What A Buyer Wants: Series Launch
Home Our Services Transaction Services Lead Advisory Debt Advisory Virtual CFO & CFO Assist About Us Our Team Office Location Success Stories Blog Contact Us Home Our Services Transaction Services Lead Advisory Debt Advisory Virtual CFO & CFO Assist About Us Our Team Office Location Success Stories Blog Contact Us Published by Evolution Capital | IT/Telco M&A Specialists | 25 Years | 250+ Transactions Evolution Capital IT / Telco M&A · 25 Years · 250+ Deals M&A Survival Guide · Series Introduction What ABuyer Wants An M&A Survival Guide from the Trenches 25 Years in the market 250+ Transactions closed £250M Deal value advised “There is a moment in almost every IT services sale process where the seller says something that reveals how different their world is from the buyer’s.” Evolution Capital · From the trenches £2–5M Typical value gap between prepared and unprepared sellers 10 Articles covering what actually determines deal outcomes 100% IT & Telco focus no generalist M&A noise The information gap The asymmetry that costs sellers millions The IT services M&A market has matured dramatically. Buyers today PE funds running buy-and-build strategies, trade acquirers building scale, family offices deploying capital into managed services have often done this dozens or hundreds of times. They have detailed benchmarking data. They know what good looks like. They have seen every optimistic forecast, every balance sheet manoeuvre, every data room assembled in a hurry. Most sellers, even experienced entrepreneurs, have sold a business once. Maybe twice in a career. That gap costs sellers money. In our experience, the difference between a well-prepared seller and an unprepared one on a comparable business is typically £2 to £5 million on a £10 to £15 million transaction not because the underlying business is different, but because the preparation is. Why this series exists We keep seeing the same patterns. The same issues surfacing at the same stage of the same process. The same preparation gaps costing sellers the same kinds of money. This is our attempt to close that gap 25 years of pattern recognition, put into words. Who this is for Written for both sides of the table For Sellers IT services founders preparing to sell their business in the next 12–36 months. This series gives you the specific, practical preparation that buyers expect and that most sellers don’t have until it’s too late. For Buyers PE funds, trade acquirers, and family offices active in IT and Telco M&A. Whether experienced in the space or entering it for the first time, this series provides a grounding that generalist M&A knowledge doesn’t always deliver. What you’ll find here Not generic advice dressed in sector-specific language. Not theoretical frameworks applied to hypothetical businesses. Real situations, real numbers (anonymised), real consequences from 250+ transactions in this exact market. They cover revenue quality, cost structure, financial data, balance sheet mechanics, deal structure, management forecasts, and the hidden risks that surface when a buyer’s FDD team goes looking with fresh eyes. They are sometimes uncomfortably direct about the mistakes we see repeatedly and the money those mistakes cost. The Series Ten articles · Ten puns 01 Revenue QualityWhat buyers really mean when they ask how recurring your revenue is and why your answer probably needs work. 02 Cost StructureThe normalisation adjustments that inflate EBITDA on paper and what buyers do when they find them in diligence. 03 Financial DataWhy the quality and integrity of your management accounts matters more than the numbers themselves. 04 Balance Sheet MechanicsWorking capital pegs, completion accounts, and the cash that you thought was yours but isn’t. 05 Deal StructureEarnouts, deferred consideration, and the clauses sellers sign without reading until they bite. 06 Management ForecastsThe pipeline conversation every seller dreads and how to have it without losing credibility. 07–10 More to comeCustomer concentration, people & TUPE, hidden risk, and the emotional reality of a founder sale process. Evolution Capital · IT/Telco M&A SpecialistsEC Analytics · Virtual CFO / Corporate Finance / FDD Read the series ↗ The short version: Ten articles on what actually determines outcomes when selling an IT services business. Built from 250 transactions. Written by the people who write the exam sellers need to pass, and those who have guided them through it. Everyone knows the basics of supply and demand. More buyers than sellers, prices go up. More sellers than buyers, they come down. Simple enough in a commodity market. But in an M&A process, the dynamics are rather more personal. How do you create demand for your specific business? How do you know what a buyer actually wants, beyond the headline metrics? How do you present what you have built in a way that answers the questions buyers are really asking, rather than the ones you think they are asking? How do you know what a buyer wants? That question is the reason this series exists. And it turns out that after 25 years and over 250 transactions in IT and Telco M&A, we have a fairly detailed answer. There is a moment in almost every IT services sale process we have been involved in where the seller says something that reveals how different their world is from the buyer’s. Sometimes it is “buyers care about EBITDA, not the balance sheet.” Sometimes it is “our pipeline is £3 million, basically all of it is going to close.” Sometimes it is “that customer dispute was three years ago, it’s ancient history.” And sometimes, most painfully, it is “I had no idea any of this was going to come up.” We are a small team. Corporate finance advisers and financial due diligence specialists, working exclusively in IT and Telco for the past 25 years. We have advised on over 250 transactions in the lower mid-market, the part of the landscape where founder-led IT businesses meet professional buyers for the first time. We have sat on both sides of the table: running sale processes for sellers, conducting financial diligence for buyers, and advising on everything in between. The trenches part of this title is not just a turn of phrase. Some
