The model cannot be interrogated
A forecast whose assumptions are buried in hard-coded cells cannot survive a serious question. Investors do not need to agree with your assumptions, but they do need to be able to see and test them.
05 · Financial Guidance & Capital
Be ready before the conversation starts.
Funding, refinancing and sale processes are won or lost on preparation. The business that can answer a difficult question the same afternoon holds the timetable. The one still assembling a spreadsheet does not.
If the situation is urgent
Tell us at the start, not once we have built rapport.
A number of the people who reach this page are not planning a funding round in nine months. They are working out whether the business can meet its obligations in nine weeks. If that is where you are, it changes what we do first and it changes nothing about how you will be treated.
There is no judgement in that conversation. Cash pressure is a condition businesses pass through, frequently for reasons that had nothing to do with a bad decision, and the earlier it is looked at squarely the more options remain open.
What happens if you write today
If your situation requires a licensed insolvency practitioner or a regulated adviser, we will say so plainly and help you find one. Recognising that early is worth more than any engagement we could sell you.
Write to us directly01 · The problem
Capital conversations expose everything at once.
A lender, an investor or a buyer will ask questions your board has never asked, in a compressed period, with the answers on the record. Preparation is not presentation. It is finding those answers before someone else does.
The narrative and the numbers disagree
Where the pitch describes one business and the accounts describe another, the discrepancy is always found. It costs more in credibility than the underlying issue would have cost in candour.
Diligence starts before you are ready
Contracts, records and consents that were never organised become an unmanaged workstream at the busiest possible moment, and delay is the most common reason a good deal deteriorates.
The process runs the business
Funding and sale processes consume the leadership team. Without preparation and a clear division of labour, trading suffers during exactly the months your figures are under scrutiny.
02 · What you receive
Materials that hold up under scrutiny.
Everything below is built to be handed to a sceptical third party. That is a different standard from an internal document, and it is the standard we work to from the first draft.
An important boundary
We prepare businesses and their materials for capital conversations. We are not authorised to give regulated financial or investment advice, we do not arrange or broker finance, and we receive no commission or introducer fee from any lender, investor or adviser. Where you need a regulated party (a corporate finance house, a broker, a solicitor, an insolvency practitioner), we will tell you, and our fee does not change depending on which route you take.
03 · How it runs
Preparation is the whole job.
By the time a process is live, the outcome is largely determined by work that was or was not done beforehand. This is why exit readiness is worth starting years earlier than most owners expect.
- 01
Look at it the way they will
We review the business as a lender, investor or buyer would, and write down what they will find. Nothing in that document should be a surprise later.
- 02
Fix what can be fixed
Some findings can be resolved before anyone is approached. Others cannot, and are better disclosed early and framed accurately by you.
- 03
Build the model and the narrative together
Written in parallel so they cannot diverge. Every number in the story traces to a cell someone can open, and every claim traces to evidence.
- 04
Support the process
We answer the financial questions and manage the information flow so your leadership team can keep running the business while the process runs.
04 · Is this the right service?
Five signs this is the work you need.
If any of these is true, the value of starting now rather than later is unusually high.
- A funding, refinancing or sale conversation is expected within the next eighteen months.
- Your forecast lives in a spreadsheet only one person fully understands.
- An approach has been made and you are not certain the business would withstand diligence.
- A single customer, contract or individual accounts for a share of the business that would concern a buyer.
- You intend to step back within a few years and the business currently depends on you daily.
05 · Questions
On financial guidance and capital specifically.
General questions about fees, timing and how engagements are scoped are answered on the frequently asked questions page.
No. We prepare you and your materials, and we support you through the process, but we do not arrange, broker or introduce finance and we take no commission from anyone who does. Where a corporate finance adviser or broker is the right party, we will help you select and brief one, and our fee is the same either way.
Yes, from the first conversation, before any agreement is signed. We will sign your non-disclosure agreement or provide ours, whichever you prefer. Nothing you tell us is discussed outside the engagement team, and we do not name clients publicly without written permission.
Then that is what the assessment will say, in writing, with the reasons and what would need to change. Learning it from us costs a fixed fee. Learning it from six months of rejected approaches costs considerably more, in time and in credibility with the people you will need later.
Earlier than feels necessary: typically eighteen to thirty-six months. The things that most affect what a business is worth, such as customer concentration and owner dependence, take years rather than weeks to change. Starting six months out limits you to presentation rather than substance.
Almost certainly not, and it is the conversation we would rather have sooner. The first step is a short cash view so the position is factual rather than feared. If the right answer involves a licensed insolvency practitioner or another regulated party, we will tell you directly and help you get there. We would not take an engagement that was not going to help.
06 · Start the conversation
Tell us what is actually holding the business back.
An introductory consultation is a straightforward conversation about your position and your priorities. No charge, no proposal deck, and no obligation to go further.
- What to expect
- Forty-five minutes with a senior adviser, followed by a short written summary of what we heard.
- What to bring
- Your last set of management accounts, if you have them. If you do not, that is already useful to know.
Vader Barclay ConsultingManagement · Accountancy · Marketing