1 to 3Flat or declining revenue, and turnover below roughly £3M, which limits the buyer pool to individuals and local trade. What growth there is came from one large install year.8 to 10Sustained double-digit organic growth coming from the recurring inspection and maintenance base rather than one-off installs, evidenced across three filed years.

1 to 3Add-backs above 20% of EBITDA with thin evidence. Recruitment claimed as a one-off while engineer churn runs high, so the same cost recurs every single year.8 to 10A conservatively drawn bridge, evidenced line by line with invoices and board minutes, that an independent quality of earnings review confirms within two to three per cent.

1 to 3One blended margin number. Inspection, remedial, install and monitoring profitability are not known separately, and install is still priced off a rate card set years ago.8 to 10Margin tracked and priced by line: inspection, remedial, install, monitoring and callout, each with its own recovery rate and reviewed at least annually.

1 to 3Debtor days drifting upward, no direct debit on the small-account tail, retentions untracked, and an overdraft that has become a fixture rather than a facility.8 to 10Debtor days under 40, direct debit as the default on maintenance, retentions diarised and chased, and a written cash policy the finance function actually applies.

1 to 3No monthly management accounts, consolidation done by hand in a spreadsheet, and forecasts missed often enough that nobody in the business references them.8 to 10A five-day month-end close, a rolling forecast, and three years of forecasts delivered within five per cent of outturn that a buyer can check for themselves.

1 to 3The founder self-running the process, or a one-person generalist brokerage that has never completed a fire or life safety transaction and cannot name a buyer.8 to 10A mandated specialist with live deal flow in this trade and completed transactions that a buyer's corporate development team can independently verify.

1 to 3A cold list of trade names assembled at the point of sale, with no knowledge of who is funded, what size they buy, or what they last paid for a business like yours.8 to 10Standing relationships with pre-qualified acquirers, each with current criteria on size, geography, accreditation scope and deal structure, maintained long before the mandate began.

1 to 3The company ends up teaching its own adviser the difference between BAFE scopes, and the adviser's questions expose that inexperience to the buyer in the first meeting.8 to 10A team that knows the standards, the consolidator playbooks and the comparable transactions well enough to challenge a buyer's valuation logic in the room.

1 to 3Outreach ignored or answered slowly, one party granted exclusivity early, and no live underbidder in reserve when the price is re-traded at week eight.8 to 10Strong response rates, NDAs signed inside days, and several credible parties held in parallel through to final terms, so that any attempt to re-trade carries a real cost.

1 to 3Approaches unlogged and unanswered. Interest is claimed in conversation but there is no dated record a buyer or an adviser could actually inspect.8 to 10Ten or more logged approaches including private equity platforms, each dated and named, with several progressed into genuine conversations.

1 to 3Largest client above 15% of revenue on rolling 90-day terms, written on the client's paperwork, with change-of-control consent the buyer must go and ask for.8 to 10Top client below 5% and top five below 20%, all on the company's own terms, freely assignable, and surviving completion without any consent process.

1 to 3One end-market above 60% of revenue, or heavy exposure to discretionary new-build construction, which stops the moment confidence or interest rates move.8 to 10Five or more regulated, non-discretionary end-markets: care, health, education, social housing and managed commercial property, with none of them dominant.

1 to 3Under half of contracted value is signed and dated. Indexation on less than 30% of the book, so every wage rise comes straight out of your margin.8 to 10Ninety-five per cent or more signed on standard terms, indexation above 80% of the book, and renewals worked from a 120-day pipeline rather than chased on expiry.

1 to 3Contracted churn above 15%, or not measured at all, which a buyer prices as though the answer were bad on the basis that you cannot disprove it.8 to 10Churn below 6%, measured with cause codes, win-back activity tracked, and referenceable clients a buyer is permitted to call during diligence.

