For buyers agents
You find the asset. We make sure the finance holds it up.
Your client's offer is only as strong as their finance. You find the asset and run the deal; we verify the earnings behind the price and prepare the case the lender will actually approve.
Where the line sits
Two jobs, and neither one covers the other.
What you do
- Find the business, on market or off it
- Read the operation, the sector and the fit
- Negotiate the price, the terms and the conditions
- Manage the campaign through to settlement
- Hold the client relationship, before and after
What we do
- Rebuild the earnings from bank statements, BAS lodgements and the ledger
- Test every add-back the vendor has claimed, one at a time
- Normalise owner wages and related-party rent to market
- Find the working capital gap before it becomes your client's problem
- Put the findings in writing, with the evidence attached
We are not licensed as a business agent and we do not hold ourselves out as one. Searching, negotiating and dealing in businesses is your work, and it stays your work, so there is nothing of yours for us to take. We prepare the file at fixed fees your client can see up front. We do not arrange finance ourselves; where the client wants the facility arranged, we refer it to The Lending Lab, where Nick is a credit representative, and the file goes with them. Same client, complementary lanes.
Why it is worth building in
Three ways an untested number costs your client.
The price rests on a number nobody tested.
Small business prices are built on adjusted earnings, and adjusted earnings are built on add-backs. If those go into the negotiation unchallenged, your client is negotiating against a figure the vendor chose.
A finance decline can unwind your work.
Deals that service perfectly well still get knocked back on presentation. A tested earnings case travels straight into the lender submission, which is where most of the last-minute failures come from.
An arm's-length report carries further.
A price adjustment argued from evidence lands differently to one argued from instinct, with a vendor and with a credit team. It also protects you, because the number came from someone with no stake in whether the deal completes.
What your client gets
The finance file, and the right specialist to test the numbers.
We used to do the financial due diligence ourselves and price it off a published schedule. We stopped. There were more enquiries than one desk could take and still do properly, and whoever arranges the finance on a deal is on one side of it.
So the offer to you is narrower and more useful. We advise on the acquisition finance and build the documents a credit team expects to read, at fixed fees on the schedule. Where your client wants the lending arranged, it is referred to The Lending Lab, where Nick is a credit representative. And we introduce your client to a separate diligence specialist, matched to the sector and the size of the transaction, at no charge and taking nothing for it.
You represent the buyer and do not do the financial verification. Neither do we now, which means there is one less firm in the transaction with a reason to hold on to your client.
Your client stays yours
We are never competing for the deal.
On referred matters we do not pitch, cross-sell or accept finance mandates, and that commitment is written into our terms of engagement rather than left as a line on a page. We never act as a business agent, so the transaction itself was never ours to take. Our fee is fixed and payable whichever way the analysis lands, so we have no stake in whether the sale completes.
And if the numbers do not hold up, your client hears it in writing with the evidence attached. A documented no protects the relationship you have built far better than a deal that comes apart after settlement. What that looks like in practice.
And when the finance side is done right, the deal a client walks away with can be worth more than the asset itself. See $1.5m of equity in nine months and a projected 55% IRR on a CBD retail centre: both deals prepared and structured by Nick and his team.
Two ways to send a client
Refer for finance, or pick the services
Refer your client for finance and we make sure the whole matter is taken care of, or choose exactly which pieces you want done. Combining several services on the same matter attracts a bundle discount.
Pathway 1: Refer the client for finance
One referral, and the whole matter is taken care of.
Refer your client for the finance and we look after the rest. We do not arrange finance ourselves: the lending is referred to The Lending Lab, where Nick is a credit representative, and we wrap the advisory services around it: the documents, the modelling, the capacity work, so nothing falls between advisers. Diligence is no longer one of them; we introduce an independent specialist and take nothing for it. Where a broker introduced the client, the lending stays with that broker.
Start a finance referralPathway 2: Pick the services you need
Choose exactly what you want done, one service or several.
Point us at the specific work: finance documents, a business plan, a debt capacity read, or any combination. Each is fixed-fee off the schedule on this site, and combining multiple services on the same matter attracts a bundle discount, quoted in writing at scoping. Financial due diligence is not on that list any more. We refer it out and make the introduction.
See the full fee scheduleRead first, pay later
Free and ungated. What a credit team tests once your client’s file arrives, and why practices read differently from trading businesses.
Want a straight read on your deal?
Book a free call with Nick. Bring the numbers you have, and we will tell you the right service level and the fixed fee. No obligation.
Common questions
No, and we cannot. We do not act as a business agent, we do not search for or negotiate acquisitions, and we do not hold the licence that work requires. You find the business and negotiate the deal. We test whether the numbers behind it are real. The two jobs sit side by side and neither one covers the other.
Verification of the earnings the price is built on, rebuilt from source documents. Most advocacy engagements investigate the business commercially and take the vendor's financials largely as presented. We rebuild them from bank statements, BAS lodgements and the general ledger, then tell your client what the business actually earns once an arm's-length owner is running it. That number is what the price and the finance both rest on.
Your client engages us directly, at the published schedule. With their written consent you receive everything we deliver, a walkthrough call, and 30 days of follow-up support. The report is your client's, and it is built to be handed to any broker or lender.
No. On referred matters we do not pitch, cross-sell or accept finance mandates, and that commitment is written into our terms of engagement rather than left as a line on a page. We never act as a business agent, so the transaction was never ours to take, and our fee is fixed and payable whichever way the analysis lands.
A light verification usually runs a week or so and a scoped engagement two to three weeks, but that is the specialist's timetable rather than ours and it is the first thing to confirm with them. Tell us about the deal and we will make the introduction within two business days, free, so the clock starts as early as it can.
Then your client hears that, in writing, with the evidence behind it. The fee is the same either way. A documented no protects your advocacy relationship far better than a deal that unravels after settlement, and it is usually the fastest way to get a price adjustment that sticks.
Send us the target before your client commits. Bring a live deal or one you are unsure of, and the first one gets a no-cost read from Nick on whether the earnings behind the price hold up.
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