How A Sale With Alderway Works
A sale with Alderway usually takes around 12 weeks from our first conversation to completion of the deal. There are four simple stages and one team - on your side throughout.
Confidential Conversation
It all starts with a conversation. You contact us, we sign an NDA, and we have that first chat.
The point of this stage is to understand whether your business fits and whether we're a buyer you'd want to work with. There's no commitment from either side here, just an initial chat.
If we're not the right fit, we'll say so in the first call. If we are, we'll explain what we'd need to see next: just enough to understand the business and move forward with confidence and nothing beyond what's reasonable for a business of your size. If everything aligns, we’ll move on from there.
STAGE ONE
STAGE TWO
Indicative Offer
If we both want to continue, we’ll give you a written indicative offer.
This sets out the headline valuation and the structure of the deal straight away.
Nothing is binding yet though, so don’t worry. You take your offer away, talk it through with whoever you want to talk it through with and come back to us with any questions.
STAGE THREE
Heads of Terms and Dilligence
If you accept the indicative offer, we sign heads of terms and move to exclusivity. Diligence starts from there immediately.
Diligence runs across three workstreams in parallel: commercial, financial, and legal. We use external advisers for the legal work and the financial side where appropriate and you'll get a clear document request list at the start. Although there may be some bolt on requests as the process runs, our primary focus is to cause minimal, if any, disruption to the running of your business.
Most diligence is completed inside eight weeks. We tell you what we're finding as we go so material issues, if any arise, get raised early rather than being held back for a renegotiation at the eleventh hour.
STAGE FOUR
Completion
All that’s left after diligence is to sign the SPA. We’ll exchange completion mechanics and then funds will be transferred to you.
The cash portion of the price arrives in your account on the day of completion. The deferred consideration schedule, if appropriate to the deal, starts running on the timetable we agreed in the indicative offer - typically over two to three years, on fixed payment dates. This will not be tied to future trading performance.
Your team will then transition into the group on a timetable we'll have agreed before completion. Your customer relationships continue uninterrupted and our day one looks much like any other day for your team and your customers.
What You'll Need From Us
We commit in writing to the timeline at heads of terms. If something is going to slip, usually because of an external party, like requiring regulatory consent to complete the deal or a third-party landlord in the case of a property purchase, you'll hear about it the day we know.
What We'll Need From You
In broad terms, the document request list at the start of diligence covers three years of management accounts, recent statutory accounts, your customer contracts and concentration, your key supplier contracts, your property arrangements, your employment contracts, and your insurance and compliance documentation.
We'll send it as a single list with a timescale that's reasonable for the business. If you don't have something in the form we've asked for, we'll always try to work with what you have.
After Completion
Most owners want a defined handover period - six months, 12 months, longer - to make sure their team and customers land well. Some want to walk away on day one. Both are fine and this is all agreed before completion.
Whatever you choose, the group takes over operational responsibility on completion day. Your team's payroll, your supplier relationships, your customer commitments all become ours. You get to stay as involved as you’d like based on the previous agreement, or step away knowing your business is in safe hands.
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​If the process above feels like the kind of process you'd want to go through, let’s talk.
