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spectup's sell-side M&A advisory finds the acquirers who fit your company, brings several to the table at once and keeps them competing until signing.
A healthcare business with no process running, taken to a field of strategic acquirers and sold to one of them.
Lane Health
BREATHE
Society Brands
be
CreatorIQ
PopMeals
GORD
KLAYD
OnePulse
Perplexity
Imperative VC
I have worked with two other sell-side M&A advisors. You produced the best results by a very wide margin.
20strategic and acquirer meetings booked on the transaction
MastercardProvidence Equity PartnersCrowe GlobalDailyPayOptimal BlueKochavaHealthWare SystemsMiCamp Solutions
A sale clears just above the second-highest offer, so the underbidder, who never buys your company, sets the price the winner pays.
The only offer is the whole market. There is nothing in the room for it to clear, so it gets accepted, negotiated downward, or declined.
We bring four to one timetable. Acquirer B is the underbidder, and the line settles just above it.
Lose the second offer and the price falls to the third. What moved is who else we still have live.
Holding that underbidder to the end is our job on the transaction. It is why we run to a deadline and keep every qualified party warm.
Illustrative shape.
Talk through your own field of acquirersspectup settles all five with you while the company is still private. Each gets harder for anyone to move once an acquirer has seen the business.
What the company is sold as: which revenue is contracted, which growth is already funded, and which part of its market it holds.
Normalised earnings, the add-backs behind them, and the working capital and net debt positions a buyer’s diligence will go after.
Customer concentration, dependence on the owner, and contracts that do not assign on a change of control.
The number you will sign at, the number you will walk from, and what you will accept in shares, deferred consideration or an earn-out.
Every name written down and approved by you, with the ones you will not have approached struck off before anyone picks up a phone.
Acquirers take spectup’s call because of three things we build and run ourselves.
We build the acquirer list for each transaction, across strategics and funds. You approve every name on it, and we contact nobody before you have.
Our signal engine watches for the week an acquirer becomes a buyer: a fund closed, a platform upsized, a plan to consolidate, a partner moved. Data from our closed transactions is what we check it against, on what each one has bought and at what size.
We publish to 2,000 B2B financial decision makers every two weeks, run a podcast with 8,000 listeners and put a million impressions a year in front of this market. We call an acquirer that has been reading us for a year.
spectup releases the company in three steps and holds every one of them. Lift the bars and see what an acquirer is holding.
Aurex Systems GmbH is a managed IT services provider in Munich, founded in 2009 and run by its two shareholders. Revenue is EUR 18.4M against a published band of EUR 10 to 25M, on 64 staff, with three years of contracted growth. It is for sale because of shareholder succession. Its largest customer is Vantor Logistik AG at 22% of revenue, on a contract that runs to March 2029. Margin is 19.1% and the owners will stay twelve months past closing.
Sector, a revenue band, the growth and the reason for sale. An acquirer can decide whether it wants to look, and it cannot work out who you are from any of it.
We send this. You approved the list
We name you only against an agreement that is signed and dated, and we record which party received what and on which day. Nine parties saw the profile here; not all nine get this far.
Signed non-disclosure agreement
Customer concentration, margin, contract end dates and what the owners do after closing. These are the facts a buyer retrades on, so they go out only once it has put a number in writing.
An offer, in writing, before the room opens
spectup agrees with you what is being sold, the range it goes to market at, the floor you walk from and what we are paid.
You holdA signed engagementWe write what the company is sold as and build the numbers pack behind it, then close off what a buyer’s diligence would otherwise find and price in.
You holdAn information memorandumWe build the acquirer universe for each transaction. You strike off every name you do not want approached, and we contact nobody until you have.
You holdAn approved acquirer listEvery approach goes out with no names first, and each party moves up the disclosure ladder at the pace the process sets.
You holdSigned non-disclosure agreementsEvery party bids to the same date. spectup compares them on price, structure and conditions, and we keep the underbidder live.
You holdIndicative offers, comparedWe run the data room, manage the buyer’s diligence and prepare you and your own legal counsel for the negotiation of price, structure, earn-out and conditions. You and your counsel negotiate; we keep the timetable and the other bidders live behind you.
You holdA signed purchase agreementOpen any row. We name the client where they have agreed to it, and give sector, structure and size band where they have not.
A healthcare business with no process running. We built the acquirer list, took it to a field of strategics on one timetable and ran the sale to signing.
spectup acted for the seller, and was paid by the seller
We held four qualified acquirers to one timetable, with an underbidder live to the end. The second-highest offer is what decided the number the winner paid.
spectup acted for the seller, and was paid by the seller
A no-names approach throughout. We named the company to each party only against a signed non-disclosure agreement, and it sold without the market learning it was available.
spectup acted for the seller, and was paid by the seller
A sale and a capital raise run in parallel, so the shareholders can take whichever of the two prices better. Details are withheld until the process completes.
spectup acts for the seller, and is paid by the seller
The nine low and mid-market sectors where spectup’s acquirer relationships run deepest, and where the transactions above were done.
spectup runs sale processes across four regions with one international team.
Sell-side M&A advisory in the United States and Canada. Strategic acquirers and private equity sponsors in New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Toronto. The largest single pool of buyers for a European mid-market company. Sell-side M&A advisory in Europe. Trade buyers, family holdings and mid-market funds in London, Munich, Berlin, Zurich, Paris, Amsterdam, Milan and Stockholm. Sell-side M&A advisory in the Middle East. Sovereign-backed holdings and family conglomerates in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Doha, buying a foothold in a market. Sell-side M&A advisory in Asia Pacific. Corporate acquirers and regional groups in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney, most often buying a European supplier or a route to its customers.
