Sell your compliance, testing, inspection and certification business. To buyers who understand statutory recurring revenue.
£12M fire alarm and detection integrator with a substantial commercial maintenance base sold to a PE-backed compliance platform. All engineers retained on existing terms.
LCA-certified Legionella compliance specialist with £2.5M in recurring revenue from 400+ monitoring contracts, acquired by a large, PE-backed environmental services group.
£18M fire sprinkler and suppression contractor with national framework agreements sold to a PE-backed fire safety platform. Multiple competing offers received.
Specialist M&A advisory for testing, inspection, certification and compliance maintenance business owners. Fire, water hygiene and Legionella, electrical testing, lift maintenance, HVAC and asbestos. Confidential and sector-specialist.
Specialist M&A advisory for owners of testing, inspection, certification and compliance maintenance businesses serving commercial and institutional contract-holders.
Pick a time that suits. 20 minutes, confidential, no pitch.
Pre-empts how corporate acquirers and private equity analysts will test your working capital, gross margins and customer concentration.
Calculates defensible add-backs, from director compensation adjustments to non-recurring professional fees and personal motor costs, backed by source documentation.
Drafts anonymous teasers and full information memorandums to tier-one corporate finance standards.
A valuation that holds firm
You enter negotiations with an unvarnished, defensible valuation bridge. Buyers cannot exploit messy accounting to chip your price.
More time on buyers, less on spreadsheets
Duncan and our sector specialists do not spend 40 hours building models in spreadsheets. They spend that time qualifying buyer intent, rehearsing your management presentation and running competitive tension between bidders.
Checks statutory books, director filings and sector accreditations, including BAFE, NSI, WRAS and ISO, to ensure zero lapses.
Flags contractor IR35 exposures, intellectual property assignment gaps and key-person bottlenecks before a buyer uncovers them.
Monitors counterparty document engagement, flagging to the partners exactly which chapters and files a buyer\u2019s legal team is scrutinising.
No surprises once a buyer is in diligence
Diligence skeletons are resolved in private before go-to-market. When exclusivity begins, the buyer finds a clean, audit-ready data room, leaving zero room for renegotiation.
Partners focused on terms and cash at completion
Joe and our legal advisers are not chasing administrative paperwork. They focus exclusively on commercial deal structure, share purchase agreement warranties and securing maximum cash at completion.
A senior M&A bench, plus a sector specialist recruited for your industry on every deal.
Director of M&A, ICAEW Chartered Accountant
Senior advisers who work with us on specific mandates.
Industry Partner, Hiring and Leadership
Nick leads FM Talent Partners, the facilities management and real estate leadership search firm, and is a leading specialist in building services and FM management talent. He partners with DealFlowAgent on two-way referrals: helping business owners and acquirers fill the key roles that decide whether a business is sellable, and introducing owners who are thinking about their next chapter to a team that knows their industry and their market. Key-person dependency is one of the two most common reasons a sale collapses, and Nick fixes it at source.
For every engagement we add a sector specialist from your industry to the core team: a 15-25 year operator or advisor with direct relationships in your niche. Recruited per deal so you get the right fit, not a generalist.
Each mandate has a named DealFlowAgent adviser as the point of contact, supported by a sector specialist.
Richard and Sally are internal software tools. They prepare materials, check numbers and review documents for the adviser who leads your sale.
Richard and Sally never contact clients, never message buyers, and never release documents.
I remember the initial meetings that we had when we were looking for specialists to partner up with, and I've said to Joe from the start, we definitely made the right choice.
Hear directly from owners and acquirers who have worked with us.
“I couldn't have asked for better support during my exit. They found the perfect acquirer and negotiated terms that exceeded my expectations.”
14,000+ buyers registered on platform plus our advisor network and institutional data tools - your business reaches every relevant acquirer.
We take your acquisition criteria from the form and the calibration call, then surface the strongest matches across our network. Human judgement, intelligence-supported precision.
Why owners and acquirers choose
Pricing, relationships and know-how walk out of the door with you. Buyers price that risk into their offer.
Time, materials and margin slip quietly on live jobs, and by the time the accounts show it, the money is gone.
Financial reports, KPIs and pipeline figures arrive late because someone has to pull them together by hand.
Project work and ad-hoc jobs make cash flow hard to predict and cap the multiple a buyer will pay.
Organisations search Google and AI answer engines every day for providers in your niche, and find your competitors instead.
We agree whether to launch buyer conversations, pursue a hybrid route, keep preparing, or pause. The decision is evidence-led rather than pushed by advisor momentum.
Stage one buyer pack and data room
We build the teaser, the management narrative, the financial bridge and the stage one information pack. You approve the story before any buyer sees it.
