MBO & MBI

Optimising Tax Positioning

For sellers: Business Asset Disposal Relief planning, timing strategies, and transaction structuring to minimise Capital Gains Tax. For management teams: tax-efficient equity participation, EMI scheme design, and structuring to minimise income tax and National Insurance. We also optimise transaction structure for tax-efficient outcomes, provide pre-transaction tax cleanup and relief maximisation, and post-transaction tax planning and ongoing optimisation.

Creating Efficient Funding Structures

Designing optimal capital structures balancing debt and equity, structuring funding to minimise cost and maximise flexibility, ensuring structures meet lender and investor requirements, optimising for tax efficiency, and facilitating introductions to lenders and private equity investors.

Undertaking Due Diligence

Financial due diligence assessing business performance and position; tax due diligence identifying risks and opportunities; operational due diligence evaluating processes and systems; commercial due diligence assessing market position and competitive dynamics; and management team assessment evaluating capability and readiness.

Negotiating Contracts

Warranties: negotiating scope, limitations, and caps for seller and buyer protection. Guarantees: advising on personal guarantees, corporate guarantees, and security arrangements. Deferred consideration: structuring earn-out arrangements balancing seller and management team interests.

Creating Management Incentive Plans

Designing EMI schemes and tax-efficient incentive arrangements, structuring equity participation for management teams, ensuring tax and employment law compliance, addressing valuation and exercise arrangements, and aligning incentive plans with business objectives and exit strategies.

Raising Capital from Debt or Private Equity

Structuring financing packages that attract lenders and investors, facilitating introductions to debt providers and private equity investors, supporting management teams through financing processes, optimising financing structures for transaction success, and negotiating financing terms and conditions.

Post-Completion Advice

Staff retention: identifying key employees and retention risks, designing retention bonuses and incentive arrangements, addressing employment contract terms, managing cultural integration, and ensuring key talent retention during and after the transaction.

Systems integration: assessing IT infrastructure and system compatibility, planning systems integration and migration, managing data migration and consolidation, ensuring business continuity, and minimising disruption and risk.

Business growth plans: developing strategic growth plans and initiatives, identifying growth opportunities and market expansion strategies, planning operational improvements and efficiency gains, supporting implementation, and ensuring growth plans align with financing arrangements and investor expectations.

Exit strategy: developing exit strategies and value realisation plans, planning for future sale or refinancing, optimising business value for exit, supporting exit planning and execution, and ensuring strategies align with management team and investor objectives.

Your Helping Hand

Our role as your helping hand includes strategic guidance, process management, risk management, emotional support, communication, and decision support.

Real-World MBO/MBI Expertise

Acumon has completed multiple successful MBOs and one MBI, providing practical insights into transaction challenges and opportunities. Our capabilities include understanding transaction dynamics from the buyer perspective, identifying transaction risks from practical experience, structuring deals that work for all parties, navigating transaction challenges proactively, and facilitating MBO/MBI financing effectively.

Why Choose Acumon

A leading UK accountancy firm with comprehensive resources, real-world MBO/MBI transaction experience, exceptional value through proven expertise, rapid completion capability with 90+ UK-based professionals, financing support for debt or equity arrangements, and integrated financial, tax, accounting, and advisory expertise.

What You Get With Acumon

• Business Asset Disposal Relief planning for sellers
• Tax-efficient equity participation and EMI schemes for management teams
• Funding structure design and introductions to lenders and private equity
• Financial, tax, operational and commercial due diligence
• Warranty, guarantee and deferred consideration negotiation
• Post-completion support: retention, integration, growth and exit strategy

Why Acumon for MBO & MBI?

• Acumon has completed multiple successful MBOs and one MBI
• Named reliefs and schemes: Business Asset Disposal Relief (18% rate on the first £1 million of qualifying lifetime gains from 6 April 2026), EMI schemes, vendor loan notes, BIMBO structures
• Only £37k short of the top 100 in the Accountancy Age 50+50 list for 2024; PIE audit licence holder

Get a Fixed-Fee Quote

Tell us what you need and we'll come back within one business day with a clear scope and a fixed price — no hourly-rate surprises. Call 020 8567 3451 or use the form and we'll be in touch.