Free Business Valuation
Free, Confidential Business Valuation for UK SME Owners
An indicative, written valuation range delivered personally by Tony Vaughan. Two to three week turnaround. No obligation, no broker referrals, no follow-up pressure.
Bottom line up front
Most UK SME owners spend between three and seven years thinking about what their business is worth before they ever act on it. The owners who use those years well, with a credible benchmark in hand, consistently realise more value, more cleanly, than the owners who close the gap from curiosity to transaction with a single phone call to a broker. The free indicative valuation exists to make those thinking years productive. It is delivered personally by a senior valuer, takes two to three weeks, costs nothing, and lands within 10% to 15% of a formal report for most UK SMEs. The owners who use it well revisit it every 12 to 24 months as the business and the plan evolve.
The free business valuation is best understood as a corporate equivalent of a private medical screening. A screening does not replace the consultant, the diagnostics or the surgeon. What it does is give you an evidenced view of where you are right now, surface the two or three items that warrant deeper attention, and put you in a position to make better decisions over the next eighteen months than you would have made without it. It is not a sales process disguised as a service. It is a benchmark. The thinking it triggers is the value, not the document itself.
What you actually receive
A written indicative valuation range, typically three to five pages, covering four components. A normalised earnings analysis showing the bridge from reported EBITDA to maintainable EBITDA, with each material adjustment evidenced in a single line. A sub-sector multiple selection citing the recent comparable UK private-company transaction evidence we have relied on. A one-page driver-and-drag commentary explaining where in the range your business currently sits and what is moving it up or down. A short recommended-actions note suggesting the two or three workstreams most likely to materially improve the position over the next twelve to eighteen months.
The methodology is identical to what we use for fixed-fee formal reports. The difference is depth. An indicative valuation does enough analysis to land within a defensible planning range. It is not enough to satisfy HMRC's Shares and Assets Valuation team, the Family Division, an EOT trustee or a sophisticated trade buyer. Those audiences need a signed formal report with full evidence and a Part 35 or HMRC-grade declaration. That is a separate, fixed-fee engagement and the indicative range is the right precursor to it.
Who it's for
UK SME owners thinking about a future trade sale, an Employee Ownership Trust, a management buy-out, family succession or a structured shareholder event. Owners exploring whether the business will support a planned retirement number. Shareholders wanting a benchmark before negotiating a buy-out under pre-emption. Founders curious whether the last two years of growth have moved the value materially since the last time they checked. Solicitors, accountants and family practitioners wanting an early, no-cost scoping view before commissioning a formal report. Anyone whose primary need at this stage is information rather than a transaction.
How the engagement actually works
| Step | What happens | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Two-minute online enquiry form. Mutual NDA issued the same day. | Day 1 |
| 2 | Discovery call with Tony Vaughan, 20 to 30 minutes. No juniors, no scripts. | Within 5 working days |
| 3 | Document upload to UK-based encrypted workspace. Three years of accounts, management accounts, current-year forecast if available. | Days 5 to 7 |
| 4 | Senior-led normalisation, multiple selection and driver-and-drag analysis. | Week 2 |
| 5 | Written indicative valuation range issued. 3 to 5 pages, reasoned and signed. | End of week 2 to 3 |
| 6 | 30-minute follow-up walk-through call. No follow-up sequence after that unless you ask. | Within 5 working days of issue |
The fuller walkthrough lives on the how the free valuation works page. The eligibility criteria, which are deliberately broad but exclude pre-revenue start-ups, professional practices below £200k of fee income and businesses already in formal sale processes with another adviser, are set out on the eligibility checklist.
The 18-month execution blueprint after the free valuation
For owners who use the indicative range to plan eighteen months ahead, the workstreams below sequence the work in the order it pays back. The blueprint is the same one we use across our fixed-fee value-driver engagements; the indicative range is the starting diagnostic that calibrates it.
| Window | Workstream | Typical impact |
|---|---|---|
| Months 1–2 | Free indicative valuation. Establish the range and the two structural items costing the most multiple. | Diagnostic that calibrates the next 16 months. |
| Months 2–6 | Normalisation discipline. Document every add-back with evidence. Restate owner remuneration. Unwind related-party items. | +8% to +25% on adjusted EBITDA, fully multiplied at completion. |
| Months 4–10 | Customer mix and contract base. Reduce top-customer share below 25%. Convert PO arrangements to framework agreements. | Reduces concentration discount by 0.4 to 0.8 turns on the multiple. |
| Months 6–12 | Management depth. Promote or hire a credible second-line. Transfer formal authorities. Demonstrate the owner can be absent. | Removes owner-dependency discount. 0.5 to 1.0 turns of multiple uplift. |
| Months 10–15 | Buyer-grade QoE preparation. Adjusted EBITDA schedule with evidence per line. Pre-empt diligence questions. | Protects 5% to 15% of headline value in subsequent QoE review. |
| Months 12–18 | Fixed-fee formal valuation report and equity bridge cleanup. Schedule debt-like items, tighten working capital, confirm BADR per shareholder. | Improves the conversion from EV to net-of-tax proceeds by 4% to 10%. |
Anonymised case study. A Yorkshire engineering owner
Drawing on our aggregate UK transaction data, a representative example. A founder-led contract engineering business in Yorkshire, £6.4m turnover, reported EBITDA £710k, single shareholder aged 54 with no firm exit plan but a growing curiosity about what the business might be worth. He requested a free indicative valuation after running three online calculators that returned three meaningfully different numbers and wanting an honest, senior-led view before deciding whether to invest any further time in transaction thinking.
