What a buyer sees
ROBERT HOUSTON & SONS LIMITED
Freight transport by road · Edinburgh · SC309720
Nobody can see what you turn over
2.8× spreadYou file abbreviated accounts, as almost every company your size does, so the profit and loss account is not on public record. That band is what your balance sheet implies to anyone who looks: 4 figures against 71 companies in the same trade and size. An opening offer is built on the bottom of it.
How you sit in your trade
slowest tenth typical fastest tenth youEach spread is companies in the same trade and size that did publish a turnover. Creditor days are shown but not marked: neither end of that one is plainly good.
What a buyer would ask 4
- Your turnover is not on fileYou file abbreviated accounts, as most companies your size do, so a buyer cannot see what the business turns over and has to estimate it. Working only from what you filed, the range lands between £812k and £2.3M. An opening offer is built on the low end of whatever they guess.
- The newest accounts on file are 53 months oldAnyone looking at the company today is reading a year that has already ended. Whatever has improved since is invisible.
- The register shows an owner past retirement age and little elseWithout directors on file, a buyer cannot tell who actually runs the business day to day.
- No website on file against the companyThe first thing anyone does with a company number is look for the business behind it. Finding nothing is its own answer.
What a buyer would like 1
- 20 years of trading on fileLongevity is the cheapest evidence there is that the business is not one contract.
What the register says
Owners
- 49since 2016
- 85since 2016
- 87since 2016
Directors
No current directors loaded.
| Year to | Turnover | Staff | Cash |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-03-31 | not filed | 15 | £0k |
A rough bracket, and why it is only that
0.4–0.9× salesThe turnover range is fitted on UK companies that did file one. The multiple is a published sector average from Dutch mid-market deals, not from your own numbers and not from your own market. Treat this as the opening bracket of a conversation, not a valuation.