What a buyer sees
VIRGINIA HAYWARD LIMITED
Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet · Shaftesbury · 01842012
79staff · FY2023
42years trading
—oldest owner on file
£2.6Mcash at bank
Your turnover is on public record
filed£18Mfor the year to 2023
Unusual at this size, and it works in your favour: a buyer is reading your number rather than guessing at one.
What your filings show moving
Staff79
2022139 → 792023
Cash at bank£2.6M
2022£2.0M → £2.6M2023
How you sit in your trade
slowest tenth typical fastest tenth youSales per employee£232,753in the middle half
£134,596£237,777£572,902
Debtor daysdays10in the bottom quarter
820106
Creditor daysdays42
142558
Stock daysdays35in the middle half
1951115
Each 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 3
- The newest accounts on file are 41 months oldAnyone looking at the company today is reading a year that has already ended. Whatever has improved since is invisible.
- Headcount fell from 139 to 79A buyer sees the fall and not the reason. Deliberate tightening and losing people look identical on a filing.
- 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 2
- 42 years of trading on fileLongevity is the cheapest evidence there is that the business is not one contract.
- Debtor days better than three quarters of your tradeYours is 10 against 20 for the middle of 118 comparable companies.
What the register says
Owners
Nobody recorded with significant control.
Directors
- 54since 2003
- 48since 2017
- 51since 2019
- 47since 2019
| Year to | Turnover | Staff | Cash |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-03-31 | £18M | 79 | £2.6M |
| 2022-03-31 | £28M | 139 | £2.0M |
A rough bracket, and why it is only that
0.25–0.5× sales£4.6M£9.2M
The 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.