Seeking recommendations on business lists for the UK
July 10, 2023
by a searcher in Manchester, UK
I’m based in the UK and am just starting out on my business acquisition journey. The IBIS World reports have been incredibly useful as a starting point; however, I want to dig deeper into understanding business insights for the UK.
There are many websites offering lists of businesses, including the industry, people contacts, business size, revenue, and other data points. Sure, I can research a few and pick one, but I’m interested to hear from experienced people in the community on recommendations for business data services that cover the UK. For those folks here who have looked for off-market deals by contacting companies what data sources have proven most effective?
Any information most appreciated.
Thankyou in advance.
from IESE Business School in London, UK
I would step back and think where your Seller would market their business, and whether she would at all, and take it from there
We probably can skip small business boards with candy shops and car wash businesses and go little bit up the size to £0.5-1m EBITDA type businesses - these would go with their accountants, smaller brokers, sometimes with marketplaces
Larger ones - professional brokers, organised competitive processes
If you follow Search model your priority would likely be searching for off-market proprietary deal - this means website / companies house data search within specific industry niche
I have never seen high quality business for sale on a random board - UK is quite competitive market with many professional buyers and intermediaries leading to constant approach to quality businesses and you don't want leftover
So my recommendation would be to stick to best database we have - Companies House and various add-ons to simplify access such as Endole or Moody's Fame
I am very sceptical of marketplaces as still to see one providing more value than Companies House database, for contacts you can always pick Apollo.io or likewise
from University of Cambridge in Cambridge, UK
From what I've seen, if you are looking for industry insight, it will depend on industry you are looking in, Statista is good for trying to build a rough TAM. Business directories generally are all pulled in some form from the company house which means everybody else, including PE have access to the same information. Given the dominance of PE in the UK market, the moment a good small company pop up with accounting figures for profit, it will likely be targeted by a PE. Some may have found better results staying away from business lists services and using 'elbow grease' as Hughie mentioned above.
Finally for contacts, I've seen searchers outsource finding contacts to virtual assistants since databases generally have outdated or wrong contact details.