Giacom and Evolution Capital Launch CFO Assist and Virtual CFO Services
Home Our Services Transaction Services Lead Advisory Debt Advisory Virtual CFO & CFO Assist About Us Our Team Office Location Success Stories Blog Contact Us Home Our Services Transaction Services Lead Advisory Debt Advisory Virtual CFO & CFO Assist About Us Our Team Office Location Success Stories Blog Contact Us Giacom and Evolution Capital Launch CFO Assist and Virtual CFO Services business, Changing Marketplace, EC Analytic, Market Resilience, performance, Team June 30, 2026 Giacom and Evolution Capital Launch CFO Assist and Virtual CFO Services New Managed Services offerings provide MSPs and Expert Technology Resellers with real-time insight into profitability, KPIs and business value. Giacom and Evolution Capital have announced the launch of CFO Assist and Virtual CFO. These two new financial insight services form parts of EC Analytics, an analytics and financial insight platform for MSPs and channel businesses that helps leadership teams gain clear visibility into profitability, recurring margin, and the drivers of business value. The Giacom and Evolution Capital partnership was formed to help Channel businesses gain clearer insight from the financial data they already hold, much of which is typically locked inside billing systems. By integrating billing data directly into an analytics environment, the solution enables businesses to track key performance indicators, understand the drivers of margin, profitability, and value, and make better-informed decisions without the complexity of building in-house business intelligence capability. CFO Assist is designed for larger MSPs with an existing Finance Director or CFO, providing enhanced visibility across complex financial data. By transforming detailed information into clear, visual dashboards, CFO Assist supports KPI-driven management and more informed decision making to help businesses improve performance, profitability, and long-term value. Virtual CFO provides smaller MSPs with access to big business financial insight. Working alongside a business’s existing accounts support, it provides the same quality of insight, delivered in a more lightweight and cost-effective format. Delivered as a managed service, the offerings combine technology with hands on financial expertise. Through direct integration with Giacom’s billing platform and core finance systems, CFO Assist and Virtual CFO transform complex data into real time dashboards via EC Analytics, supporting performance management, benchmarking, and M&A readiness. Evolution Capital also provides specialist M&A and advisory services alongside Giacom’s billing, automation, and go to market support to help MSPs improve operational maturity and long term exit readiness. Ellie Allseybrook, Business Development Director, Software Sales at Giacom, commented: “MSPs have historically focused on revenue growth but, especially in the current climate, acquirers and investors are increasingly looking deeper at how that revenue is delivered. CFO Assist and Virtual CFO give MSP leaders the financial clarity they need to understand true profitability, improve operational maturity, and build businesses that are not only growing but also optimised for long-term valuation.” Sam Godfrey, Transaction Services Director at Evolution Capital, added: “EC Analytics is built for MSP leaders running their businesses day-to-day. While most shareholders will exit at some point, value creation starts long before that. The challenge we consistently see is that critical insight is locked away in spreadsheets and data dumps that are difficult for stakeholders to interpret and act on. “EC Analytics transforms core financial data into a clear, visual, and dynamic environment, allowing leadership teams to interrogate performance, understand what is really driving customer behaviour and margin, and make better decisions in real time. By operating exclusively in the MSP sector, our mission is to provide a purpose-built solution that helps MSPs build stronger, more scalable, and ultimately more valuable businesses. Our partnership with Giacom is exactly what MSPs need to achieve this.” Learn more about Giacom here. 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We specialise in advising Technology, IT and Telecoms business owners on business sales, acquisitions and strategic growth. Our work includes valuation, exit planning, due diligence, market intelligence and full end-to-end transaction support. What types of companies do you work with? We work exclusively with owner-managed and mid-market businesses in the Technology, IT, Telecoms and Managed Services sectors. Our clients typically generate between £2m–£50m+ in annual revenue. When is the right time to start planning a sale? We specialise in advising Technology, IT and Telecoms business owners on business sales, acquisitions and strategic growth. Our work includes valuation, exit planning, due diligence, market intelligence and full end-to-end transaction support. What does Evolution Capital do? We specialise in advising Technology, IT and Telecoms business owners on business sales, acquisitions and strategic growth. Our work includes valuation, exit planning, due diligence, market intelligence and full end-to-end transaction support. What does Evolution Capital do? We specialise in advising Technology, IT and Telecoms business owners on business sales, acquisitions and strategic growth. Our