Exit Readiness & Succession
Value is built before the sale, not at it. Owners who do the readiness work years ahead of the letter of intent choose their buyer, their timing, and their terms.
Our view
The owners who do the readiness work years ahead of the letter of intent choose their buyer, their timing, and their terms, instead of the other way around. Readiness is not a document; it is a set of changes to the business that buyers pay for: reporting they can trust, management depth beyond the founder, customer concentration brought down, and earnings that survive a quality-of-earnings review. Done early, that work compounds into price. Done late, it becomes a discount.
When this is the work
When the transition is coming, whether or not it is scheduled.
A sale, a succession, or a sponsor process is somewhere on the horizon, and the business is not yet built to be bought well. We close that gap while there is still time for it to change the price.
- Owners 12 to 60 months from a possible transition
- Founder-led companies where succession and sale are tangled together
- PE-backed leaders preparing a platform for its next process
The Ore to Edge Discipline
The same three-phase discipline on every engagement, adapted to the demands of this work. See the full discipline.
Assay and refine
- Partner: understand the owner's objective, the timeline, and the constraints behind it
- Collect: the value drivers against what buyers in this market actually pay for
- Filter: the gaps between the business as it is and the business as it should be bought
A ranked read on what is adding to value and what is discounting it
Alloy and form
- Build the readiness roadmap: financial reporting, management depth, customer concentration, the QoE dry run
- Design succession alongside your counsel and wealth advisors
- Price and compare the exit paths: strategic sale, sponsor, ESOP, management buyout
A readiness roadmap and a priced comparison of the available exit paths
Forge and hone
- Run the roadmap on a reporting cadence, so readiness actually gets built
- Move into execution when the window opens, with a team already fluent in the business
A business ready to be bought on the owner's terms
What you get
Ready before the letter of intent arrives.
- Value-driver assessment against what buyers actually pay for
- A readiness roadmap covering reporting, management depth, concentration, and the QoE dry run
- Succession design alongside your counsel and wealth advisors
- Exit-path analysis: strategic sale, sponsor, ESOP, management buyout, priced and compared
- Led by a partner who has founded, acquired, and exited 12+ businesses (CEPA, CM&AA)
Common questions
Exit Readiness & Succession, in plain terms.
When should this start?
Two to five years out is ideal; twelve months is workable; the month you receive an unsolicited LOI is late, but call anyway.
Do you also run the sale?
Yes. See M&A & Transaction Advisory. Readiness clients get an execution team already fluent in the business.
What does readiness change financially?
Documented client outcomes across our partners' practices range from 20% to 150% value improvement through positioning, earnings quality, and process discipline.