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Due diligence and transactions

Clarity and focus for vendors, buyers, and investors

Your due diligence is the foundation of a successful deal

If you’re planning to sell, acquire, or invest in a business, our due diligence and transaction support can ensure your deal runs smoothly – and meets your business objectives too.

Due diligence is more than a tick-box formality. It’s an opportunity to start your deal on the right foot.

For vendors, a full and focused report is impressive; it shows you’ve nothing to hide, and you’re serious about delivering value. And for buyers, it’s an early chance to start building a positive rapport with your target business.

We work for buyers, vendors, and investors – as a standalone service, or part of a wider deal. As a result, we understand what each party needs. And that means your report will be realistic, robust, and highly relevant to the drivers motivating the deal.

And we’re not afraid to give clear opinions, so you always know where you stand.

It’s a valuable process – and a document you can use for years to come.

A proven process that drives successful deals

We take due diligence seriously. We create a valuable report that avoids renegotiations and safeguards your deal.

Connection – we build a connection with our clients to become an extension of their team. We lay the foundation for strong relationships with targets that will benefit our clients in the future integration of their business.

Practical advice – completing the deal is only the beginning. We can support our buy-side clients on practical advice post deal, including a “100-day plan”, including key cyber, tax and accounting environment recommendations.

Experience led – our senior-led team begins by asking the key open-ended questions, enabling us to uncover valuable commercial insights and foster strong connections with our clients from the outset.

Opinions and recommendations – we provide clear opinions and findings that we stand behind. Where risks are identified, we then provide constructive advice on how to mitigate and manage these risks and to help get the deal done.

Data analytics – we have access to data experts who leverage advanced analytics to enhance efficiency and uncover granular commercial insights that may not be apparent in traditional accounting data.

Clearly visualised – Harnessing data visualisation and down-to-earth language to make the meaning and trends easy to understand.

Leading tax experts are part of the team

We work closely with our tax experts which means that your transaction will be structured in the most tax efficient way and won’t have unintended or adverse tax consequences. Ways in which our tax team can help:

Buy-side red-flag due diligence – identifying material tax risks and recommendations for how to mitigate them, including any required post-completion corrections or indemnities.

Buy-side full due diligence – tailored to the target and its industry, we report on the tax control environment and the tax status of the business and consider any risks, and how to migrate them.

Buy-side structuring – providing tax advice for the acquirer, spanning private equity backed acquisitions, advising on vendor roll, deductibility of interest, tax deductibility of acquisition costs and VAT, as well as management equity and incentives.

Vendor due diligence – we help businesses prepare for sale by seeking to identify material tax risks which could impact the sale process and/or the value of the business.

Vendor advisory – working with corporate and individual vendors to advise on the tax consequences of the sale of their company, including any pre-transaction structuring, the capital gains implications, any rollover, the application of reliefs and post-completion compliance.

Be it buy- or sell-side, with our tax team of over 130 members, we are able to provide a complete tax service to support both the transaction itself and any other consequential or related matters.

Focused support for buyers, investors, and sellers

“I have now completed several due diligence engagements with PKF Francis Clark. They managed the engagement with the target and understood the complexities of the business model quickly. They delivered a report that was thorough, value packed, and reader friendly. ” Nick Mettyear, Senior Investment Manager, Foresight Group LLP

“PKF Francis Clark were appointed to undertake very detailed financial due diligence work on the group. Although this appeared daunting, the team skilfully broke the work into bite-size chunks, which allowed us to fully understand what they needed. Despite a short deadline, they were very patient and thorough and were friendly and professional at all times. ” Mark Norton, Managing Director, Prima Bakeries Group

“The team went the extra mile to support us through the transaction, adapting to changing timelines, working efficiently and collaboratively to minimise disruption to the business, and bringing a commercial perspective.” Miles Otway, Partner, Connection Capital

“It was a pleasure to work with the highly professional team on another due diligence engagement. We valued PKF Francis Clark’s commercial input and clear recommendations in what was a thorough and efficient diligence exercise.” Tom Coey, Investment Director, Rockpool

“The team invested time in understanding our requirements and it was a pleasure to work with them collaboratively throughout the due diligence process. We agreed the scope of their work up front but as our focus on aspects of the business evolved, the team were very flexible and able to adapt their approach accordingly. The quality, timeliness and relevance of their due diligence reporting was excellent, and good communications were maintained throughout the project.” Dawn Oatley, Group CFO, Inuvi Group

“It was a pleasure to be able to work with the team at PKF Francis Clark on our investment. They did a great job in identifying the key issues. As usual, the PKF team maintained a dedicated approach throughout and provided insightful advice in a timely manner. We look forward to working with them again on future transactions.” David Wrench, Partner, YFM

Selling your business workshops

Learn more about your options when selling your business. Explore questions including how to value your business realistically, how to maximise that value when you exit, raising finance through equity or debt, what effective business succession planning looks like, and more.

To register your interest, click the button below to contact Gemma Lloyd-Jones or email [email protected].

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