Business Growth, Exit Planning & the Role of Private Equity and Debt

By Simon Read, Owner of AccountantsForSale.co.uk & Christina Bahu, Head of Corporate Partnerships at Karis Capital

For most accountancy firm owners, the focus day-to-day is simple: serving clients, building trust, and keeping the team engaged. Growth often comes steadily, one client at a time. But when it comes to stepping back, planning an exit, or thinking strategically about succession, the conversation changes dramatically. Suddenly, the focus is not just on year-on-year turnover but on building transferable value, and deciding how that value can be unlocked.

Over the past few years, I’ve had countless conversations with accountants considering the future of their practices. Increasingly, three themes emerge: the role of growth, the opportunities (and challenges) of private equity, and the use of debt finance in building or exiting a practice.

Growth: Beyond organic expansion

Most firms grow organically: through referrals, reputation, and long-term relationships. That steady growth is important, but when you’re considering an eventual sale or merger, scale can have a disproportionate effect on valuation.

A firm with £500,000 of recurring fees will attract buyers, but a firm with £4 million plus of fees is far more likely to interest consolidators, larger firms, and private equity investors. Why? Because scale removes reliance on the owner, spreads risk across a wider client base, and allows investment in technology and specialist staff.

For owners in mid-market firms, this often means looking beyond organic growth and considering strategic acquisitions. Using specialist acquisition finance, it’s possible to buy and integrate smaller practices, accelerating growth and making the business far more attractive to future buyers. With typical deferred payment structures, many deals can be almost self-financing.

Exit planning: Start early

Too many accountants leave exit planning until the final couple of years. By then, options are more limited. The firms that achieve the best results are those where the owners start planning five to ten years.

That doesn’t mean putting up a “for sale” sign — it means building the right structures: a strong management team, clean financials, clear client contracts, and documented systems. It also means reducing personal reliance: if 40% of the fee income is tied to your personal relationships, buyers will discount heavily.

An exit should be a process, not an event. If you want to sell an accountancy practice for maximum value, give yourself time to prepare.

Private Equity: An emerging player

Private equity investment in accountancy is still relatively new in the UK, but it is gathering momentum. Larger firms and consolidators are often backed by PE money, seeking scalable recurring-revenue businesses with predictable cash flows.

For firm owners, PE involvement can open doors. It can provide capital for acquisitions, fund succession, and offer partial exit opportunities while retaining equity. However, it also changes the dynamic. PE-backed businesses are driven by growth targets and return on investment. That can bring discipline and resources, but it can also bring pressure and the potential for conflict.

If you’re considering a PE-backed buyer, think carefully about cultural fit. Will their growth expectations align with your clients and team? The highest offer is not always the best offer as there may be a sting in the tale.

Debt and raising capital: Where specialist advisers add value

Debt often has a bad name, but in the context of accountancy firm growth and exit, it’s increasingly common. Debt finance for accountants allows ambitious firms to buy smaller practices, consolidating fees and creating value. For retiring owners, debt-financed management buyouts can enable internal succession where younger partners can’t fund the purchase outright.

However, traditional high-street banks are not always willing lenders. They often apply rigid criteria, demand personal guarantees, or struggle to value the intangible goodwill of an accountancy practice. This is where specialist debt advisory firms make a difference.

These advisers understand the sector, the stability of recurring fee income, the loyalty of long-term clients, and the low default risk. They have direct access to alternative lenders, challenger banks, and private credit providers who actively want to support acquisitions in professional services. The real bonus is also the fact that you remain in control of your firms direction and destiny.

Karis Capital supports developers, business owners, and professional firms’ access to lesser-known routes to funding through long-standing relationships with specialist lenders, family offices, boutique banks, and high-net-worth private capital. These relationships often open doors to funding options not readily available on the open market, especially valuable when traditional finance routes have fallen through.

Relationships sit at the centre of how Karis works. The team builds long-term partnerships with both lenders and clients, taking the time to understand their long-term strategy and the details behind each deal. This approach allows Karis to support projects and transactions from initial funding through to completion and beyond, pulling together the professional teams that will enable the client to secure funding for any projects going forward.

To make this real, here are two common scenarios:

• Growth through acquisition: A firm with £1m of annual recurring fees identifies a £400k practice nearby whose owner is retiring. The bank says “no” because the main asset is goodwill. A specialist debt adviser steps in, structures a £350k acquisition loan over five years, and secures it against the predictable fee income. The deal is completed, and within months, the acquiring firm has increased its scale by 40%, instantly improving its attractiveness to larger buyers.
• Succession planning via MBO: A sole practitioner with £750k turnover wants to retire, but his two partners don’t have the personal capital to buy him out. A debt adviser works with a non-bank lender to raise £500k, structured so repayments are funded by the practice’s fee income. The vendor gets his exit, the managers become owners, and clients enjoy continuity.

The key message: when banks say no, it doesn’t have to be the end of the road. With the right debt advisory partner, raising capital for accountancy firms becomes not only possible but often the most effective way to unlock growth and maximise exit value.

Final thoughts

For firm owners, the landscape has shifted. Growth, exit, private equity, and debt are no longer abstract concepts; they are practical tools and options shaping the market daily. The most successful exits I’ve seen are those where owners take control early, plan strategically, and remain open to different paths.

Whether your ideal outcome is a merger, a PE-backed sale, or a gradual handover to the next generation, the decisions you make today will shape the opportunities available tomorrow.

How we can help?

Karis operates beyond transactional delivery, serving as embedded consultants and long-term partners to developers, property investors, entrepreneurs, business owners, and private clients. Its scale of lending and depth of market access ensure that clients benefit from tailored strategies rather than standardised, off-the-shelf solutions. Corporate partnerships are built on meaningful, commercially aligned relationships.

At Accountants for Sale, they not only connect firm owners with buyers and investors but also with the specialist debt advisers and finance partners who can make deals happen when traditional banks won’t. If you’re considering your own growth or exit journey, the time to start planning is now.