You spent years building it. We’ll be the buyer who’s still there years later.
The wrong buyer can wreck what you built in months. Have the conversation early, even if you’re not ready to sell.
Strictly confidential · Direct to the founder · Reply within two working days
10,000+
ACCA
250+
Master’s & PhD
Confidential
I’ve spent ten years building businesses. Now I’m building the accountancy practice for the new era.
For ten years I’ve been the person business owners called when they needed more than just accounting – growth strategy, marketing, sales, brand. 10,000+ trained across hundreds of sectors, plus the businesses I’ve bought, sold and built myself. Now I bring all of that experience into one place: an accountancy practice that does the financial work, plus everything around it. Fully ACCA regulated and financially backed.
It’s no secret that accounting is changing fast: new regulation, rising costs, AI completely changing what compliance work even looks like. The practices that thrive in the next decade need much more than compliance work. They need up-to-date marketing, sales, brand and the infrastructure to run all of it together – not just for themselves, but for their clients. That’s what Obsessed has built: the place good practices come for the new era.
Ben Jacob-Smith
10,000+ trained · Active acquirer · PhD researcher
We obsess over the work most accountants would rather avoid.
Filling the pipeline.
Paid ads, content, referrals, partnerships – all run from the group, all working for every practice we acquire. Leads land in your inbox. Your team stays on the work that pays them.
Closing the deals.
Our sales team has the conversations your team would rather avoid. New clients won, existing clients retained, more services offered where they’d help. Run at group level, working for every practice we acquire.
Owning the local market.
PR, events and the Obsessed Entrepreneur podcast putting the firm at the centre of its local market. The practice that gets recommended locally, that people know and want to work with.
All three, run at group level. Your team focuses on serving the clients – we focus on bringing them.
UK practices, £500k to £1.5m, any work mix.
We buy UK accountancy practices that are owner-managed, typically built over years by one or two principals who’ve taken the firm as far as they can take it alone. The work mix doesn’t matter much; what matters is whether the firm has been built carefully and what its owners want to happen to it next.
Most sellers come to us because they’re retiring, dealing with ill health, emigrating, exiting the industry or simply moving on. They want a buyer who’ll continue what they’ve built rather than strip it for the client list.
Two things we won’t acquire: audit-only firms (we don’t hold the audit registration) and overseas practices (we operate in the UK only).
Five stages from first call to completion.
Some deals can complete in weeks, some take months – it all depends on you.
01
Fifteen minutes with me. Nothing more until you’re ready.
Direct call with me. I’ll ask a few questions about the business, what you’re looking to achieve and your timeframes, then let you know whether there’s a good enough fit to move forward.
No commitment either way
02
Usually done in person so we get to meet and agree a figure.
We meet at a suitable location, typically at our office. We go through clients, team, systems, numbers properly, running through our valuation process. You’ll know how we’ve got to that valuation, and the number we say is the number we mean. We’re not the sorts to try to pull any tricks to hammer the price on completion day.
Number stays the same at completion
03
Terms agreed in plain English, before any contract is drafted.
We speak through the price, the structure and the timeline. We agree what happens to your team, your clients, your brand, the company itself – and we get to a point where we have everything pre-agreed, that we’re happy with, before we start to engage solicitors. This is for us to simply agree the terms that we’re working to.
Heads of terms, signed by both sides
04
Everything we’ve agreed gets turned into a signed contract.
Once terms are agreed, we engage our solicitors to produce the documents needed to complete. We stay in close contact the entire way through, and if there’s something holding the transaction up, we work together to get it resolved.
We stay close through to completion
05
Working together to keep your clients on board.
We work together to advise your clients of the changes, and welcome your team with introductions to everyone they’ll be having conversations with moving forward. We make the transition as seamless as we can, with minimal disruption to keep everything running properly.
Together through the transition
What completion means for your team, your clients and your reputation.
Their jobs and salaries are safe.
I meet them before anything operational changes. We discuss training and progression paths, and let them know what those steps could be. If they want to stay doing exactly what they’re doing, that works too.
Their day-to-day contacts stay where they are.
We communicate with your clients at a set pace, making introductions and seeing if there’s anything we can initially do to support them further. They keep the package they signed up for with you, with any changes only made when it’s right for them.
The practice name typically stays the same.
We respect the reputation and brand that’s been built – and we don’t like to come in and change the name of a practice that’s been established for years. Legacy matters, and continuing the name in the local area matters with it.
The questions most sellers ask before we talk.
01
How do you value my practice?
We sit down together and I get to know your business: your profit, your clients, your processes. From that conversation, we know what valuation we’d be able to support and finance, and we let you know exactly what that is on the day.
Every practice is different – different ways of working, different strengths and weaknesses, different levels of risk. We have a well-designed valuation process that accounts for all of it. The number we share is what we know the business is worth to us, and what we can finance. It’s never a random figure, and never one that wouldn’t work moving forward.
02
What if my partners aren’t aligned with me yet?
This is a common situation. We acquire 100% of either the business or the clients – so if some partners want to sell and others don’t, a deal typically wouldn’t work for us. We won’t try to persuade reluctant partners to sell. We work with sellers who know what they want, and that has to be aligned across the partnership.
03
What if I’m not sure I’m ready to sell?
Some sellers are ready immediately and want to sell as fast as they can. Others are exploring conversations about deals that won’t happen for 12 months or longer. Whilst we prefer acquisitions in the shorter term, we very much welcome building relationships with those who aren’t sure if they’re looking to sell in the near future, or who just want to understand what their business might sell for.
Still worth a conversation – unless you’re just kicking around trying to find out. We need to buy from sellers who genuinely want to sell.
Tell me about your practice.
Sent directly to me. I read every one and reply within two working days.