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Launchpad

An interactive three hour workshop, focused on the key areas that will drive a higher valuation and increase the saleability of your business.  Whilst each Launchpad is tailored for every client, we aim to provide you with a flavour of the outputs from the full Bluebox Blue Diamond pre-sale planning programme, including:

  • Current Indicative valuation – including relevant market activity and ideas to improve the capital value further
  • ‘Key Recommendations’ – significant actions management can take, in the short to medium term, to enhance the saleability of the business
  • ‘Quick Wins’ – housekeeping points which will help to optimise value
  • Indicative Purchasers – our initial thoughts on who may want to buy your business

The cost of the Launchpad will be deducted from the cost of the full Blue Diamond pre-sale planning programme.

Arrange a Launchpad
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Our 'Blue Diamond' Programme

Over 90% of all businesses taken ‘to market’ by the UK’s advisory community fail to sell. Bluebox has developed an ‘award-winning’ programme that works alongside both business owners and investors to ensure that the businesses that they own are fully prepared for sale. It is a highly structured and rigorous programme that identifies all key business issues that will drive value or enhance the ‘sale-ability’ of your business when the time comes to sell. The programme includes an existing and aspirational valuation of your business, the identification of your target purchasers or investors and creating a bespoke ‘opportunity map’ that will drive additional value.

We will manage the progress using your bespoke ‘Bluebox Roadmap’ and we will ‘review’ your entire business using our range of ‘diagnostic toolkits’. To be entirely prepared, we will collate and host the library of all due diligence documents in your own Electronic Dataroom. We will attend your Board meetings, provide focused advice on exit matters and ensure you retain focus. We get to thoroughly understand your business and when you are ready, we will work with you, to help you sell your business or obtain investment.

Explore The Programme
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Selling a Business

Selling a business is often the most important ‘transaction’ in a business owner’s life and the sale process requires a high level of competence and absolute focus from your adviser. With direct access to over 8,000 corporate acquirers, unparalleled access to both domestic and international private equity communities and with market-leading research capabilities, Bluebox prides itself on its ability to identify the target buyer that is able to close a deal and pay the best possible price.

Our team works with clients from start to finish and has successfully sold over 100 private businesses across a wide ranging of sectors with values ranging from £1m to £200m. Whether it be as a ‘follow on’ from your participation in our ‘Blue Diamond’ pre-sale planning programme, something that you have been considering for a while or in response to an unsolicited approach for your business, Bluebox will provide honest, value-added advice on your sale that can make an enormous difference to your end result.

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Buying a Business

Bluebox has extensive capabilities when it comes buy-side advisory. Our sell-side expertise lends itself to this, not only enabling us to identify the right targets for our clients, but also to provide unrivalled commercial and strategic advice. Whether we are helping clients get a deal over the line with a pre-identified target or undertaking a broader acquisition search, we are confident we have the skills and resources on hand to help.

 

For a broader acquisition search, we will research and identify domestic and/or international targets for your business, based on a set of pre-agreed criteria. Depending on our scope of work, we will then make approaches, start a dialogue, facilitate meetings, advise you on valuation, negotiate key terms on your behalf, and manage the deal through to completion. Even if there are ongoing discussions with a target at the start of our engagement, we can not only assist with these, but also manage the process from thereon in.

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Negotiating an 'Offer'

Bluebox regularly works with clients who have already received an approach for their business and are often in detailed discussions with a prospective acquirer.  Close to goal, but wanting to ensure that the terms you are achieving are the very best possible, Bluebox can drive enormous value – even at this late stage. We are able to point to numerous examples (and have references) where the terms we have negotiated are significantly better – in some cases double from those that the client first approached us with.

Knowing how to seamlessly introduce ourselves to your prospective acquirer without any delay to your process is critical.  Thereafter, we provide a critical interface that not only can drive significant value, but can also remove you from the front line of negotiation where the ability to play ‘hard ball’ can be compromised. ‘Penalty Box’ work is about starting close to goal, but making sure that the best possible deal for our client is completed.

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Acqui-hire

A highly attractive deal for many Bluebox clients involves the sale of a ‘minority’ stake in their business to a strategic acquirer that is able to provide the infrastructure and resources to assist with the development of their business. Whether it be international sales presence, a stronger brand, additional offices or even more capital, Bluebox will identify the perfect partner that can be the catalyst for meaningful growth.

At the same time as the sale of this minority stake, the same acquirer commits to acquire the remainder of the business over a period of years, based on the ongoing profitability of the business that should be significantly enhanced as a result of the value that this infrastructure has brought. Different to an ‘earn-out’ in many ways and highly attractive in terms of what this solution has to offer, Bluebox has a formulaic way of delivering value, de-risking the business and ensuring the eventual transition of your business into new hands.   These deals comprise ‘part acquisition’ and ‘part-hire of third party resources’: Hence the term “Acqui-hire”.

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Ancillary Services

Business owners often require a broad range of services in the run up to their eventual sale. Whether it be business modelling, creating a business plan or valuing their business, Bluebox prides itself on an ability to add value in a range of situations. Bluebox services are typically tailored towards client’s ultimate exit and our advice is dispensed by a senior team of corporate financiers that will have exactly the experience client require.

Our professional team is able to deliver an in-house service in which we take immense pride. Furthermore, where the requirement is for assistance in other exit-related areas such as tax, intellectual property or corporate matters, we hold relationships with some of the UK’s leading professional service advisers that are able to support the work that we do to ensure that the advice received by clients is seamless and of the very highest quality.

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