M&A Fees

Fee policy

The M&A Process is fraught with risk of the deal not completing after months of work. Frequently deals fall over just before they’re due to close. Our Fees policy include a retainer, which covers some of our basic costs plus a success fee on closing a deal. This helps us to align with our client’s goal of getting the deal closed.

The Lehman scale

We are mainly engaged by international clients and so we use the Lehman scale, which is an internationally recognised success fee method used by most investment banks.


RETAINER

To mitigate risk, particularly our investment in time, we have a retainer which is a monthly fee as opposed to a fixed lump sum on signing up. The longer the acquisition process, the higher the risk of the advisor incurring significant losses especially when not closing a deal. The Retainer fees structure is:

ADD ON & SELL TO
£10,000.00 at signed Non Binding Offer “NBO”

BUY & SELL SIDE
£5,000.00 per month (Maximum 6 Months with a floor at Minimum £15,000.00).


BUY SIDE / ADD ON / SELL TO
SUCCESS FEE

This method aligns the interests of the buyer and advisory because for every incremental increase in value, we make less money.

DOUBLE LEHMAN SCALE (BUY SIDE FEE)

  • 5% up to £1M+
  • 4% from £1M to £2M+
  • 3% from £2M to £3M+
  • 2% from £3M to £4M+
  • 1% over £4M

LEHMAN SCALE (ADD ON/SELL TO FEE)

  • 2.5% up to £1M+
  • 2% from £1M to £2M+
  • 1.5% from £2M to £3M+
  • 1% from £3M to £4M+
  • 0.5% over £4M

SELL SIDE SUCCESS FEE

The Reverse Lehman Scale employs a linear percentage. It better aligns the interest of the advisor and seller because the fee percentage rises with every incremental rise in value.

REVERSE LEHMAN SCALE

  • 2% up to £40M+
  • 2.5% from £40M to £50M+
  • 3.5% from £50M to £60M+
  • 4% over £60M