Most owners start this conversation two years too late.
The boring businesses people will always need. Aquip works with their owners: we get the books straight, find the buyers who can actually close, and run the sale to handover. The first conversation is confidential and costs nothing.
No listing, no signage, no one on your team finds out.
Illustrative, fictional
We work from the systems you already run on.
Readiness starts from your existing records. Nothing to re-key.
Who we work with
Ordinary, profitable businesses in three lanes.
Trades and home services
HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing
Readiness means
P&L, tax return and deposits reconciled, owner add-backs documented.
Clinics and practices
Dental, physio, therapy, veterinary
Readiness means
Payer mix, credentialing and licence transfer, clinician retention.
Software and SaaS
Owner-run, profitable, under $10M revenue
Readiness means
ARR vs invoiced vs collected, churn, customer concentration, contract assignability.
How a sale runs
Four stages, and what you decide at the end of each.
The first conversation
Confidential, off the record, and usually a year or two before anything happens. We tell you what the business would look like to a buyer today and what would need fixing.
Outputs
- •A verbal read
- •A written note if you want one
- •Nothing else
You decide whether to do anything at all.
Getting sale-ready
With your permission we organise the documents and reconcile the P&L, the tax returns and the deposits. Every gap is investigated by an adviser before a buyer sees a number, because a discrepancy found in diligence costs far more than one found now.
Outputs
- •A clean document set
- •A reconciled earnings figure
- •A written list of what we could not resolve
You approve the numbers before anyone else sees them.
Meeting buyers
We approach a vetted list with financing already checked. You see who they are before they see who you are.
Outputs
- •A buyer shortlist
- •A CIM
- •Introductions on your terms
You choose who gets a call.
To handover
LOI, diligence, purchase agreement, transition. We run it and you keep working on the business.
Outputs
- •A signed agreement
- •A transition plan
- •A handover period you set
You sign or you walk, at any point up to closing.
Four decisions are yours. Nothing is listed, advertised or shown to anyone without your written say-so.
Readiness
Three documents, one set of numbers, and the gaps between them.
Statement of operations, FY2025
- Service revenue
- 2,914,000
- Installation revenue
- 1,102,000
- Maintenance plans
- 184,000
- Total revenue
- 4,200,000
- Cost of services
- 2,466,000
- Operating expenses
- 1,100,000
- Seller's discretionary earnings
- 680,000
Prepared by the company bookkeeper
Deferred revenue on annual maintenance plans is recognised monthly in the books and on receipt for tax. We traced the difference line by line to the plan schedule. No adjustment to earnings.
A buyer's accountant will find every one of these. The only question is whether you found them first.
How we find people, and what we do not record.
We build a picture of a business from public records: licence status, filing history, years trading, review volume and hiring activity. All of it is business information, and all of it is public.
We do not record or infer anything about an owner's age, health or personal circumstances.
Every approach is a person writing to a person. One reply ends it, permanently.
For buyers
The buyers, and how they are checked.
Individual searcher
SBA 7(a) pre-qualified
Operations background in mechanical services, intends to run the business himself.
Regional operator
Cash plus credit facility
Runs four branches, would keep the name and the crews.
Holding company
Committed equity
Buys and holds, leaves management in place.
Local competitor
Financing not evidenced
Not cleared to meet.
An owner's time is the scarce thing in a sale. Nobody gets a meeting on the strength of enthusiasm.
Register as a buyerWe are paid when it closes.
There is no retainer for the first conversation. A written readiness report is available for a fixed fee, quoted up front. If you go to market, we are paid a success fee on the consideration you receive at closing. Legal and accounting work is billed at cost by the specialists doing it, and quoted before they start.
What this is not.
Not every business is sellable at a price the owner wants. We say so at the first conversation.
We are not your accountant or your attorney.
Readiness takes months, not weeks. If you need to be out by spring, we are probably the wrong call.
Have the conversation early.
Confidential, no fee, no obligation, and no one on your team needs to know it happened.
Start a private conversation