How this Scottish entrepreneur is aiming to help firms get in robust shape for being acquired

“By holding up a mirror, I can help them to see what their business could look like from an external purchaser’s perspective.”

“I'm very, very excited about this,” says entrepreneur Andrew Morrison of his new venture, which launches today, aiming to help business-owners get their firms in optimum shape to be sold.

Morrison and wife Emma are debuting Edinburgh-based Business Sale Basecamp, which they have founded after spying a gap in the market for such a service when it came to selling their previous business AM Bid, a specialist in crafting bids and proposals.

The businessman had set up the latter in 2014, and it said it went on to achieve an 80 per cent win rate on contracts worth £50,000 to £500 million in more than 25 sectors. Its acquisition by Leeds-based Bidding, which claims to be the UK's biggest bid, procurement, and contract-management business, was announced in July 2023.

'An external person can sometimes come in and ask what might seem, on the face of it, fairly obvious questions, but they have far-reaching answers,' says Morrison. Picture: DB Media Services.

Morrison hadn’t planned to subsequently start another business different to AM Bid – which came into being after the Scottish Government lowered the threshold for public sector contracts having to go through the full tender process, and secured Scottish Grand Slam-winning rugby captain David Sole for a stint as chairman.

“And it was really just over the last few years, as I was going through the process of selling [AM Bid] that I realised, ‘do you know what, I've got skills that could really help other people in preparing their businesses for sale’,” says Morrison.

Scotland’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) landscape has been deemed “dynamic” in a review of the sector by Experian, which recorded aggregate considerations of just over £1 billion across 80 deals announced north of the Border between January and March 2024.

The report cited Aberdeen’s Union Square shopping centre being bought for £111m as one of the largest deals of the period, while it also flagged a 132 per cent year-on-year jump in deal values, with 100 per cent growth over the same period in mid-market transactions.

Business Sale Basecamp is targeting firms turning over between £1m (with Morrison saying it's easier to sell a business that has smashed this seven-figure threshold) and £20m. It says some might be motivated to sell up as they are operating in industries that could see tech make some of their offering obsolete, while there has been a major post-pandemic re-evaluation of people’s work/life balance.

A study published in February 2024 by accountancy and advisory firm Azets found that fewer than one in ten firms in the UK and Nordics had created and integrated succession plans, but up to 50 per cent of company exits were found to stem from an unexpected approach from a buyer, “often at a time least expected by a business-owner”.

Morrison is keen to help companies polish up their offering to make sure they sparkle in the shop window being browsed by potential buyers to secure an optimum price at the till. And that includes him running the rule over its figures, with AM Bid having been asked to submit 600 documents for its eventual sale to Bidding for what was understood to be a substantial price.

“A lot of businesses have never subjected themselves to any kind of external challenge – they won’t always know what they don't know – so I think by holding up a mirror, I can help them to see what their business could look like from an external purchaser’s perspective,” he says.

“An external person can sometimes come in and ask what might seem, on the face of it, fairly obvious questions, but they have far-reaching answers. And sometimes, when the business-owner is [immersed] in the day-to-day running of their business, then they don't have time to maybe lift their head up and see what's going on elsewhere.”

The entrepreneur is taking what he believes is a uniquely holistic approach, also mindful of the strong emotional element involved in a company-owner selling up. That can include them making a sentimentally rather than factually based decision on how much they feel their firm is worth. And many have created their enterprise from scratch, dedicated almost every waking hour to it, and are keen to see it have longevity after they sell it.

Morrison says his new start-up takes its name from the fact that when you climb Mount Everest, by the time you get to the basecamp, you can already have climbed more than 5,000 of the mountain’s near 9,000-plus metres. “At basecamp you'll meet experienced people that can help you, they've been there before, and they help take you up to the [peak].

“Any business-owner who's thinking about selling their business has already done a lot of good work to make it potentially saleable,” says the entrepreneur, who was in 2022 named Global Thought Leader of the Year by the Association of Proposal Management Professionals.

Morrison aims to harness his extensive network, and, as was the case for AM Bid, is sector agnostic when it comes to clients, but sees the greatest potential among construction, IT/tech, and professional services.

It sounds like there are some similarities with ensuring firms appearing on Dragons’ Den have a robust offering, including a real handle on their figures, to set out their stall for potential investors. And Morrison – a self-proclaimed devotee of the show – agrees. “In the due diligence, the Dragons identify that there are certain things that are not stacking up.”

In terms of how he feels getting back to the “starting blocks” stage of a business, he notes that it inevitably comes with “a few butterflies in your stomach”, but adds that this time he is bringing “ten years’ more experience, more knowledge, a bit more money to invest in this start-up as well”. And, as he aims to help firms get their ducks in a row, “there's still that genuine excitement of opening my doors for business”.