The discovery call surfaced three items the calculators had missed. £62k of above-market owner remuneration. £18k of personal motor and travel costs running through the company. A material one-off legal cost of £41k from a settled commercial dispute. Normalised EBITDA was therefore £831k, not the £710k the calculators had used. The sub-sector multiple for contract precision engineering with a documented order book and two long-standing prime customers was 4.5x to 5.5x. Top-customer concentration of 38%, evidenced in the customer schedule, sat the business at the lower end of the range. Indicative valuation: £3.7m to £4.6m, central point £4.15m.
The owner did nothing for fourteen months. He used the indicative range to inform a conversation with his wife about retirement timing, restructured a small piece of personal financial planning around it, and quietly began the work of reducing his largest customer's share from 38% to 24% by winning two mid-tier accounts. He came back fifteen months after the original engagement, asked for a refresh, and we re-ran the indicative valuation. Normalised EBITDA had grown to £905k, top-customer concentration was 26%, and the same methodology now produced a central indicative value of £5.1m. He commissioned a fixed-fee formal valuation report and began a structured sale process six months later.
The eventual completion value was £5.35m, achieved on a clean cash-plus-modest-deferred structure. The free indicative valuation, which had cost him nothing, had calibrated eighteen months of focused preparation worth £1.2m of additional realised value. That is the multi-year, low-key pattern the free valuation is designed for.
Independence and confidentiality
BusinessValuation.co.uk does not take commission from buyers, brokers, lenders or any other transaction counterparty. The free valuation is not a lead generation mechanism for an M&A brokerage. We don't run one. Your details are not shared with third parties, your accounts are held on UK-based encrypted infrastructure for the duration of the engagement only, and there is no follow-up sales sequence. Most owners who take a free valuation file it and revisit it 12 to 24 months later. That is the expected pattern, not an exception. If at any point a fixed-fee formal report or a value-driver engagement is the right next step, we will say so directly, scope it on a fixed-fee basis, and leave the decision entirely with the owner.
When to upgrade to a formal report
The free indicative valuation is a thinking tool. The moment real money is on the table, an HMRC submission, an EOT or MBO transaction, a shareholder buy-out under pre-emption, a divorce settlement, a probate filing, a fundraising round or an actual sale process, you need a written, signed formal report. The methodology is the same; the deliverable is heavier, the evidence base is fuller, and the report is built to withstand scrutiny from the third party who will rely on it. The free range and the formal report are not in competition. They do different jobs at different stages, and the owners who get the best long-term outcomes use both deliberately.
Free business valuation FAQ
The questions UK SME owners ask most often before requesting a free indicative valuation.
Is the free business valuation genuinely free, or is there a hidden cost?
Genuinely free. The discovery call, the document review, the written indicative range and a 30-minute follow-up walk-through are all delivered without charge and without obligation. There is no embedded broker referral, no commission arrangement with a buyer panel and no follow-up sales sequence. A small minority of free-valuation clients later commission a fixed-fee formal report or a value-driver engagement, and that is enough to cover the cost of providing the free service to everyone else. There is no other catch.
How is a senior-led free valuation different from an online calculator?
An online calculator applies an average sector multiple to a self-reported earnings figure and returns a number in seconds. A senior-led free valuation normalises three years of your actual statutory and management accounts, selects a sub-sector multiple from recent comparable UK private-company transactions, adjusts for the specific drivers and drags that apply to your business, and produces a reasoned written range. The accuracy gap is enormous. A calculator is accurate to within a sector average; a free indicative valuation typically lands within 10% to 15% of a formal report for most UK SMEs.
Who actually delivers the valuation?
Tony Vaughan personally. Founder of BusinessValuation.co.uk and director of Exit Partners Limited, with 2,500+ business value appraisals completed across UK SMEs. There are no junior associates running the underlying work, no offshored analysts and no account managers between the owner and the senior valuer. The same name on the report is the same name on the discovery call.
What information do I need to provide?
Two to three years of statutory accounts, the most recent management accounts, a current-year forecast if you have one, and a short one-page summary of the business covering ownership, the senior team, the customer base shape and any current plans for transaction, succession or shareholder change. Everything is shared under mutual NDA, working files are held on UK-based encrypted infrastructure for the duration of the engagement only, and nothing is retained beyond the engagement except an anonymised data point in our aggregate transaction database.
How long does the free valuation take end to end?
Two to three weeks from initial enquiry to written indicative range. The discovery call is usually scheduled within five working days. Document review takes one to two weeks. The written summary follows within a few days of the review being complete. A 30-minute follow-up call to walk the document through is included in the same engagement. Urgent timetables can be accommodated where the situation justifies it.
Will I be added to a mailing list or chased by sales calls afterwards?
No. There is no marketing automation behind the free valuation, no sales development team and no addition to any third-party list. Most owners who receive a free valuation file it and revisit it 12 to 24 months later as their planning matures. That quiet, multi-year cycle is the expected pattern. If you would like a check-in at a future date you tell us; we do not initiate.
When should I move from the free indicative range to a paid formal report?
Any time a third party will rely on the number. HMRC submissions including probate, IHT, capital gains, EMI and gift transfers. EOT and MBO transactions where trustees and lenders will scrutinise the price. Shareholder buy-outs under pre-emption clauses. Divorce and probate matters where the court or executors will read the report. An indicative range is a planning tool; a formal report is a piece of evidence. They are not in competition; they do different jobs.
Start with a free, confidential indicative valuation
Direct with Tony Vaughan. Two to three week turnaround. No obligation, ever.