We approach a curated set of buyers where there is a credible strategic, cultural or structural fit. The aim is buyer tension without creating noise around the business.
We qualify interest, prepare you for each meeting and keep a truthful view of buyer behaviour, concerns and seriousness.
Buyers receive deeper access only when their interest, fit and seriousness justify it. Information flow stays controlled.
We compare price, structure, retained equity, earn-out, role expectations, cultural fit and execution risk side by side rather than chasing the headline number alone.
We drive competitive tension where it exists, challenge weak terms and help select the route that best balances value, legacy and practical deliverability.
Legal, diligence and completion support
We project-manage the advisory workstream alongside your appointed solicitors so diligence, disclosure, legal drafting and buyer communication do not drift.
Signing, funds flow and the announcement. We handle press and completion-day communication with you, your team and the buyer.
Three clear phases. Everyone starts at Phase 1 with a free valuation report, then you choose whether to go further.
What we cover on the discovery call
One, two or three confidential calls with a senior adviser, covering:
We review the numbers with you, examine the factors capping your multiple, and help you decide whether your best move is to build value, prepare for an exit, or stay the course.
As light or as hands-on as you need. We systematically address the 30 scorecard factors acquirers scrutinise in due diligence, and the quick wins alone can materially move your multiple. Taken on its own, Phase 2 is a small, transparent fixed fee with no long-term tie-in.
The five patterns we fix most often
The end to end sale, run step by step. Nothing reaches a buyer until you have approved it. The sale itself is paid for by a success fee, charged only on completion.
Your advisory team throughout the process
Throughout, you are looked after by a dedicated core advisory team and industry specialists, with AI agents working beneath the advisers the way analysts and associates support a deal team. The top-tier banks reserve that bench strength for companies above £100 million in revenue. We bring it to yours.
Get Your Free Valuation Report
Six months or three years away from a sale, the report is free and there is no obligation to proceed.
Specialist M&A advisory for building services and facilities management businesses (fire and life safety, electrical, water hygiene and Legionella, lift and elevator maintenance, HVAC, plumbing, security, TIC) and specialist healthcare including clinics and care homes. £500K-£100M. UK & US.
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Get a free valuation estimate
Compliance, Testing, Inspection & Certification M&A Advisory | UK and US
To buyers who understand statutory recurring revenue.
You have built a business that keeps buildings safe and legally compliant. Fire systems tested. Fire doors inspected. Water systems monitored. Fixed wiring certified. Lifts examined. Ventilation cleaned. That work is mandated by law, renews every year, and is exactly what acquirers are competing to own.
DealFlowAgent is a specialist M&A advisory for TIC and compliance owners across building services and facilities management in the UK and US. We run competitive processes that put multiple qualified offers on the table, so you choose the price, the terms and the buyer who will look after your engineers.
We advise owners serving commercial and institutional contract-holders. We do not advise on residential-only trade businesses.
Testing, Inspection & Compliance Space
These are a handful of the PE-backed platforms, listed groups and corporate acquirers building compliance and TIC businesses across the UK and US.
+ 14,000 more registered acquirers with defined search criteria
"How much of my revenue will a buyer actually treat as recurring?"
Buyers separate statutory testing and planned maintenance contracts from reactive call-outs and project work. Contracted, renewable compliance income is what earns the highest multiple. Presented poorly, it gets lumped in with one-off works and undervalued.
"What happens to my engineers and their accreditations?"
Your BAFE, NICEIC, LCA, SafeContractor and scheme registrations sit with qualified people. Acquirers are buying that certified capability, so retaining your engineers on existing terms is usually in their commercial interest as well as yours.
"Tightening regulation keeps coming. Does that help or hurt my timing?"
Tightening building safety, water safety and electrical inspection duties expand the mandated work your business already performs. That regulatory direction of travel is a tailwind for acquirers building compliance platforms.
Before You Speak to Anyone
You have almost certainly been approached. PE-backed compliance platforms, national groups and trade buyers adding certifications to their coverage. Most owners have no reliable way to tell who is genuinely buying, who has committed capital, and who will spend four months on diligence before retrading the price.
Without competing offers there is no leverage. The buyer sets the pace, anchors low, and waits for you to get tired.
We Only Work in Compliance-Driven Sectors
Fire, water, electrical, lift, HVAC and wider statutory maintenance. We know the schemes, the certifications and the contract structures that determine what a buyer will pay.
You Will Have Multiple Offers
We run a competitive process with several qualified offers live at the same time, so you choose on price, terms and cultural fit rather than accepting the one approach in your inbox.
We Qualify Buyers Before They Meet You