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Beauhurst Webinar - How to Find Companies that are Likely to Exit

Predictive searches for companies that are looking to be acquired or IPO, and how to find the key people at these firms

Updated this week

Looking at IPO data from January 2021 to October 2025, and Acquisition data from October 2024 to October 2025, we can draw insights to help provide predictive searches targeting those who may be lining up an exit event soon!

Jump to the relevant section by clicking on the tabs on the right hand side of your screen!

Watch our Webinar recording from February 2025:

Recording:

Search Templates:

Finding Companies

Executive Summary

A brief summary of the findings and reasoning for the search templates.

Companies who were the buyer when acquiring another company...

  • On average had a turnover of £30M+, with an EBITDA over £3M, and over 100 employees.

  • Commonly, these firms had net assets over £3M, and were paying directors over £400k annually

  • These firms were valued at £15m+, had often scaled up and featured on a high-growth list.

  • The most common auditors for these firms were BDO, PWC, RSM, Deloitte and EY.

  • Over half of the acquiring companies has headquarters across London, the South East or the North West.

Companies that were acquired by another company...

  • On average had a turnover of £15M+, making a profit of £1M+, and were paying directors £200k+ annually.

  • Were valued at £5M+, and over a quarter had scaled-up at some point.

  • Many of these were audited by big firms such as Azets, Cooper Parry, BDO, TC Group and PWC.

  • Over half of the acquired companies had headquarters in the South of England (South East, South West and London).

Companies that have IPO'd since the start of 2021...

  • IPO’d on the AIM, at a £50M+ market capitalisation

  • Were profitable, had over 40 employees, had around £1M in Net Assets, and were paying directors £250k+ annually.

  • On average were valued at £15M+, and had 3 fundraises over their lifetime.

  • A good proportion had scaled-up at some point, and made an acquisition


Tweaks + Additional Criteria

These are potential ways that you can narrow down your searches to a cohort of companies that are more prevalent to the work you're undertaking.

Often, these elements may make a company more likely to be involved in an exit event.

Methodology behind searches

The below is data taken from the Beauhurst platform, upon which the search templates have been built upon.


IPOs

The underlying data looks at all IPO events from X

The most common exchanges over the January 2021 to October 2025 period were as follows:

Stock Exchange

Number of Listings

Alternative Investment Market

63

London Stock Exchange

26

Aquis Stock Exchange

21

NASDAQ Stock Market

11

Börse Frankfurt

6

New York Stock Exchange

3

6 different exhanges

1

General Statistics on IPOs

Mean
Median

(What % reported this)

All to 3sf

January 2021-October 2025
(137 IPOs)

January 2025-October 2025
(18 IPOs)

Announced Amount

£49.0M

£7.75m

(86.8%)

£28.5M

£3.40M

(66.7%)

Market Capitalisation (GBP)

£403M

£50.0M

(89.0%)

£347M

£44.0M

(72.2%)

Financial Analysis

Mean
Median

(What % reported this)

All to 3sf

January 2021-October 2025
(137 IPOs)

January 2025-October 2025
(18 IPOs)

Turnover

£68.7m
£2.48m

(77.2%)

£55.2m

£667k

(61.1%)

Operating Profit

£1.13M

-£490k

(77.2%)

£318k

£103k

(61.1%)

EBITDA

£3.39M

-£253k

(77.2%)

£18.0m

-£286k

(61.1%)

Cash

£53.6m

£1.12m

(83.1%)

£14.5M

£333k

(72.2%)

Number of Employees

215

40.0

(75.0%)

119

11.0

(55.6%)

Director Emoluments

£508k

£271k

(77.2%)

£318k

£103k

(61.1%)

Dividends Payable

-£780k

£0

(77.2%)

-£740k

£0

(61.1%)

Audit Fees

£183k

£30k

(83.1%)

£101k

£26.4k

(72.2%)

Net Assets

£25.7m

£1.26m

(83.1%)

£57.7m

£841k

(72.2%)

Funding and Grant History

Mean
Median
(% of companies that this data applies to)

January 2021-October 2025
(137 IPOs)

January 2025-October 2025
(18 IPOs)

Latest pre-money valuation

£150m

£13.5m

(66.9%)

£46.1M

£27.9M

(50%)

Latest post-money valuation

£162.2m

£16.0m

(66.9%)

£49.7M

£29.2M

(50%)

Latest Turnover multiples following the most recent fundraising

478

2.97

(18.5%)

21.0

21.0

(5.56%)

Number of grants received

1.36

0

(99.2%)

0.17

0

(16.7%)

Total amount received in grants

£4.67M

£1.96M

(24.6%)

£214k

£214k

(11.1%)

Number of fundraisings completed

3.39

3

(99.2%)

2.06

1

(55.6%)

Total amount received in fundraisings

£58.5m

£5.75m

(79.2%)

£14.5M

£3.05M

(55.6%)

Signals

Signs of growth, innovation and risk

For more information on this, read this page about our Signals!

