What Is M&A Advisory for Small Businesses?
What is M&A advisory? It means help with buying, selling or merging a company. For a small business owner it usually means getting ready to sell. At English Oak Financial it covers the financial side of a sale, from normalizing the numbers to supporting buyer due diligence, alongside your broker, lawyer and tax adviser.
What does M&A advisory mean for a small business?
M&A stands for mergers and acquisitions. Large deals have whole teams of bankers and lawyers. For an owner-run business, the most common case is a sale: someone is buying the company, and the buyer will want to examine the numbers closely before agreeing a price.
That is where financial advice helps. Buyers do not just read your profit and loss statement. They test whether the profit is real, whether it will repeat and whether the records back it up. M&A advisory, in our version, is the work of getting your financials ready for that scrutiny.
What does our M&A and exit advisory include?
We help owners get their business ready to sell:
- Cleaning up and normalizing the financials
- Preparing a quality-of-earnings-style analysis and add-backs (see what a quality of earnings report is)
- Building the financial model
- Assembling the data room
- Supporting the owner through buyer due diligence
It is part of our fractional CFO and advisory service, which starts from $2,500 a month. Pricing is custom to your business and charged as one fixed monthly fee. Our M&A and exit advisory page has the service summary.
What do we leave to other advisers?
We work alongside your broker, your lawyer and your tax adviser, and we do not replace any of them. These are outside our services:
- Formal valuations
- Negotiating the deal
- Legal advice
- Tax advice
- Investment advice
If you need one of these, we can refer you to trusted specialists. English Oak Financial does not prepare tax returns, perform audits or give investment advice.
What does the work look like in practice?
Most of it happens before a buyer appears. Clean, consistent books and a clear explanation of one-off items make a buyer's questions easier to answer. The model and the data room then give the buyer one organized place to look, and we help you respond when the due diligence questions arrive. For a step-by-step view, read how to prepare your business for sale and what exit planning is.
Has the founder been through a sale?
Yes. Jake McKenna also founded ATP Accounting Ltd and later sold the firm. You can read more on the Who Are We page.
Need this done for you? See our Fractional CFO & Advisory service, or pricing. English Oak Financial does not prepare tax returns, perform audits or give investment advice. This guide is general information, not tax, legal or investment advice.
Related pages
Common questions
Do you negotiate the sale for me?
No. Negotiating the deal is outside our services. We work alongside your broker and lawyer, who handle that side.
Do you value my business?
No. Formal valuations are outside our services. We prepare and normalize the financial information that a valuation or a buyer will rely on.
Is M&A advisory the same as M&A financial advisory?
The terms overlap. What we offer is the financial side of a sale, as described above. We do not give investment advice.
Is M&A advisory the same as exit planning?
Not exactly. Exit planning is the wider question of how and when an owner leaves a business. M&A advisory is the financial work involved when a sale or merger is actually in play. The exit planning guide covers the first.
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