Is your partner trying
to buy you out for
less than you’re worth?

You can negotiate without one, and many people stubbornly do. What you cannot do is negotiate from a position of solid knowledge. Without an independent valuation, you are negotiating against someone who almost certainly has a number in mind and financial advisers supporting it. The independent valuation is not just a document — it is the rock-solid anchor for every conversation that follows. It is the distinct difference between arguing and proving.

They can dispute it — and they may. What they cannot do is easily dismiss a signed, methodologically rigorous report from an ICAEW Chartered Accountant with Big Four training without officially producing a credible counter-argument. Our reports are built to withstand intense legal challenge. Every assumption is documented. Every methodology choice is forensically explained. If proceedings escalate, the report holds up. If they want to produce their own valuation and the two reports differ significantly, that gap becomes the subject of mediation — which is a far better position than passively accepting their number without challenge.

Our standard turnaround for shareholder dispute valuations is 7 to 10 business days from receiving the full financial information. In situations where there is genuine urgency, we will discuss a faster timeline during the initial discovery call. The most important thing is to contact us now — the process cannot start until you do. The intense time pressure they are creating is almost always a negotiation tactic. Responding to it by rushing into a bad deal costs far more than a short delay while an independent report is securely produced.

Almost certainly yes. A 20% share in a business safely generating £500k of EBITDA, at a 5x multiple, represents £500k of value before any discount. The question of whether a minority discount (DLOC) mathematically applies — and at what exact level — is itself a technical legal judgement that heavily depends on the shareholder agreement, the Articles of Association, and the specific circumstances of the dispute. Many minority shareholders tragically accept discounts far larger than are actually defensible because no-one has professionally challenged them. An independent valuation definitively tells you what discount, if any, is genuinely justified.

We agree a fixed fee before any corporate finance work begins, so there are absolutely no surprises. The fee depends on the complexity of the business, the nature of the dispute, and whether formal legal proceedings are involved. We discuss this in the initial conversation — there is zero obligation to proceed. What we can say is that in disputes involving any material shareholding, the fee is typically a very small fraction of what the valuation gap turns out to be. Contact us and we will give you a clear, fixed number upfront.

Yes. Everything you share with us is handled with absolute confidentiality. We do not discuss your situation with any third party without your explicit consent. The valuation report is solely yours — you decide what to do with it, when, and with whom. Many clients discreetly come to us in the early stages of a dispute before involving litigation solicitors. That is a perfectly sensible approach and we are highly experienced in handling sensitive boardroom situations with discretion.