Signal

​% of companies with this signal

All numbers to 3sf

January 2021-October 2025
(137 IPOs)

January 2025-October 2025
(18 IPOs)

Equity Fundraising

78.1%

55.6%

Debt Fundraising

8.0%

5.6%

MBO/MBI

5.1%

0%

Accelerator

10.9%

5.6%

10% Scaleup

40.9%

33.3%

20% Scaleup

37.2%

27.8%

High Growth List

26.3%

5.6%

Acquired

10.9%

33.3%

Made Acquisition

41.6%

11.1%

Academic Spinout

6.6%

11.1%

R&D Grant

22.6%

11.1%

Patent

11.7%

0%


Advisors Involved in IPOs

January 2021-October 2025
(137 IPOs)

January 2025-October 2025
(18 IPOs)

BDO - 15

Crowe UK - 4

Crowe UK - 15

First Sentinel - 3

Goldman Sachs - 8

Beaumont Cornish - 2

Hill Dickinson - 8

Cavendish - 2

Neville Registrars - 8

Charles Russell Speechlys- 2

Alma PR - 7

Clear Capital Markets - 2

Cairn Financial Advisers - 7

Neville Registrars - 2

Citigroup Global Markets - 7

45 Firms - 1

Clear Capital Markets - 7

Fieldfisher - 7

First Sentinel - 7

Fladgate - 7

Link Group - 7

Panmure Liberum - 7

Berenberg - 6

Liberum Capital - 6

Zeus Capital - 6

Acquisitions

The underlying data looks at all acquisitions from October 2024 to the start of October 2025.

Fund Involvement

256 of the acquisitions found were PE Buyouts, representing 9.33% of the buyers in the acquisitions.

Of these, the most common buyer was Business Angel(s) with 16 acquisitions, followed by GIL Investments, Rcapital and Sullivan Street Partners, all with 3.

Financial Analysis

Mean
Median

(What % reported this)

All to 3sf

Acquiring Companies

Acquired Companies

Turnover

£993M
£34.3M

(35.4%)

£115M

£18.3M
(26.5%)

Operating Profit

£103M

£1.71M

(35.4%)

£7.61M

£968k

(26.5%)

EBITDA

£191M

£3.19M

(34.9%)

£13.3M

£1.5M

(26.2%)

Cash

£118M

£914k

(57.0%)

£7.61M

£242k

(93.3%)

Number of Employees

2040

99

(49.3%)

211

19

(83.8%)

Director Emoluments

£1.16M

£412k

(35.6%)

£568k

£216k

(27.1%)

Dividends Payable

-£41.8M

£0

(35.5%)

-£2.93M

£0

(26.5%)

Audit Fees

£377k

£9000

(57.0%)

£30.8k

£0

(93.3%)

Net Assets

£354M

£2.75M

(57.0%)

£18.0M

£513k

(93.3%)


​​Funding Analysis

Mean
Median
(% of companies that this data applies to)

Acquiring Companies

Acquired Companies

Latest pre-money valuation

£259M
£15.2M

(17.6%)

£37.1M

£5.30M

(15.0%)

Latest post-money valuation

£272M

£17.5M

(17.6%)

£42.8M

£6.12M

(15.0%)

Latest Turnover multiples following the most recent fundraising

10.1

1.89

(26.2%)

108

3.10

(18.2%)

Number of grants received

0.45

0

(10.3%)

0.24

0

(8.20%)

Total amount received in grants

£2.56M

£224k

(10.3%)

£934k

£225k

(8.20%)

Number of fundraisings completed

0.76

0

(28.9%)

0.57

0

(19.6%)

Total amount received in fundraisings

£59.8M

£4.40M

(28.9%)

£14.3M

£1.59M

(19.6%)


Signals

Signs of growth, innovation and risk

For more information on this, read this page about our Signals!

Signal

​% of companies with this signal

All numbers to 3sf

Acquiring Companies

Acquired Companies

Equity Fundraising

26.2%

18.2%

Debt Fundraising

3.42%

2.35%

MBO/MBI

8.28%

3.08%

Accelerator

4.86%

4.71%

10% Scaleup

43.6%

26.4%

20% Scaleup

33.7%

19.1%

High Growth List

23.8%

12.5%

Academic Spinout

0.48%

0.95%

R&D Grant

4.20%

3.87%

Patent

5.40%

3.80%


Most common auditors

Number represents the number of financial statements mentioned in

Acquiring Companies Top 10

Acquired Companies Top 10

BDO - 61

Azets Audit Services - 34

PWC - 60

Cooper Parry Group - 32

RSM UK Audit - 60

BDO - 30

Deloitte - 55

TC Group - 30

EY - 43

PWC - 29

Grant Thornton - 35

RSM UK Audit - 28

Cooper Parry - 30

EY - 27

Forvis Mazars - 28

Grant Thornton UK - 23

Azets Audit Services - 27

MHA - 22

KPMG - 25

Forvis Mazars - 20

Advisors Involved in Acquisitions

Advisor

Number of Acquisitions Involved With

Browne Jacobson

32

Hill Dickinson

28

Ernst & Young (EY)

27

Grant Thornton (GT)

27

KPMG

27

KBS Corporate

26

BDO

24

Dow Schofield Watts (DSW)

24

Gateley

23

RSM

22

Addleshaw Goddard

21

Deloitte

21

DLA Piper

19

Christie & Co

17

Freeths

15

Most common headquarters location

  • On a country level, 78.6% of the Acquiring companies are based in the UK, followed by 8.64% in the United States, 1.85% in Sweden and 1.45% in Germany.

  • For the UK-based acquiring companies, 30.3% are based in London, followed by 13.8% in the South East, 11.1% in the North West, and 7.17% in the South West.

    • Scotland accounted for 6.28%, Wales 3.05% and Northern Ireland 1.43%

  • As for Acquired companies, for those with a UK head-office, 31.2% were headquartered in London, followed by 12.5% in the South East, 7.60% in the South West, and 7.35% in the West Midlands.

    • Scotland accounted for 6.17%, Wales 2.96% and Northern Ireland 2.87%

👋Get in touch with the team

For any more information on how to run similar searches yourself, what kind of data Beauhurst has, or how you can run similar analysis, please speak to your Support team - their contact details will be found in the Help tab on your account.

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