A methodology built around your ambitions. A process that stays with you until they are achieved.
Most advisers sell you a service and move on. We build a plan around what you actually want — and then help you execute it, every step of the way to the outcome you have worked for.
If any of this sounds familiar, you are in exactly the right place.
These are the thoughts that go through the head of almost every F&B founder we speak to. Not because they are failing — but because they are running a business without the specific information and support they need to get the outcome they deserve.
"I had an approach last year. I did not know if the number was fair. I turned it down. I still do not know if I made the right call."
A founder with no deal-terms valuation has no way to assess whether an approach is genuine or opportunistic. The buyer knows this. The founder usually does not."My accountant says the business is worth around eight million. But I have heard of similar businesses selling for significantly more. I do not know what to believe."
An accountant's valuation and a deal-terms valuation are different calculations. The gap between them is routinely seven figures — and almost always in the founder's favour if they know what to add back."I know I need to do something about our biggest customer. They are 40% of our revenue. I just keep telling myself I will deal with it next year."
Customer concentration above 25% reduces the EBITDA multiple by 1.5x to 3x. On a £2m EBITDA business, that is £3m to £6m of enterprise value sitting in a problem that has a solution — if there is time to execute it."The business cannot really run without me. I know that is a problem. But there is nobody to hand it to and no time to develop anyone."
Founder dependency is the most consistent valuation suppressor we encounter. It costs 1x to 2x of EBITDA multiple and almost always results in an earn-out that keeps the founder tied in for two to three years after completion."I want to exit in the next three to five years but I have no idea what I actually need to do to prepare. I do not even know what the right number is for me personally."
Without knowing the real number — and what the business needs to achieve it — three to five years can pass without the right preparation happening. Time is the one thing that cannot be bought back once the process starts."I have been talking to my bank, my accountant, and a broker. They all tell me something different. Nobody is giving me a straight answer about what the business is actually worth and what I should do."
The bank has a lending interest. The accountant has a compliance focus. The broker has a completion fee to earn. None of them are structurally incentivised to give the founder the full picture early enough to act on it.None of these problems are permanent. Every one of them responds to the right information, the right plan, and the right support at the right time. That is exactly what the KLGP Runway is built to provide.
Five stages. One connected journey.
Every client moves through the same sequence. The depth and duration of each stage depends on where the business is and what the ambitions require.
Before anything else, we establish what you actually want.
Not just "exit in three years." The specifics that shape every decision that follows. How much do you need from the transaction to achieve genuine financial freedom? What happens to the management team and the staff who have built this with you? Is there a legacy consideration — a family member in the business, a preference for a management buyout, a buyer who will steward what has been built?
What is the realistic timeline, and what does that mean for how much preparation time we have? How involved do you want to be post-completion — a clean break, a transition period, or retained involvement with a minority stake?
The answers to these questions are the foundation on which everything else is built. A founder who wants maximum cash in the shortest time needs a different plan to one who wants to preserve the business's character and stay involved for two years. We build the plan around the ambition. Not the other way around.
Most advisers never ask these questions. We start with them.
What we are establishing
This is a structured conversation that surfaces the specific ambitions, constraints, and preferences that will filter every subsequent recommendation. There are no wrong answers — only answers that shape the plan differently.
This conversation happens before any product is engaged. It is revisited at every stage of the Runway as circumstances change.
Once we know where you want to get to, we build the plan that gets you there — The Picture.
The Picture. The plan that tells you everything you need to execute.
The Picture is the most important thing we produce. It is the complete written plan that tells the founder what the business is worth in deal terms today, what is standing between the current position and the ambition, and the exact sequence of actions — the people and the objectives — required to close the gap.
It is built on the same analysis every serious acquirer applies when assessing a target. We apply it first — on the founder's behalf — so that nothing is discovered for the first time in a due diligence process. The founder arrives at the transaction phase with every information advantage the buyer has — and then some.
Every finding in The Picture is filtered through the ambition established in Stage 1. Every suppressor identified is assessed against whether it matters for the specific outcome the founder is working toward. Every action recommended is connected to the destination, not just to a generic best practice.
- Normalised EBITDA The number a buyer will actually underwrite — every adjustment shown and justified. Not the figure in the statutory accounts.
- Valuation range in current deal terms Built on live UK F&B transaction data for comparable businesses in your sub-sector. Floor, mid-point, and ceiling with a specific rationale for each.
