Independent business valuations that stand up to the people who will challenge them - a buyer across the table, HMRC, or the other side of a dispute.
The number is the easy part. Defending it is the work.
Anyone can multiply a profit figure by a sector multiple. A valuation only becomes worth paying for when someone hostile reads it: a buyer looking for reasons to pay less, an HMRC inspector looking for reasons to charge more, a former partner's adviser looking for reasons to disagree. That is the reader we write for.
Our valuations are built the way buyers actually price businesses - because we have been the buyer, more than thirty times, with our own group's capital. Earnings normalised and proven, comparables that are genuinely comparable, and every assumption logged where a challenger can see it.
The more certain your profits are, the more a buyer pays for them.
The one sentence behind every valuation we write
Four situations bring owners to us. The discipline is the same in all of them; the emphasis changes.
The honest number before you go to market - what buyers will actually pay, not what you hope they will. If the number disappoints, you learn it privately, with time to change it, rather than at the end of a failed process.
A pre-offer view on a target: what the earnings really are once the owner's costs and one-offs come out, what the assets are worth, and where the price should land before you anchor the negotiation in the wrong place.
EMI option valuations, growth shares, and fiscal valuations for capital gains, inheritance tax and probate. Prepared so they stand up to HMRC scrutiny - because a challenged valuation costs far more than a careful one.
Partner splits, divorce, minority holdings, transfers under the articles. Independent, evidenced and written to survive the other side's expert reading it line by line.
Four things, and most cheap valuations skip all four.
Earnings you can prove. Owner costs normalised, one-offs stripped, revenue recognition checked - the profit figure a sceptic would accept, not the one in the pitch.
Comparables that are actually comparable - real transactions in your size range and sector, not listed-company multiples applied to a private business at ten times the scale.
A method matched to how the business makes money - earnings, assets or discounted cash flow, chosen for the business rather than for convenience.
A written record of every assumption, so that when someone challenges the number - and someone always does - the answer is already on the page.
If the honest number disappoints you, we will say so - and tell you exactly what would change it, and how long that would take.
Two to four weeks, a fixed fee agreed upfront, and a number we will stand behind in the room.
The purpose decides the rules: a sale, a tax filing and a dispute each carry a different basis of value and a different reader. We agree the scope, the date and the fee before any work starts.
Accounts, management information and the story behind the numbers. Earnings are normalised, the comparables are gathered, and the questions a challenger would ask get answered in the workings.
A written valuation with the method, the evidence and the sensitivities - and an adviser who will explain it, to you or to the person challenging it, in plain English.
A valuation is a price on risk: the more certain your profits are, the more a buyer pays for them. The honest answer comes from evidence - normalised earnings, real comparable transactions and a method matched to how your business makes money - not from a rule-of-thumb multiple.
Yes, routinely. Share scheme valuations for EMI options and growth shares, and fiscal valuations for capital gains, inheritance tax and probate - prepared so they stand up to HMRC scrutiny, with the assumptions logged.
No - and that is the point of using us. A flattering valuation costs you either a failed sale process or a challenged tax position. If the honest number disappoints you, we will say so, and tell you exactly what would change it and how long that would take.
Typically two to four weeks from receiving the information, depending on the complexity of the business and the purpose of the valuation. Urgent deadlines - a deal on the table, a tax filing date - can usually be accommodated. Say so at the start.
A fixed fee, agreed upfront once we understand the purpose and the complexity. No hourly meters, no surprises. Ask us and we will quote you plainly.
Because the multiple is the headline, not the valuation. Two businesses in the same sector with the same profit can be worth very different amounts - owner dependency, customer concentration, contract quality and earnings certainty all move the number. The multiple only means something once the earnings underneath it are proven.
Tell us about the deal. We reply within one working day.
Get in Touchaman@dnsassociates.co.uk
+44 (0)20 8903 6330
Linen Hall, Suite 304, 162–168 Regent Street, London W1B 5TB
