Financial Modelling
Your buyer already
has a model.Do you?
Your accountant built your numbers for HMRC. Your buyer's advisers will use that against you. We fix it — before the negotiation begins.
The right fit
Who this
is for
Not every business needs deal-grade modelling. The ones that do tend to recognise themselves immediately.
- 01
Business owners preparing to sell
You are 6–24 months from a sale and want to understand what your business is actually worth to a buyer — not your accountant’s view of it.
- 02
Acquirers evaluating a target
You have identified a business and need an independent model that interrogates the numbers before you commit capital.
- 03
MBO management teams
You are buying the business you run. You need a model that works both for your lender’s credit committee and for the vendor negotiation.
- 04
PE-backed businesses pre-exit
Your sponsor is preparing for exit. The model needs to hold under institutional scrutiny — not just for the information memorandum.
- 05
Businesses requiring independent valuation
Shareholder disputes, strategic reviews, or board-level decisions where the number needs to be independent and defensible.
The problem
The model your accountant built
was never designed for a buyer
Statutory accounts and management accounts exist to satisfy HMRC and track performance. They were not built to survive three months of structured scrutiny by a buyer, their advisers, and a lender’s credit committee. The gap between those two things is where deals slow down, reopen on price, and sometimes collapse.
The buyer’s model says something different
Every serious buyer runs their own financial model before they make an offer. If your numbers tell a different story to theirs, you are negotiating without evidence. That is a structural disadvantage from day one.
Late-stage repricing
The most common cause of value erosion in a transaction is not a bad offer — it is a good offer that gets chipped away during due diligence because the financial story was not airtight when heads of terms were signed.
The lender is a third party nobody prepared for
In any leveraged transaction, the lender underwrites risk independently. If the model was not built to answer their specific questions, the process stalls at credit committee. Weeks become months.
The solution
Deal-grade modelling.
Built to hold.
Mark Ross Roberts holds the FMVA (Financial Modelling & Valuation Analyst) designation — a credential built specifically for deal-grade financial modelling, not general accountancy. The standard it demands is the standard applied to institutional mandates: logical structure, stress-tested assumptions, and a model that answers questions before they are asked.
Every model Mark produces is built from first principles against the specific transaction context. Not adapted from a template. Not delegated to a junior analyst. The model reflects the commercial reality of the business — normalised earnings, adjusted for owner-dependent costs, structured to present the opportunity the way a sophisticated buyer’s advisers will ultimately frame it anyway.
The FMVA is issued by the Corporate Finance Institute — the same institution that issues Mark’s CBCA qualification. Both credentials, held by the same person, in every engagement.
Financial modelling at deal standard looks different from management accounts. If you want to understand the level of rigour involved before we speak, you can review a live example.
View a Live Model Example →Financial Modelling & Valuation Analyst
The FMVA is the deal practitioner’s modelling standard. It covers DCF analysis, LBO modelling, M&A deal structures, scenario and sensitivity analysis, and the presentation of financial models to institutional counterparties. It is not an accounting qualification — it is a transactional one.
Commercial Banking & Credit Analyst
The CBCA qualification means Mark understands how lenders actually underwrite transactions. He knows what a credit committee looks for, what triggers concern, and what structure of financial presentation moves a lender to approve rather than qualify. This is not standard in M&A advisory. It is the difference between a model that satisfies a buyer and one that also satisfies their bank.
Mark builds every model personally
No associate. No junior analyst. No template circulated to a team member for population. The model is built by the person with 30 years of transactional experience — and the credentials to match.
The lender dimension
Most advisers forget
there is a third party in the room
In any leveraged transaction — an MBO, a PE-backed acquisition, a trade sale with deferred consideration — the buyer’s lender underwrites the deal independently. They do not accept the buyer’s model. They stress it. They build their own credit view. If the financial model submitted to their committee cannot survive that process, the deal does not complete on time — or at all.
Mark’s CBCA qualification gives him a structural advantage that most M&A advisers do not have: he has been trained in the exact methodology lenders use to evaluate commercial credit risk. He knows what a credit committee scrutinises, what language they respond to, and how to structure a model so their questions are answered before they are asked.
The result is fewer credit committee cycles, shorter approval timelines, and a transaction that does not stall at the point where most advisers discover they built the wrong model.
Debt serviceability analysis
DSCR modelled correctly for the lender’s covenant structure — not backward-engineered from the deal price.
Covenant headroom modelling
Stress-tested against downside scenarios to demonstrate that covenants hold under realistic adverse conditions.
Credit committee language
Structured to present risk the way a credit analyst will frame it — which means fewer questions back and faster decisions.
Sensitivity & scenario architecture
Base, downside, and stress cases built as integrated scenarios — not separate files — so the lender can navigate the model without a guided tour.
Before and after
What changes when
the model is right
The difference is not cosmetic. It is structural — and it shows up in the negotiation.
- You enter negotiation without your own evidence base — reacting to the buyer’s numbers
- Normalised EBITDA is contested at heads of terms — and again during due diligence
- The lender asks questions nobody anticipated — credit committee cycle extends by weeks
- Late-stage price chips are accepted because there is no model to argue against them
- Scenarios exist as separate spreadsheets or not at all — no integrated stress-test architecture
- You negotiate from forensic rigour — every number has a source and a rationale
- Normalised earnings are documented and defensible before the buyer’s advisers engage
- The lender’s questions are anticipated — credit committee approval moves faster
- Price chips are challenged with evidence — the 96% price integrity rate is the outcome
- Base, downside, and stress scenarios are integrated — ready for any counterparty
Next step
The initial conversation costs you nothing.
