I buy, build and nurture businesses. And I keep the name over the door.
Lee Smith acquires established UK companies in HVAC, Renewable Energy and Construction, and retains the brand and the team the owner created. Whether you want to sell and step back, or sell a stake and scale, there is a structure that protects what you built.
Confidential from the first call. No broker fees. Nothing reaches your team.
Two options, not one.
Most owners are only ever shown the clean break: sell everything, hand over the keys, hope for the best. That is one legitimate answer. It should not be the only one on the table. I acquire between 40 and 100%, so a partial sale is a real choice rather than a concession.
Sell your company
You have decided it is time. You want a well-structured outcome and you want the people who stayed loyal to you looked after on the other side of it.
- A direct buyer, not a broker. No commission out of your proceeds
- My lawyer panel, which lowers your legal cost and the stress
- Structured for tax efficiency on what you actually keep
- Your brand and team retained, not absorbed and renamed
- A staged handover across three to five years if you want one
Scale your company
You are not finished. You can see the next level and you cannot fund it, staff it or systemise it on your own balance sheet. Sell a stake, keep a stake, go again with a partner.
- Real money off the table now without losing your seat
- Capital, systems and back office behind you rather than on you
- Bolt-on acquisitions run by someone who has done it 32 times
- Your retained stake grows as the group scales toward £10M EBITDA
- You keep doing the part of the job you are brilliant at
The problems nobody puts on a broker's brochure.
Around 2% of UK businesses that go to market complete a sale, and only one in sixteen sells within twelve months. Most owners discover that after a year of fees and disruption.
The family are not ready or not willing. There is no obvious buyer. And the business is worth a little less every year you remain the single point of failure.
Sell everything, watch someone dismantle it, lose the team you spent twenty years building. That is what most owners are actually afraid of, and they are right to be.
You can see the next level. Funding it, hiring for it and systemising it from your own balance sheet is a different problem entirely.
In renewables especially, demand outruns capacity. Turning work away because of labour, not because of market. Growth capped by the wrong constraint.
Holidays are not really holidays. The business cannot run without you, which is exactly the thing that makes it harder to sell well when you finally want to.
Ethics is not the soft part of the deal. It is why the deal works.
You would be handing over something you built over decades. Everything below exists because that only ends well when the person across the table behaves the same on day 400 as they did on day one.
I keep the brand and the name over the door. What you built carries on being recognisably yours instead of disappearing into someone else’s letterhead.
Retention runs around 85% across partnership deals, against roughly 40% in straight buyouts. Your team is a large part of what I am buying.
If the fit is not there you will hear it on the first call, not after three months of diligence. I would rather lose a deal fast than waste a year of your life.
No listing, no teaser, no broker circulating your numbers. Nothing reaches your team, customers or competitors until you decide it should.
I am not a flipper. I hold, invest and build, and I reward the teams who get me there. Year five is discussed before anything is signed in year one.
Because you usually keep a stake, we both win in the same direction. That single fact changes every conversation after completion.
Four steps. No pressure at any of them.
Nothing is disclosed, nothing is signed, and nothing reaches your team until you have decided you want it to.
- 01An informal call
Where the business is, what you want next, and the one thing you would be most protective of.
- 02Indicative structure
What a sale or a partnership would look like for your business. In writing, with the numbers.
- 03Heads of terms
Agreed in principle before diligence begins and before disruption reaches your people.
- 04Completion, then growth
Kept a stake and we build it together. Sold outright and I look after what you handed over.
Businesses I bought, kept and grew.
Every one still trading under its own name with its own team, building toward a £10M group EBITDA within 24 months.
- RossairMechanical & electrical / HVAC
- Armex EnergyRenewable Energy & infrastructure
- JMC DrywallDrylining & plastering
- MactribeManaged IT services
- Network LondonManaged IT services
- Your companyThe next conversation
The questions owners actually ask.
Do I have to sell the whole company?
No. I acquire between 40 and 100%. In most deals the owner keeps a meaningful stake, stays involved, and takes a second and larger payday when the group scales. If a clean full exit is genuinely what you want, that can be structured too. The point is that you choose from the whole range rather than the one option a single buyer happens to offer.
What happens to my team and my brand?
Both stay. Retention across partnership deals runs around 85%, against roughly 40% in straight buyouts, and that is deliberate. The name stays over the door and the people stay behind it, because the culture is a large part of what is being bought. Every company in the group still trades under its own name.
Is selling my business to you confidential?
Completely, from the first call. There is no listing, no teaser document and no broker circulating your numbers. Nothing reaches your team, your customers or the market unless and until you decide it should. Most owners are twelve to thirty-six months from any decision when they first make contact.
What size and sector of business do you buy?
Mainly UK HVAC, Renewable Energy and Construction businesses, established, owner-managed and profitable, with a South of England weighting. The preferred size is £5m to £100m in revenue, and I do look at businesses from around £1m. I already own companies in all three sectors, so the conversation tends to be quicker and better informed than it would be with a generalist buyer. I look at other sectors as well, because I have partners across multiple industries, so it is worth asking rather than assuming the answer is no.
Send me a note and I will come back to you.
Tell me where the business is and what a good outcome looks like, not just financially. If I am not the right person for it you will know quickly, and I will usually know who is.
Prefer to talk now? Call 020 3475 5475 or email lee@verdanicapital.co.uk.
Fifteen minutes, and you will know where you stand.
Pick a time that suits you. On the call I will ask where the business is, what a good outcome looks like for your life and not just your bank account, and the one thing you would be most protective of.
Confidential from the first minute. No listing, no teaser, and nothing reaches your team or your competitors.
Prefer not to use the calendar? Call 020 3475 5475.
What legacy do you want to leave behind?
Tell me where the business is and what you want to be true in three years. If I am not the right partner for it, you will know on the first call, and I will usually know who is.
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