- Buyer universe map Named buyer categories. Who would buy, what they would pay, and what they specifically look for in a business with your profile.
- Value gap analysis The specific factors suppressing or enhancing your multiple — and what each one is worth in pounds of enterprise value.
- Exit readiness scorecard A structured 20-point assessment scored against buyer expectations. The basis for everything in the Runway that follows.
- The Runway roadmap The sequenced plan — people, priorities, timeline — connecting current position to the ambition. The document that makes execution possible.
Why The Picture changes everything
A founder who does not know their normalised EBITDA is negotiating blind. A founder who does not know their buyer universe is hoping the right buyer finds them. A founder who has not seen their suppressor profile is walking into a process where the buyer's adviser has all the information advantages.
The Picture eliminates that asymmetry. It puts the founder on equal footing with any buyer before any conversation begins.
And because every finding is connected to the ambition from Stage 1, the founder is not just getting information — they are getting a plan. Specific actions, connected to a specific destination, filtered through what they actually want to achieve.
Guarantee: if the report does not contain a normalised EBITDA, specific valuation range, buyer universe map, value gap analysis, and sequenced roadmap — full refund. No questions asked.
Delivered over four to six weeks. 20 to 30 pages. A written document the founder owns and can use in any subsequent conversation with buyers, lenders, investors, or co-shareholders.
The plan is only as valuable as its execution. Stage 3 is how we make sure the plan does not sit in a drawer.
What we track every month
The Value Partner is not a check-in call. It is a structured monthly review against the specific metrics identified in The Picture as the leading indicators of progress toward the ambition.
We stay alongside you as you execute the plan.
The Picture produces the plan. The Value Partner is how we make sure it gets executed — not left in a drawer while the business carries on as before.
Every month, we review progress against the specific metrics identified in The Picture as the leading indicators of value. Not a generic management accounts review — a structured assessment of whether the suppressors are being addressed, whether the EBITDA is tracking as planned, and whether the business is moving toward or away from where it needs to be when the transaction phase begins.
If something is not working, we know immediately — not when a buyer's adviser surfaces it in due diligence twelve months later. And there is still enough time to do something about it.
This is the difference between a process that produces the outcome the founder intended and one that produces the outcome the founder ends up with.
Talk to us about the Value Partner →Sometimes the path to the ambition runs through capital or an acquisition. Where the plan calls for it, we manage those mandates as part of the Runway.
Capital raising and acquisitions — as part of the Runway, not separate from it.
For some founders, the ambition requires the business to be materially larger or more diversified before going to market. For others, there is a capital ceiling that needs to be broken through before the growth the valuation ambition requires can be achieved. For others, a well-structured bolt-on acquisition is the most efficient path to the exit number.
Where The Picture identifies that the optimal path to the founder's ambition runs through a capital raise or an acquisition — or both — we manage those mandates as integrated stages of the Runway. They are not separate engagements bolted on. They are steps in the plan built in Stage 2, connected to the ambition established in Stage 1.
The strategic question is always the same: how does this action move the business closer to the outcome the founder is working toward? That question — filtered through the specific ambition — is what determines whether capital or an acquisition is the right next step, and if so, what kind and on what terms.
- Capital Raise Growth debt, asset-backed lending, minority equity, or a combination. Structured around the specific need, placed with the right providers for the business profile and the exit timeline.
- Buy-Side M&A Target identification, proactive approach, due diligence, and completion management for bolt-on acquisitions that accelerate the Runway toward the exit ambition.
- Buy and Build Strategy Where the ambition requires a platform rather than a single business, we build and execute the acquisition thesis — including funding structure and exit positioning.
Why this is different from a standalone mandate
Most capital raises are transactional. A business needs money, a lender provides it, and the relationship ends. The capital is often in the wrong structure for the exit phase that follows — creating constraints the founder does not realise until they try to go to market.
When capital or an acquisition is part of the Runway, the structure is designed around the exit implications from the start. A bolt-on acquired at six times EBITDA that takes the combined platform to a higher multiple range on exit creates value through the multiple arbitrage alone — before operational synergies are counted. That logic only exists if the acquisition is connected to an exit plan. We build that connection.
Every capital or acquisition mandate engaged through the Runway is built on the foundation of The Picture — the buyer universe is already mapped, the suppressor profile is already known, and the exit destination is already clear. That context makes every decision sharper.
