Buy-side acquisition advice · UK

You built the business.
Now the market is moving.

Your competitors are buying. Good targets are disappearing. The question isn't whether you should grow through acquisition. It's whether you move before the window closes.

70%
Acquisitions fail
to deliver the financial results that were promised at the point of sale.
42%
Strategic mismatch
caused by buying what was listed, not what was actually right for the business.
31%
Diligence failures
where problems were visible but nobody challenged them before signing.
27%
Integration collapse
from no real plan for the first 90 days. The deal closes. The value drifts.
Become the buyer your competitors have to think about
Capture the value you spent years building
Build a business with real strategic options
Why founders don't move

The ambition is there. So what's actually in the way?

Growth feels too slow for the opportunity in front of you
You're hitting 10–15% a year and it feels like grinding. Competitors are buying scale you can't match organically. Every inch of growth feels harder than it should, and the gap between you and whoever's consolidating widens a little more every quarter.
Someone else keeps buying the businesses you should have
You see the announcements. A competitor just acquired someone you'd spoken to. A PE-backed group is circling your market. Sellers you'd mentally noted are going off-market. The best positions are being taken, and you weren't in the room.
You've looked at things, but nothing turns into a real strategy
A broker email here. A conversation there. No clear criteria, no proper process, nothing completing. You've spent time on things that went nowhere, and you still don't have a pipeline. Activity has replaced progress.
You can't get out of the business long enough to run it
Acquisition keeps slipping down the list. It's always "when things slow down." They don't. The strategy stays in your head, never quite becoming a decision, while the market keeps moving without you.
Who we are
Mike Ferguson, Founder of Acquisitiv
Mike Ferguson
Founder, Acquisitiv · ACCA · Glasgow

I kept seeing the same thing. Founders with great businesses, in markets that were starting to consolidate, watching competitors buy the businesses they should have bought. Not because they lacked ambition. Because nobody had given them a clear view of the opportunity, a proper process to capture it, or advice that was genuinely on their side.

So I built Acquisitiv. After 17 years across Morgan Stanley, turnaround work, and running businesses as Finance Director, I'd sat on every side of the table. I knew which conversations advisers skip. Which numbers don't get challenged. What happens in the first 90 days when the deal's done and the advisers have gone home.

Acquisitiv is a buy-side acquisition firm for UK founders. We help you find the right business to buy, run the deal, and make it work after completion. Strategy, origination, execution, integration. End to end.

What makes us different: we're buy-side only, we find businesses before they're for sale, and we've been inside the businesses that deals create. Most advisers are incentivised to close. We're structured to be honest.

Operator experience: we've lived inside the businesses that deals create, not just the deal rooms
Buy-side only: we never represent the seller. No split loyalties, ever.
Off-market origination: access the best targets before your competitors even know they exist
Built for founders: no juniors, no handoffs, no one who hasn't personally carried the downside
How it works

From "we should look at this" to buying the right business.

01
Getting started
Book your Expansion Briefing
One conversation. We prepare a bespoke view of where the acquisition opportunity sits in your market, which routes look credible, and whether now is the right moment. Free. No commitment.
02
Our process
We build the strategy and run the deal
Written acquisition plan. Off-market target origination. Valuation, negotiation, diligence, completion. You make the calls. We do the work. You stay focused on the business you already run.
03
Post-close integration
We don't hand over the keys and walk away
We stay for the first 90 days. Staff, clients, culture, reporting. The period where most acquisitions quietly lose the value they paid for. We make sure yours doesn't.
Book Your Expansion Briefing Free. One conversation. No commitment.
What's at stake

The market will consolidate.
The question is whether you're leading it.

✓
If you move with a clear strategy
You know exactly what you're buying and what you'll walk away from
Competitors and sellers start factoring you into their thinking
Scale, capability, and market depth that organic growth can't match
Real options: raise capital, sell from strength, or keep acquiring
The position you earned, captured before someone else gets there
✗
If you wait or move without a plan
Competitors buy scale, people, and contracts you had the position to take
Best targets go off-market because there was no process and no timing
You do a deal reactively, because the opportunity appeared, not because the strategy demanded it
The business stays well-run but never becomes strategically powerful
The worst outcome isn't missing a deal. It's watching someone else build the position you saw was there.
The Expansion Briefing

A company-specific view of where acquisition could take your business.

One conversation. A bespoke briefing built around your business and your market. Free. No commitment required.

Book Your Expansion Briefing
1
One 30-minute conversation
Your business, your market, your ambition. No pitch, no deck.
2
A bespoke briefing
Where the opportunity sits, which routes look credible, what we'd recommend. Prepared specifically for you.
3
A straight answer
If there's something worth pursuing, you'll know. If there isn't, you've saved time. Either way, you'll leave clearer.
Not ready to book yet? Download The Consolidation Advantage Report. A straight look at whether your market is consolidating and what that means for your business.
Download The Consolidation Report