path to realise your plans.
Who we support
- Company directors
- Owner/Founders looking to retire or move on
- Investors looking to exit
We're specialists...
A business sale should be an exciting step forward and not a source of confusion or frustration. With the right insurance and advisory support, you can plan ahead for your next chapter with the reassurance that any unknown issues from the past won’t undermine the outcome – or the value, you’ve worked hard to achieve. Alongside our expert insurance advisers, we’ll introduce you to our appropriate ecosystem partners to deliver clarity, confidence, and protection at every stage of the journey, so you can complete your sale knowing that your personal exposure is minimised.
Challenges when selling a business in the UK
When you decide to sell your business, you want to secure your future and achieve the best outcome for all concerned. Understanding the process is key in securing the right buyer and the right price for the business you’ve worked so hard to build. Your personal post-sale objectives, the business valuation, a bespoke deal structure, careful tax planning, and more, all need professional support to avoid costly mistakes.
How we support
Our dedicated M&A team offer independent insurance advice and can introduce you to our wider team of trusted advisers – our ecosystem partners – to help you make sure your business is ‘deal ready’ and provide support throughout the process.
Ensuring that your business appropriate policies, warranties and indemnities, D&O (directors’ and officers’) cover where required, key person or shareholder protection in place, could protect the value of a transaction. This in turn can avoid your prospective buyer seeing an opportunity to price chip the enterprise value.
The more prepared you are, the smoother the deal will be.
Giving you peace of mind
Getting the right advice and seeking specialist support at the outset of your business sale can help you navigate the complex journey. Our M&A Advisory team along with our specialist ecosystem partners can help you develop a plan to achieve the desired outcome for you and your business.
What’s the process for selling a business in the UK?
Once you’ve made the decision that you’re ready to sell your business, where do start?
Selling your business is one of the biggest professional decisions you’ll make — and it’s rarely a straightforward one. Beyond negotiating the sale price and selecting the right buyer, the real challenge lies in preparing well, assembling your team of trusted advisers, and anticipating the risks that can influence both deal certainty and net proceeds.
We believe there are four key stages to a successful sale and where our expertise can help you protect the value of your business and move through the process with confidence.
1. Set clear objectives
Before contacting potential buyers or engaging with an adviser, be clear on:
- Why you’re selling your business – do you want to retire, start a new venture, raise funds to accelerate growth or simply make a full exit?
- How much of your business you want to sell?
- Your role post sale – do you want a clean, immediate exist, an earn-out or do you want to remain involved in a consultancy capacity?
The choices you make will directly affect the valuation, buyer type and deal structure for the sale.
Our team is here to help you understand the risk and insurance implications of each path — for example, how your desired exit style affects your potential liabilities and personal exposure after completion.
2. Understand the value of your business
There are a lot of acronyms and technical terms that come in to play when it comes to valuing a business for sale. UK businesses are typically valued on:
- EBITDA multiples – this is the most common approach and stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. It’s teh key financial metric that buyers will us to evaluate a company’s operating performance.
- Maintainable profits – applicable to owner-managed businesses
- Revenue multiples – typical in certain sectors where EBITDA is not the best indicator due to heavy reinvestment.
Key value drivers include recurring income, strong customer retention, low owner‑dependency, clean financials (particularly the last three years), and a credible, evidence‑backed growth story.
Many sellers unintentionally overestimate the value of their business by focusing on future rather than proven performance.
We will highlight where risk perception may suppress valuation and show how insurance solutions can reduce buyer concern — often improving deal terms or supporting a smoother negotiation.
3. Assemble your advisory team
Selling your business is a complex process and you need the right people by your side throughout. As a starting point, we recommend and can introduce you to the following key advisers:
- Corporate Finance adviser – to run a competitive process
- Tax adviser – it’s vital you engage with a tax adviser early in the sales process as this can materially change your net proceeds
- Corporate lawyer – with experience in M&A – not a generalist
- Partners&! …or at the very least a specialist Warranties & Indemnity (W&I) insurance adviser, to enable a cleaner exit and cap personal financial risk.
Assembling the right team early on in the process will facilitate collaboration and avoid the common pitfalls that will lead to an erosion the value of your exit.
4. Prepare for due diligence
Don’t let your deal fall apart in the details. Potential buyers will scrutinise every area of your business, from financial information, employment matters, IP ownership, regulatory compliance to insurance cover and claims made.
Red flags that could stop your deal in its tracks, or invoke a reduction in price include:
- Poor records and informal arrangements
- Heavy dependence on one client
- Lack of a leadership team or the over-reliance on one individual (owner/founder)
- Uninsured risks and outstanding insurance claims
- Undocumented Intellectual Property (IP)
We’ll work with you to identify the insurable risks upfront, helping you “clean” your position before diligence begins. This often prevents last‑minute price chips and strengthens your negotiating leverage.
Are you ready to sell your business?
You’ve been thinking about selling, but are you ready to take the next step?
- Would your numbers stand up to scrutiny?
- Is your business attractive to potential buyers without you at its helm?
- Are there improvements that you can make in the next 6 – 12 months that could add value or reduce price-chipping?
If you’re thinking about selling your business and would like to speak to our team in confidence to find out more about insurance requirements or to be introduced to our trusted adviser network, get in touch.
