Full Value & Sale Readiness Review.

We measure profit the way a buyer will: EBITDA, which is profit before interest, tax, and the write-down of equipment, vehicles and other assets, with one-off items set out and evidenced.

Then we check how well that profit turns into cash. In pest control, stock in the vans, unpaid invoices on commercial contracts and the swing between the summer peak and the quieter months can tie money up. A profitable year that leaves the bank account thin raises questions a buyer will ask early, so we raise them first.

For most pest control buyers the contract book is the heart of the deal. We go through your service contracts as a buyer would: the customer, the sites, the annual value, the term, the renewal date and the notice period, and whether a customer can end the contract if the owner changes.

We look at how many contracts renewed over the last three years and how many customers left. Where arrangements are verbal, or tied to you personally rather than to the company, the plan says how to put them on a written footing before buyers see them.

Beyond the contracts, we look at how much rests on your largest customers, which customers you have lost and why, and the work you can see coming: agreed jobs, live quotations, and one-off treatments that could lead to a service contract.

A buyer separates enquiries from agreed work, so we do too. Where one commercial client supplies a large share of the work, we look at the terms behind it and at who in your team holds the relationship.

We look at the customer relationships, the technical know-how and the decisions that sit with the shareholders. Nick Hunt leads this part.

Typical questions: who writes the quotes, who holds the technical sign-off, who your larger clients call when something goes wrong, and who covers the rounds when a technician is off. If the answer to most of them is you, a buyer will see a business that depends on someone who is leaving, and that tends to show in the price or in how much of it is deferred.

Buyers look hard at the team, because the team delivers the contracts they are paying for. We look at the managers below you, the technicians you could not afford to lose, and your plans to keep them.

That means employment contracts in writing, a record of each technician's qualifications, such as the RSPH Level 2 Award, CPD on BPCA Registered or BASIS PROMPT, fumigation qualifications and specialist training, pay set against the market, and a plan for anyone close to retirement. Long service and current training records tell a buyer the team is likely to stay.

We check the memberships and certificates a buyer will ask for, and whether they sit with the company. BPCA Servicing Membership is held by the business and assessed every year against BS EN 16636, and CEPA Certified is a separate audit to the same standard. Ask BPCA and your certifying body how a change of owner, or an asset sale, where a buyer buys the business's assets rather than the company itself, affects each one.

Alongside them sit the records that prove the work was done properly: service reports for every visit, the records a food-site auditor expects to find, COSHH assessments and pesticide storage records, method statements, risk assessments and your health and safety history.

A buyer will usually visit, and the vans are often the first thing they see. They will ask whether each vehicle is owned, leased or on finance, with the balance outstanding, and whether MOTs and services are up to date.

An asset register listing vehicles and specialist equipment, with their condition and any finance, answers most of these questions in one document. Tired assets are not a reason to delay a sale, but a buyer will price in anything they expect to replace in the first year.

We look at how work flows through the business: how jobs are booked, how the rounds are planned and technicians scheduled, how quality is checked and how the work is recorded. Written routines and systems that hold the information, rather than one person's memory, tell a buyer the business can take on more work without standards slipping.

We also look at reporting: how soon after the month end your figures arrive, and who acts on them. Gaps here are often quick to close, and closing them makes the rest of a buyer's checks easier.

A buyer's solicitor will ask for the documents behind the business: employment contracts and the staff handbook, disciplinary and grievance records, insurance policies and claims history, property leases, vehicle and equipment finance agreements, and any dispute that is open or threatened.

We look for the gaps most likely to come up, such as an unsigned lease renewal, an insurance that has lapsed or an informal arrangement with a subcontractor, while there is still time to deal with them calmly.