Transaction Services

Ensuring informed decisions for successful transactions

What we do

At Dow Schofield Watts, our transaction services team provides specialist financial due diligence services for businesses involved in exits, acquisitions, divestments, fundraising and other significant transactions.

Our transaction advisory services provide a clear and detailed understanding of the financial position of a business, helping you identify potential risks, opportunities and key considerations before proceeding with a deal.

We take a diligent and commercially focused approach, presenting our findings in a concise, accessible report that gives you the insight needed to make informed decisions.

Our award winning team is led by industry pioneers with extensive experience across a wide range of transactions. We combine detailed financial analysis with practical commercial insight, while continuing to mentor the next generation of transaction experts.

Why choose us

The power of a firm, the quality of a boutique

Partner led teams, partner led delivery: Our partners lead from the front, advising your business through complex transactions and helping ensure the process progresses as smoothly as possible. With decades of experience, we can identify potential issues efficiently and provide pragmatic, practical advice.
Bespoke service tailored to your business: Every transaction is different. Our approach is agile, creative and flexible, allowing us to tailor our business transaction services to your specific objectives, circumstances and requirements.
Expertise fit for complex matters: We have supported hundreds of transactions and developed extensive experience across a wide range of sectors and deal types. This enables us to apply relevant experience and insight to each assignment, delivering efficient and commercially focused advice.

Where we can help

Financial Due Diligence

Financial due diligence examines the financial performance and position of a business as part of a transaction. Our financial due diligence consulting helps buyers, sellers and investors understand the financial factors that could influence a deal before making important decisions.

We also provide vendor due diligence and vendor assistance services, helping businesses prepare for a transaction and present clear, robust financial information to prospective buyers and investors.

Vendor Due Diligence

Similar to financial due diligence, vendor due diligence provides a clear, independent assessment of a company’s financial position, but on behalf of the seller, presented in a concise report which can be issued to prospective buyers, facilitating informed investment decisions. A vendor due diligence assignment also provides the vendor with advance warning of potential areas of buyer focus, whilst enabling the vendor to retain control of the sale process, maximising deal value.

Vendor Assistance

This early-stage, sell-side service helps vendors collate, prepare and present accurate, reliable and easy-to-use financial data to help demonstrate business value. This process can be applied either where a business’s financial information requires improvement prior to a sale process or where a management team has insufficient bandwidth. The vendor assistance process also identifies key value drivers and raises potential red flags early on, enabling management to take or present mitigating actions. This can also extend to assisting the vendor management team in preparing responses to likely buy-side question topics.

Completion Mechanism Advice

As part of a specific engagement, or extension of a due diligence assignment, we can guide acquirers or vendors through the completion mechanism process. This can involve the selection of an appropriate mechanism, analysing the business’s working capital and net cash/debt positions, identifying preferential positions for our client and working with the client’s legal advisors to ensure full protection through the Sale and Purchase Agreement.

What our clients say

"Dow Schofield Watts' transaction services report and overall approach were refreshingly candid. They assisted us on a range of issues from cash flow generation and bank reconciliations at the start of the transaction, to the completion accounts mechanism at the end. They were always close to the detail and communicated any issues to us in real time so that we were able to make decisions accordingly. Their assistance on this investment was invaluable".

Andy Marsh

Partner at Beech Tree Private Equity
"Dow Schofield Watts produced a high quality, highly focused due diligence report in a short period of time in line with the BGF focused approach. DSW quickly identified the key drivers of the business and produced robust analysis to help us fully understand the underlying profitability and cash generation. I was particularly impressed about the flexibility of the team in its approach and their own ability to identify areas of commercial interest to us as an investor. Communication of their views and findings and availability and responsiveness was first class".

David Colclugh

Business Growth Fund
“Having worked with many advisors over my investment career I always set high expectations. I want advisors that can reach considered decisions that will always achieve the best long term result – and deliver this advice often in complex and highly time pressured scenarios. Dow Schofield Watts stepped up on this transaction and ensured those expectations were exceeded. Their ability to go-to-bat for us in all discussions with a well-advised seller contributed to a successful transaction”.

Tristan Ramus

Non-executive Chairman of Castlerock Recruitment Group
“We would like to thank the Thames Valley Dow Schofield Watts team for their professionalism and personable approach, which we value and see as an independent extension of our deal team”

Peter Gould

M&A Director at Dains
“Dow Schofield Watts' work was carried out to a high standard and their reporting was clear and easy to follow – a real benefit at the business end of an M&A process. I was particularly impressed with the way Ed interrogated the validity of the order book and pipeline which was one of our key focus areas. They also supported us through the locked box workstream both pre and post completion. We look forward to working with them again in the future”.

Paul McCluskey

President of Concept Life Sciences
"We found the style and content of Dow Schofield Watts' reporting to be of a high quality. A follow up meeting to discuss the report was also particularly helpful, with DSW able to clearly substantiate the rationale underpinning their key findings and identified sensitivities. These outputs were a positive factor which helped with assisting our credit assessment and we look forward to working with them again in the future".

Joe Windle

Director at HSBC Leverage Finance
“I have utilised Dow Schofield Watts' transaction services team on more than one occasion (sell side and buy side) and each time I have been impressed by the professionalism, impartiality and ability to deliver to an often tight deadline. The team has the ability to dig deep into the financial data to draw out the underlying trends and present them in a concise, clear and non-debatable form. A really good team of people, with a strong reputation amongst PE-backed management teams in the North West of England as the go-to advisors for transaction services. In my view any transaction is going to be hard work and stressful and I would always choose to work with the DSW team”.

Mark Edwards

CEO of Mi Healthcare
“We engaged Dow Schofield Watts for Vendor Assistance at an early stage in our sales process. What stood out was the team’s capacity to grasp new concepts and build coherent models where little had existed before. Their ability to assimilate data, build processes and produce valuable analysis proved second to none. The team were all super smart and friendly. I don’t think they ever asked the same question twice and they delivered what we asked for, on time and on budget. I would certainly engage them again without hesitation if the need arose in the future.”

Douglas Gilmour

MD at Mobius Networks Limited
“We brought Dow Schofield Watts on board to assist with certain aspects of the financial due diligence and the completion mechanism. Their experience and ability to get up to speed and focus on the deal attributes were exactly what we were looking for. Having worked with them in the past we knew they would sit alongside us as a trusted advisor and provide support where and when needed – adding value to the process right through to completion”.

James Marshall

NorthEdge Capital
"Being the first time we had used Dow Schofield Watts, we took a great deal of comfort from the speed with which Cat and Ed got behind not just the financial information but also the operational data of the business, enabling early discussions around visitor numbers and cost base. They kept us as investor informed throughout and, helpfully, maintained their own lines of communication with our CDD provider, with this support remaining in place right up to completion".

Andy Lees

Partner at Palatine Private Equity

Let’s talk about your business’ future

Share your transaction goals with us, and we’ll connect you with a Partner. Our goal is to put you in touch with the right expert for a no obligation conversation

Transaction Services

What we do

Why choose us