The Stirling Team

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Roger used his middle name to form Stirling in 2000, having 24 years of previous business experience, reaching Chairman & Managing Director level of a £13.9m turnover business, employing over 200 people. Roger has developed Stirling to provide business owners with a personal service to help find buyers for businesses for sale. From experience gained of selling two of his own businesses and latterly, other businesses sold through Stirling, Roger produced a well received “FREE Guide to buying and selling businesses successfully” and also, a “FREE Guide to maximising business values“. Having created a comprehensive database of business owners, buyers and investors, Stirling is able to gain enquiries for businesses for sale, particularly from the engineering & manufacturing sectors. With fair and easy to understand terms and conditions, Roger has ensured that Stirling is able to offer SME clients a cost effective & flexible approach for when the time comes to sell.

Roger has a book published about selling businesses – “Sell your business FAST!”

To order your copy CLICK HERE.

“What I liked about working with Roger Smith of Stirling, is that we didn’t get ripped off with fees and false promises….” Steve Marsh

“We chose Roger where we appreciated his wide range of contacts, fair terms of business, including his honest & friendly approach to business.” L Peters

“Roger provided an efficient, tailor-made service from the initial introduction to the eventual sale of my engineering company.” Nick Hewinson

“Roger’s thorough approach to selling my company meant that a buyer was found after only a few months….” J Patrick

Caroline Hall is one of our independent Business Valuers.

Caroline graduated from London University with a First Class Honours Degree in Maths and then worked for KPMG in London for six years.  There she trained as an auditor and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1986 before specialising in taxation of private individuals and companies for a further three years with KPMG. During her period working as a tax consultant she covered a wide range of work including remuneration issues, emigration & immigration for tax purposes, Business Expansion Schemes, business sales & acquisitions & capital gains tax & inheritance tax planning as well as preparing valuations of owner managed businesses & report writing on all of the above areas.

Caroline moved to Shropshire in 1989 and has been a partner, and more recently a director, of D.R.E. & Co since 1994.

Caroline is an Audit Principal and is involved with a large number of family companies, giving tax, business and accounts advice. Over the last 30 years she has prepared valuations for partnership splits & matrimonial purposes on numerous occasions, usually on the instruction of the parties involved in order to reach amicable or mediated solutions. Caroline has received instructions by solicitors for business valuations and tax planning advice in more contentious circumstances as single joint expert reporting to the Court. She also performs valuations for share sales, share schemes, business acquisitions and probate purposes.

As an author for Tottel Publishing, Caroline was responsible for updating “Tax Planning for Buying and Selling Businesses” from 2007 to 2010.

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Lisa specialises in business strategy. She has started, overseen and (in some cases) exited 5 businesses in 13 years and has advised over 100 business owners on how to start, scale and sell.

Lisa took over one business which was achieving 3% net profit and within 2 years, achieved 44% (NP) with a sale valuation of 6 times the net profit.

She’s developed her own system to identify vulnerabilities in a business and provides the business owner with clear strategies on how to achieve their business goal as quickly as possible.

Lisa often contributes to our Selling a business? Zoom in on the experts for free help & advice meetings.

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Nigel is a Finance Specialist and a senior executive with over 35 years’ experience in businesses. He acquired his first business at the age of 24 and completed his first successful exit three years later.

He specialises in structuring deals and raising the finance for mergers, acquisitions and achieving growth plans of in excess of £10s millions in recent years. He utilises his network of finance institutions and alternative funding contacts to source all types of business finance to support UK SMEs including unsecured loans, secured loans, property finance, asset based finance including invoice finance.

Nigel combines his background in creating and realising a company vision for multi-site businesses and start-ups, implementing recovery plans for underperforming businesses and driving change to generate growth in declining markets with his ability to build strong, trusting relationships to ensure successful outcomes for all parties.

Nigel assists Stirling with our “Help to buy a business” service and kindly contributed to our article Raising Finance for Acquisitions.

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Rob Andrews is a solutions focused, commercial solicitor with over 25 years’ experience of advising SME business owners/management on the range of legal issues they face across the life of their business.

Currently, a consultant solicitor with two practices, one national and the other based in the West Midlands, Rob is also an accredited CMC registered mediator with Clerksroom and a frequent speaker/presenter/trainer on subjects such as buying/selling businesses, data protection/privacy law, and dispute resolution.

Rob’s expertise lies in two main areas:

1. Helping clients establish, grow, and often exit their business.
From setting up business structures, to advising on business contracts (terms and conditions, commercial contracts etc), engaging key staff, and bringing on investors through to identifying and implementing exit strategies, including dealing with mergers, joint ventures, restructuring, business sales and purchases.

2. Helping clients resolve or avoid disputes. Including audits to reduce and manage risk, training on due diligence when contracting with suppliers and customers, through to dispute resolution procedures of all types.