Proceeding without one might. A 30-minute call with Mark will establish whether deal-grade modelling is relevant to your situation. No obligation. No junior staff. No pitch.
Track record
The numbers
behind the claim
Four metrics that define how Achieve mandates perform — and what they mean in practice.
The price agreed at heads of terms is the price that completes. In 96% of Achieve mandates, there is no late-stage chip. A deal-grade financial model is one of the primary reasons.
Achieve mandates complete 30% faster than the industry average. When the financial model is already at deal standard, due diligence shortens — it confirms rather than discovers.
Thirty years of senior-level advisory across companies ranging from £2m to £3.2bn in client turnover. The modelling reflects that breadth — not a template applied to every engagement.
One person builds every model. Mark Ross Roberts FMVA, CBCA. Not the firm’s most experienced associate — Mark. The partner-only model is not a marketing position. It is the operating structure.
Common questions
What business owners
typically ask first
Four questions that come up in almost every initial conversation. Answered directly.
Your accountant produces accounts for statutory and tax purposes. That is a different document for a different audience. A deal-grade model is built to answer the questions a buyer, their advisers, and a lender will ask during a transaction. The two are not in conflict — but one does not substitute for the other.
The need for a sound financial model does not diminish with deal size — in some respects it intensifies. Smaller transactions are scrutinised proportionally harder by lenders. The businesses that get repriced most often are not the large ones.
Yes, the buyer will produce their own model. That is exactly why yours matters. If you have no model, their model defines the negotiation. If yours is more rigorous — built to FMVA standard, stress-tested, with documented assumptions — you are negotiating from evidence rather than assertion.
Achieve Financial Modelling engagements are priced on a fixed fee basis — agreed before work begins, with no variable uplift. The fee depends on scope: business complexity, transaction type, and scenarios required. Mark will confirm the fee in full at the initial call before any engagement is agreed.
What you receive
The deliverables.
Not a template. A model.
Every Achieve Financial Modelling engagement produces a specific set of outputs — built for your transaction, not adapted from a previous one.
- Full integrated financial modelThree-statement model (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow) built from first principles. Logically structured, formula-auditable, fully unlocked.
- Valuation analysisDCF and trading comparables where applicable. Valuation range, not a single number — because a transaction negotiation requires range awareness, not false precision.
- Normalised EBITDA scheduleOwner-dependent costs, non-recurring items, and structural adjustments documented and sourced — ready to defend at heads of terms and throughout due diligence.
- Scenario and sensitivity architectureBase, downside, and stress cases as integrated scenarios. Sensitivity analysis on the key value drivers — presented to the standard a lender’s credit committee expects.
- Debt serviceability analysisDSCR modelling, covenant headroom, and debt structure analysis for MBO, acquisition finance, or any transaction with senior debt. Built to satisfy a credit committee, not just a buyer.
- Executive summary presentationA board-ready summary of findings, assumptions, and outputs — structured for management presentations and lender submissions, not just internal review.
All engagements are priced on a fixed fee, agreed upfront. To understand the level of rigour before committing, review a live model example here.
How it works
- 01Discovery call — 30 minutes with Mark to understand the transaction context. No obligation at this stage.
- 02Scope and fee confirmed — Fixed fee agreed in writing before any work begins. No surprises.
- 03Data gathering — Mark works directly with you and your finance team. The model is only as good as the underlying data.
- 04Model build — Mark builds the model personally. Typically 2–4 weeks from data completion.
- 05Review and delivery — Walkthrough with Mark to ensure you understand every assumption, every output, and how to use the model in negotiation.
Client outcome
“The model Mark produced was the document that structured every conversation with our lender. They came back with questions we’d already anticipated and answered in the analysis. It shortened the credit approval process by weeks and gave the management team complete confidence going into final negotiations.”
CEO, B2B Professional Services Business
Your position
What you commit to.
What you do not.
An initial conversation with Mark costs nothing and commits you to nothing. What it does is establish whether deal-grade modelling is relevant to your situation — and give you an independent view of where you actually stand before the process begins.
The risk of proceeding without it is not abstract. It is a buyer’s model defining your negotiation. It is a lender’s credit committee asking questions your model cannot answer. It is a late-stage price chip with no counter-argument.
- Fixed fee — agreed in full before any work begins
- No obligation at the initial discovery call
- Confidential — Mark treats every engagement with complete discretion
- Partner-only — you speak with Mark, not an associate
- Fully unlocked model — you own every file, every formula
- Standalone engagement — no obligation to use Achieve for broader advisory
Your next step
One conversation.
No obligation. No junior staff.
30 minutes with Mark. You speak directly with the person who would build your model. No sales process. No follow-up calls from someone you have not met. No pitch deck.
Choose a time below to book your confidential discovery call. All times shown in UK time. The call is 30 minutes. It is free.
Prefer to open the conversation in writing? Email Mark directly: mark@achieve-corporation.com
