Sell Your Advisory Firm: Guide to Maximise Price [2026]

Sell Your Advisory Firm: Guide to Prepare the Transaction and Maximise Price

If you've been running your advisory firm for years and are starting to think about succession — or simply capitalising on what you've built — this article is for you. It's not a process you can improvise: the difference between a well-executed sale and a poorly prepared one can mean 30-50% in the final price.

Step 1: Understand Your Position Before Going to Market

Before speaking with buyers, you need a realistic valuation. Not what you think your advisory firm is worth, but what the market would pay today. This requires analysing your recurring revenue, margins, client retention, founder dependency, team, and degree of digitalisation.

The best-positioned sellers are those who have done this exercise in advance, ideally 12-18 months before the sale. If you wait until you're in a hurry to sell — due to age, health or fatigue — you'll negotiate from a weak position.

→ Start by valuing your advisory firm with our calculator

Step 2: Prepare the Advisory Firm for Sale

Professional buyers — especially funds and consolidation platforms — conduct exhaustive due diligence. These are the points they examine most closely and where most sellers fail:

Client contracts. Do you have formal contracts or verbal relationships? Portfolios with written contracts, automatic renewal clauses and documented fees are valued significantly better. If you don't have them, start formalising them now.

Clean accounts. Your own accounts must be impeccable. It seems obvious for an advisory firm, but it's surprising how many practices have internal accounting that could be improved. Three years of auditable P&L, with personal expenses segregated, is the minimum.

Team. The buyer purchases the business, not just the portfolio. If your team is stable, competent and has regularised contracts, value increases. If you have high turnover or everything depends on you, it decreases.

Technology. If you already work with A3, Sage Despachos, Holded or other cloud platforms, post-sale integration will be simpler and the buyer will pay more. If you still operate with legacy systems, they'll discount the migration cost from the price.

Portfolio concentration. If your top-10 clients represent more than 35% of your income, diversify before selling.

Step 3: Choose the Right Structure

Not all sales are the same. The main options are:

Total sale (100%). You sell, collect, leave (after a transition period). It's the cleanest option. The buyer pays the full amount, normally with 60-80% at closing and 20-40% as earn-out linked to client retention for 12-24 months.

Partial sale with permanence. You sell a majority (60-80%) but remain as a minority partner and continue in management for 2-3 years. This is common when the buyer is a fund that wants continuity. You can benefit from the second sale (the "second cheque") when the fund sells the platform.

Integration into network/platform. You don't sell directly, but your advisory firm integrates into a network (ETL Global, Afianza) maintaining some local operations but under the group's brand and systems. Compensation can be in cash, equity in the platform, or a combination.

Step 4: Don't Sell Alone — Seek an Adviser

This is where we add most value as an M&A boutique. A specialist adviser does three things you can't do alone: creates competition between buyers (if you only speak to one, you're at a disadvantage), manages the negotiation without personal relationships deteriorating, and structures the transaction to maximise your net tax price.

In the current market, with six platforms actively competing, having three or four at the negotiating table can make a difference of 1-2x EBITDA in the final price.

Step 5: Sale Taxation

Tax planning for the exit is as important as the gross price. Exemption for reinvestment, reduction for family business transmission, taxation as capital gain vs. income, the role of a holding company... each case is different and must be planned in advance. NRRO, our Tax & Legal firm, works jointly with Capittal on the tax structuring of these transactions.

The Time is Now

With 11,000 advisory firms closed in three years, a generation of owners approaching retirement, and six PE-backed platforms competing for targets, the window of maximum demand is open. But it won't last indefinitely: as platforms complete their territorial coverage, buyer pressure will moderate.

If you're thinking about exploring options, the first step is knowing your starting point.

→ Calculate your advisory firm's value