1 to 3Cross-sell is accidental. Extinguisher-only accounts are never offered detection, emergency lighting or passive work, and engineers are not asked to spot the opportunity.8 to 10Whitespace mapped account by account, engineer-generated leads flowing into a tracked pipeline, and multi-service penetration rising quarter on quarter.

1 to 3Not measured, or measured on a different definition in each division, so nobody can say what an engineer costs set against what that engineer earns.8 to 10Seventy-five per cent or better sustained, visible at engineer level, with scheduling actively managed to the number rather than reported after the month has closed.

1 to 3Work dispatched by phone call and WhatsApp. Service level evidence reconstructed from memory and paperwork only after a client complains about a missed visit.8 to 10All work dispatched in-platform with travel logic and skills matching, and service level evidence produced on demand straight from the system.

1 to 3Over 20% of hours subcontracted, competency certificates missing for regular subcontractors, and no assurance file a diligence team could inspect.8 to 10Under 8% subcontracted, full competency and insurance files held for every subcontractor used, and the premium consciously traded against the cost of recruiting.

1 to 3Failed first visits above 10%, usually for want of a keyholder or an access arrangement, and certificates issued a week or more behind the engineer's visit.8 to 10Failed visits under 3%, certificates issued from site on the day of the visit, and credit notes running under half a per cent of invoiced value.

1 to 3Three or more systems of record, including at least one legacy asset database that only one person can operate and that nobody has ever exported.8 to 10Every division on one platform with finance integrated, legacy registers migrated and archived read-only, and reports a diligence team can pull without your help.

1 to 3The founder personally holds the key client relationships, sets pricing and signs off technically. Nothing of consequence moves through the business without them.8 to 10The business demonstrably runs for months without founder involvement, with client relationships held institutionally rather than personally.

1 to 3No genuine second tier. Ten or more direct reports converge on one director, and nobody else has ever presented the business to an outside party.8 to 10A management team that presents the business itself in diligence, with named owners for operations, service delivery and finance who a buyer will meet.

1 to 3Field churn above 20%, permanent premium-cost agency recruitment, and no apprentice pipeline, so growth is capped by hiring rather than by demand.8 to 10Churn under 10%, a certification ladder with defined pay steps, and apprentices who are productive on site rather than aspirational on paper.

1 to 3Contract quirks, route plans, panel configurations and site access arrangements held in named individuals' heads, with no export and no cover when they are away.8 to 10A maintained operations manual, so any competent hire can run any documented process without first asking the person who normally does it.

1 to 3Minority holders without drag-along, option promises made by email and never papered, and a shareholders agreement that nobody can currently locate.8 to 10An executed shareholders agreement with drag and tag rights, an HMRC-agreed EMI scheme where options are used, and no undocumented promises outstanding.

1 to 3Thin, scattered coverage with engineers crossing counties for single sites, and no territory in which the business is a top-three provider.8 to 10A clear top-tier position in a defined territory, with route density and response times that a competitor entering the area could not match.

1 to 3Services sold as though discretionary, with no named programme capturing the statutory calendar that is already running through your own client base.8 to 10Core revenue mandated by regulation, with named programmes capturing the current cycle: BS 5839-1:2025 remedials, Martyn's Law duties and the PSTN switch-off.

1 to 3Minimum accreditations only, renewal dates at risk, and nothing in the scope that a competitor down the road does not also hold.8 to 10Full third-party certification scope actively maintained and audited, plus at least one scarce capability such as suppression, riser or passive fire work.

1 to 3Growth arrives from founder relationships and inbound luck. No campaign runs against a target list, no conversion is tracked, and capacity is planned reactively.8 to 10Whitespace mapped, campaigns running against it, conversion tracked by source, and engineer capacity planned against the pipeline rather than against last year.

1 to 3No data room, key contracts non-assignable, and a process that stalls in week two while somebody hunts for the lease, the insurance schedule and the asset register.8 to 10A maintained evidence room answering first-round diligence the same day: contracts, accreditations, registers, accounts, HR files and property.