The buyer for a European company is often on another continent, and spectup approaches them by name from the desk that runs the transaction.
Discuss a saleA spectup partner leads every transaction, with the team on research, materials and outreach.
Meet the whole teamStarted spectup in Berlin in 2022. On a sale he sets the range and the floor with you, and he prepares you for the table when an acquirer tests them.
He knows these processes from the buyer’s side, from private equity at Apax Partners. He builds the acquirer list, works out which of them is buying at your size right now, and makes the first approach himself.
spectup holds a small number of sell-side transactions at a time.
spectup takes it on 01 / 05
spectup would pass
spectup takes it onEUR 10M and aboveLarge enough that a dedicated desk changes the price
spectup would passUnder EUR 10MSized for a regional broker
spectup takes it onHave agreed to sellA group that can decide, and has
spectup would passWant to see what it might fetchA trial run tells the market you are selling, and cannot be undone
spectup takes it onTwo clean years, or a quarter awayWe will put the quarter in before we go out
spectup would passNothing an acquirer could rely onA number that moves under diligence gets retraded at signing
spectup takes it onNone, or informal conversationsThe field is still ours to build
spectup would passOne acquirer, terms already agreedYou need a transaction lawyer
spectup takes it onSuccession, a carve-out, or a fund past its holdSomething an acquirer can act on
spectup would passA price decided before the workWe set the range from comparable sales, never from a target
A monthly retainer while the engagement runs, and a transaction fee, the larger figure, paid only when the sale closes.
Monthly retainer+Transaction fee
A monthly retainer while the process runs, then one transaction fee at closing.
No transaction fee. You have paid the retainers, and you keep what the process produced.
The desk, the equity story, the numbers pack, the acquirer list and every approach. Flat for the term.
A percentage of transaction value, capped. Paid only at closing, once the proceeds are with you, which is why we do not take on a sale we cannot close.
I am
Sell-side M&A advisory is the engagement to sell a company, led by the seller’s advisor. spectup sets the range and the floor with you, writes the equity story, builds a list of acquirers you approve before anyone is contacted, and runs several of them to one deadline. We are paid by the sell side only, never by a buyer.
The transaction fee is the substance and it falls as transaction size rises, so a percentage quoted without a size band tells you almost nothing. You have both figures in writing after the first call.
Longer than most owners expect, and most of it happens before the market sees anything. The equity story, the numbers pack and the acquirer list are finished first. After that it depends on how many parties convert and how clean diligence is. Every acquirer bids to the same date.
Not from us. An acquirer first sees a one-page profile with no name on it. We name you only against a signed and dated non-disclosure agreement that records who received what, and the data room opens last, to parties that have already made an offer. You approve the list before a single company is contacted, so the only people who ever hear the question are the ones you put on it.
No. You and your own counsel negotiate with the buyer. We set the range and the floor with you beforehand and keep more than one bidder live.
You get a band, and you get it before you sign anything. It comes off transactions in your sector at your size that closed, adjusted for what a buyer prices differently in your business: customer concentration, how much revenue is contracted, and how much of the company runs without you in it. The band then moves once acquirers start competing.
Two documents, two moments. The teaser is one page with no name on it. The memorandum carries your name and your numbers, and goes only to parties that have signed.
Size decides it. A broker lists a business and works from the buyers who come to the listing. An advisor builds the acquirer list from scratch and runs several of them to one deadline. Under about EUR 10M a regional broker fits the transaction better, and we will say so on the first call.
Both, on the same list and to the same deadline. A strategic pays for what your business does inside its own.
Yes. It is structured differently from a full exit, because the buyer is also buying you staying, and that goes in the engagement letter before anyone is approached.
That is a term, and terms are negotiable for exactly as long as there is more than one bidder. Retention, your own role after closing, and what gets announced and when all sit in the offer next to the price. One buyer writes those on its own.
Ask four things. Who leads the transaction. How many transactions the desk runs at once. Whether the acquirer list is built or licensed from a database everyone else buys. What happens to the fee if the company does not sell. Our answers: a spectup partner, a small number of transactions at a time, a list we build ourselves, and a transaction fee due only when the sale closes and the purchase price is paid. To see how thirteen firms answer them, our comparison of M&A advisory firms scores each one on the same five checks.
Two years of accounts a buyer can verify, and a written account of what the business does without you in it.
Ask that of everyone, and ask for the sector, the size band and the structure. Ours are healthcare, logistics and IT services, EUR 10M and above, to strategics and to funds.
A spectup partner leads every transaction, with the team behind it on research, materials and outreach.
You have paid the retainer and no transaction fee, and you keep what the process produced: the equity story, the numbers pack, the acquirer list, and written feedback from every party that looked. We will also tell you why it did not clear. It is almost always the number, the timing, or something in the accounts a buyer could not get comfortable with.
The acquirers run their own due diligence on your company, through their accountants and counsel. We run the process around it: the data room, the question log, and one timetable every bidder works to. Your own accountants and counsel answer the financial, tax and legal questions.
Yes. A bank or advisory firm advising on a sell-side transaction can bring us in to find and approach the acquirers for its client’s sale. We run it as deal origination, on a monthly retainer plus a Transaction Fee.
