Our approach
Acquisition is the beginning, not the end.
Buying a company is the easy part. What happens in the ten years afterwards is the work, and it is the part we are built for.
The value chain
Four stages, in order, repeated for as long as we own a business.
01
Acquire
We buy established, profitable UK businesses from owners planning their succession. One owner, one business, one conversation at a time.
02
Strengthen
We improve operations, commercial performance, technology and management — removing inefficiency and reducing dependency on the founder.
03
Grow
Stronger businesses grow. We invest in the people, systems and market position that let a company expand on its own foundations.
04
Compound
We do not sell. Cash generated is reinvested, and value builds over decades rather than a fund cycle.
Long-term ownership
No disposal date, so no decisions made to suit one.
We hold the businesses we buy indefinitely. That removes the deadline that shapes most acquisition behaviour: there is no five-year clock, no exit narrative to protect and no pressure to make the numbers look a particular way for a future buyer.
In practice it means we can spend money in year two on something that pays back in year six, and we can leave a business alone when leaving it alone is the right answer.
Operational improvement
Better systems, not fewer people.
Most established businesses have grown faster than their processes. Quoting is slow, scheduling lives in someone's head, and month-end reporting arrives too late to act on. Fixing that raises capacity and lowers frustration at the same time.
We work with the people already doing the job, because they know where the friction is. Our interest is in a business that can comfortably carry more work, not in a business that costs less to run.
Technology
Modern tools where they genuinely help.
Sensible ERP and CRM, proper data, automation of the repetitive administrative work, and clear dashboards for the people making decisions. Where artificial intelligence removes real drudgery we will use it; where it is decoration we will not.
Technology is introduced gradually, alongside the existing way of working, and only kept where it makes the day better for the people using it.
People
Existing teams stay, and gain room to grow.
The employees are a large part of what we are buying. Continuity is the plan: same colleagues, same premises, same work. Where a business has been thin at management level we recruit alongside the team rather than over it.
We invest in training, apprenticeships and equipment, and we make progression possible in companies where, historically, the only route up was to wait.
Commercial growth
Selling well what the business already does well.
Many owner-managed companies have never had a deliberate commercial function. Pricing has drifted, marketing is word of mouth, and no one is responsible for following up quotes. Attending to that is usually the fastest honest growth available.
We also look at adjacent customers and geographies the business could serve with the capability it already has, before considering anything more ambitious.
Capital allocation
Profits reinvested where they earn their keep.
Earnings are allocated deliberately: machinery, premises, systems, working capital to take on larger contracts, and occasionally an acquisition. We are patient with capital and specific about what it is expected to do.
Because we are not servicing an aggressive financing structure, a business we own can fund the equipment it needs without waiting for a good quarter.
Further acquisitions
Adding capability, not consolidating for scale.
Where it strengthens a company we own, we will buy complementary businesses — a neighbouring discipline, a supplier, a firm in another region with the same customers. Each keeps its own identity and management.
We do not buy businesses in order to strip them into an existing one. A group is useful when it shares expertise, purchasing and systems while leaving the operating companies intact.
Sustainable value creation
The point is a stronger business, year after year.
Value compounds when a company is genuinely better: more capable, better run, trusted by more customers, and able to keep good people. Everything above is in service of that rather than of a valuation.
It is a slower way to build something, and it is the only method that survives the absence of a buyer at the end.
Acquisition is the beginning, not the end.
The acquisition process
Six steps, at whatever pace suits you.
01
Conversation
An initial confidential discussion about the business and what you want to happen next. It usually takes under an hour, by phone or in person.
No documents, no financials and no advisers are needed for this. Nothing is committed by talking to us.
02
Understanding
We learn about the company: its financial performance, its customers, how the operation actually runs and where the opportunity sits.
This is a small number of quiet meetings and some straightforward information. Your team need not know it is happening.
03
Proposal
Where there is mutual alignment, Crathwick provides a clear acquisition proposal: price, structure, timetable and what happens after completion.
We show the arithmetic behind the number so you can follow it without an adviser translating it.
04
Due diligence
Both parties work through financial, commercial, operational and legal diligence, with your solicitor alongside ours.
It is a confidential review rather than an audit, and it is designed to confirm what we have already been told.
05
Completion
The transaction completes and ownership transitions. Funds are paid, documents are signed and the announcement is made in the way you want it made.
You decide who is told, in what order, and what is said.
06
Next chapter
We work with management and employees to support the company's continued development: reporting, systems, investment and recruitment where it is needed.
You can stay involved for a while, or hand over and step away. Both are normal.