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Richard is an experienced SME owner-manager with a good track record, running a successful retail design and manufacturing business for over 20 years. Developing an innovative, sustainable and devolved business model he sold his company in December 2013 as part of a long-term exit strategy and gained first-hand experience of preparing businesses for sale, creating value and handling the sale process. Richard now helps a wide range of SME’s to re-engineer their businesses in order to deliver sustainable growth, in preparation for MBI or acquisition with the “Prepare to Sell Scheme“. Richard enjoys helping companies achieve an alignment of personal values and motivations with ambitious corporate objectives to release the real drivers that build value. Appointed Enterprise Ambassador for Leeds University in 2015, supporting their Management undergraduate courses with seminars and workshops on creativity, innovation, growth models and exit strategies.

“I personally feel more focused and have a clearer mind taking these initial steps.” David Bradley, Managing Director, Lydian Investments Ltd.

“Richard is a great communicator and a very valuable advisor. His wealth of experience across various sectors is proving to be a real asset to our company planning and strategy. A strong and clear thinker.” David R Robinson, Founder, The Original Sofa Co Ltd.

“Richard is friendly and enthusiastic, providing clear recommendations and good ideas which he is also helping to implement. His experience in manufacturing and team management has given me the confidence to trust the processes he has initiated and he has provided useful guidance on any pitfalls that might occur. I have found his depth and breadth of expertise extremely valuable and would certainly recommend him to SMEs looking to grow.” Jeremy Greenwood, Managing Director, Greenwood Magnetics Ltd.

“I am more than happy to recommend Richard for advisory services as he has been extremely helpful and professional in his mentoring role with my business.” C Lowe, Managing Director, Cloud Source.

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Joe helps entrepreneurs to realise the value from their business and ensure that all of the hard work that goes into building and running their business does not go to waste. Frequently business owners will have all of their focus taken up by the day-to-day operations of their work and neglect to manage their own financial planning.

Joe’s expertise is in helping bridge business and personal financial planning, and may involve creating investment strategies in the run up to a business sale, for example making use of pension allowances. Alternatively, Joe can help you formulate strategies to utilise the sale proceeds from your business.

For more information, please visit https://www.willcoxwealthmanagement.co.uk/

Joe runs Willcox Wealth Management. Wilcox Wealth Management is an Appointed Representative of and represents only St. James’s Place Wealth Management plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the Group’s wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the Group’s website www.sjp.co.uk/products. The title ‘Partner Practice’ is the marketing term used to describe St. James’s Place representatives.

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Simon Williams, Director of Coaching, has 25 years business experience ranging from starting up and building companies through to top management roles within leading international corporations. As an accountancy graduate, with a great track record in Sales & Marketing, Team Building and Financial Management, Simon has run many business courses, spoken at international conferences and had articles published on key management topics. Simon has taken a start-up division within a multinational company to a $100Million valuation within 3 years. He remained with the company after sale working with the new, venture capitalist owners. Simon has won numerous business awards and visited well over 50 countries on business. Since becoming a certified Coach Simon has achieved some stunning results and has received both UK and international awards. He is one of an elite group, who have attained Platinum Mentor Coach status.

“After feeling that I had hit a bit of a brick wall, I had begun looking for advice on how to take my business to the next level. Simon was recommended to me by a mutual client and whilst I was initially sceptical of what I might get out of coaching, my fears were completely unfounded……..” M Cutter

“After speaking with Simon for the very first time I realised he had an amazing passion for all businesses. He has an amazing confidence that he can help any business as long as the owner is open minded and wanting to take their business to the next level…” A Downie

“I first met Simon at a breakfast networking meeting and was immediately impressed by his approachable manner and vast business knowledge. Since we met I have been able to build not only a business relationship with Simon but also a friendship founded on trust….” A Noble

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David Parry completed two significant company turnarounds himself before joining a consulting firm to help other organisations do the same. He now helps clients of Stirling to prepare their businesses for sale in the future by maximising their performance and making them more attractive to a potential buyer.

Originally from a background in Engineering, David has worked with firms in a variety of sectors – including specialisms in professional service firms, family firms and partnerships. He prefers working with people who are expert in their product or service, where he adds the business management knowledge and co-ordinated approach. David focusses on getting the important things done, while the business owners are busy doing the urgent things.

The approach is designed to be as effective as possible while working with the current owners. David can help facilitate regular Board or Partners meetings (or instigate them if needed), and use these to drive actions. He then steps out of these meetings with a list of actions of his own, and is very hands-on in helping to get things done.”

“Acting as a consultant to The Needham Group, David has demonstrated experience, professionalism and the highest levels of competence across every discipline required to run and grow a successful business. He has a monumental eye for detail and system processes. His approach is structured, targetted, inclusive and systemised and all this with a sense of humour. His consultancy has been invaluable to us.” David Needham, Owner, The Needham Group