When the business is ready — when the suppressors are addressed and the plan is executed — we manage the transaction from start to completion.
The transaction. The culmination of everything that preceded it.
A business that has been through The Picture, addressed its suppressors through the Value Partner, and arrived at the transaction phase with clean financials, a diversified customer base, and a capable management team is a fundamentally different proposition to one that goes to market unprepared. The preparation is the reason our clients achieve outcomes toward the top of their valuation range.
And because the ambition was established in Stage 1 and the plan was built in Stage 2, the transaction is not a surprise — it is the execution of a plan the founder has been working toward for months or years. The buyer universe is already mapped. The equity story is already known. The due diligence is already anticipated. The negotiation is conducted from a position of information, not reaction.
- Equity story and positioning Built specifically for the buyer universe identified in The Picture — not a generic information memorandum adapted from a template.
- Controlled buyer approach Trade and PE buyers approached simultaneously to create competitive tension. Competition is what produces premium pricing — a single-buyer process almost never achieves it.
- Management presentation coaching Every question a buyer will ask is anticipated and prepared for — before the meeting, not in it.
- Due diligence management Vendor DD preparation means nothing surfaces in buyer due diligence that has not already been addressed. No late-stage price chips.
- Negotiation and deal structuring Terms negotiated with the ambition from Stage 1 as the reference point — price, structure, earn-out, transition, legacy.
- Completion management Legal close managed through to the day the money arrives in the account.
Three transaction mandates
The transaction phase of the Runway can take three forms, depending on what the ambition established in Stage 1 and the plan built in Stage 2 identify as the right route.
The same founder. A different conversation.
The thoughts that kept founders up at night at the start of this page are not permanent. They are the product of missing information, missing preparation, and missing support. Here is what changes after the Runway.
"An approach came in last month. I knew exactly what it was worth before I picked up the phone. We had a productive conversation. We are now in a process."
A founder who knows their deal-terms valuation and their buyer universe can assess any approach immediately. The information asymmetry that favoured the buyer no longer exists."We reduced our top customer from 42% of revenue to 19% over eighteen months. I thought it was impossible without losing volume. It was not. And I know exactly what it was worth in enterprise value."
Customer concentration addressed before a process — with enough lead time — is reflected in the valuation as an established characteristic, not a recent change. The suppressor becomes a strength."The business ran without me for four months while I was going through the process. Three years ago that would have been unthinkable. Now I have a team I trust and a number I am proud of."
Founder dependency reduced before a process removes the earn-out requirement and expands the buyer universe. The founder achieves a clean exit rather than two more years of obligation."I walked into the management presentations knowing every question they were going to ask. I answered all of them. The process completed at the headline price. No chips."
Vendor due diligence preparation means nothing surfaces in the buyer's process that has not already been addressed. The headline price survives from offer to completion — which is rarer than it should be."I knew what I needed from the transaction before we started. The number we achieved meant my financial freedom number was met. What came after the exit was a choice, not a necessity."
When the ambition is established at the start and the plan is built around it, the outcome is not a pleasant surprise — it is an executed plan. The founder arrives at completion knowing they got what they set out to achieve."For the first time in fifteen years of running this business, I felt like the adviser was genuinely on my side. Not managing me toward their fee. Actually on my side."
A project-based, fixed-fee structure with a transaction success fee aligned to the founder's outcome removes the conflicts that make most advisory relationships uncomfortable. The interests are the same.The Runway does not guarantee a specific outcome. Nothing in corporate finance can do that. What it guarantees is that the founder arrives at the transaction phase with the best possible information, the best possible preparation, and an adviser who has been working toward the same ambition from the first conversation.
We stand behind what we deliver.
The Picture comes with a full refund guarantee. If the report does not contain a normalised EBITDA, a specific valuation range, a buyer universe map, a value gap analysis, and a sequenced Runway roadmap — the full fee is refunded. No questions asked.
We include it because a founder investing in a written plan deserves to know exactly what they are getting — and because we are confident in what we deliver. The guarantee is a signal of that confidence, not a qualification of it.
The Runway starts with a conversation about your ambitions — and a number.
The free valuation calculator gives you a sense of where the business stands today. The call is where we connect that to where you want to get to. Both take less time than you think. Neither requires any commitment to go further.
Confidential · No obligation · Built for UK F&B founders