Research-led sourcing using contract data, Companies House signals, workforce indicators, and advisor networks to identify essential-service operators with durable fundamentals and clear improvement levers.
We strengthen core operations through workforce planning, contract profitability, cashflow discipline, quality processes, and digital systems. Our focus is on building stable, predictable performance before expansion.
Once the platform is stable and data-backed, we accelerate growth through targeted add-on acquisitions, service-line expansion, and disciplined commercial execution.
Not all income in a CFS business is equal. The most reliable revenue is PPM — Planned Preventive
Maintenance — scheduled visits that recur automatically on a fixed contract. Less reliable is reactive
callout work (emergency jobs, unpredictable volume) and project work (one-off installations or refits).
Heavy reliance on projects means revenue is unpredictable. We split the revenue into these three types
and stress-test what happens if project revenue disappears entirely.
High profit margins without an explanation are a warning sign, not a positive. In cleaning and
maintenance businesses, margins get artificially inflated when the owner is working unpaid hours, when
company vans are overdue for replacement, or when jobs are being underquoted (selling below cost).
We rebuild the financial model from job-level economics — actual gross margin per job type — before we
model any return.
In most small CFS businesses, the owner is not the most important person operationally. The most
important person is whoever allocates engineers to jobs each morning, handles the emergency calls at
9pm, and keeps the client from complaining. We call this person the operations nucleus. If they are a
single point of failure — if the business grinds to a halt when they take a week off — we build their
retention into the deal structure before we sign anything.
Many cleaning and maintenance businesses look profitable on paper but are actually cash-poor. The gapappears when: invoices are raised late, clients dispute jobs and withhold payment, or parts costs are nottracked back to jobs. We verify actual cash conversion — how much of the reported profit ends up asreal cash in the bank — before we approach any lender with a credit case.
Owner-operated businesses almost always undercharge long-term clients. Emergency callout fees, outof-hours rates, and annual contract repricing cycles are often the highest-return, lowest-effort valuecreation lever available after acquisition. We identify underpriced contracts at screening — before weclose — not post-acquisition.
If you own a contracted service business and you're thinking about what's next — whether that's a year away or five years away — a 20-minute conversation costs nothing. We are discreet. We move quickly. We only pursue opportunities where there is a genuine fit. No pressure. No obligation.
