A valuation that holds up when the number is challenged.
Know your number before anyone else sets it for you. An independent valuation puts the strongest figure you can defend in your hands — before the sale, the dispute or the settlement that depends on it. And when the other side has already produced a valuation, I test it.
The other side has served a valuation. Someone has to test it.
Expert report review and rebuttal: a party-appointed, independent technical critique of a valuation produced by the other side or by a single joint expert. I identify the assumptions that will not survive cross-examination, and set out precisely where and why the figure moves. A short desk review tells you whether there is anything worth arguing about — before you commit your client to the cost of a full rebuttal. Instructed by family solicitors, commercial litigators and accountants advising a party, in England and Wales.
What a review is, and is not. A valuation review is not a valuation. The review report states whether it is a review of the valuation process, a review of the value, or both, and it sets out what is wrong and what that does to the conclusion. It does not produce a competing figure. Where the instruction needs a figure of my own, that is a valuation and is scoped and quoted as one — usually as a shadow valuation. I will tell you at the first call which of the two you actually need.
Prepared to the evidentiary standards expected by HMRC | the family courts | the civil courts | lenders | solicitors and mediators
The real problem
By the time most business owners find out what their business is really worth, they are already negotiating the wrong number down.
Your accountant knows what your business earned. That is not the same as what it is worth.
The other side sets the first number
Every bid moves downward from theirs
A gap of 20 to 40 percent is common
You will never know what you left behind
A professional valuation costs a fraction of what you lose the moment someone else sets the opening bid. This is the calculation most owners skip — until it is too late.
Eight reasons clients call
What situation are you in?
Selling
Start from a document a buyer cannot dismiss.
Buy-out
The one number neither partner produced.
Financial remedy
The independent opinion the court expects.
HMRC / CGT
A defensible market value that protects you.
Funding
What lenders increasingly require before lending.
Planning
A current, credible value to plan around.
Approached
A buyer’s first number is an anchor, not a verdict.
Succession
Plan the handover or exit on a number you can build toward.
Methodology
Three approaches. One conclusion you can defend in any room.
01
Cost approach (net assets)
What the business owns, less what it owes, each restated to current value. A floor under the value, or the value itself where the assets would fetch more sold than kept in the business.
02
Market approach
What buyers pay for comparable businesses, expressed as a multiple of earnings and adjusted for the differences. For a profitable trading business this is usually the main method, with its evidence and its limits disclosed.
03
Income approach
The cash the business is expected to generate, discounted to a value today. A check on the market figure.
The approaches test each other. Where they disagree, the report says why, rather than averaging the difference away.
Meet the expert
Mark Prigge
B.Com, MBA · BVPro · UK sole trader
More than twenty years in business and finance — the last decade and more focused on independent business valuation — across the United Kingdom and South Africa. My valuations are prepared to IVS and to the evidentiary standards expected by HMRC, the courts and lenders. I do not broker deals. I do not earn on outcomes. And I do not take a commission for recommending anyone else — if a matter needs a discipline I do not cover, I will say so rather than take the instruction. I produce an honest opinion and I stand behind it — and I use modern tools to do the work faster, so the fee buys judgement, not data entry.
From contested shareholder structures to succession, financial remedy and HMRC matters — independent value where the number has to hold up.
Contested & dispute valuations
Independent value where it is argued over — shareholder exits and unfair prejudice, financial remedy, partnership dissolution — establishing the defensible number that moves parties toward a settlement.
Expert report review & rebuttal
Testing a valuation the other side or a single joint expert has produced: basis of value, valuation date, one-directional normalisation, double-counted risk, discounts applied where they do not belong.
Complex earnings structures
Unpicking how a business really earns — attributing income fairly across owners, non-owners and cost centres, and normalising discretionary and cross-company costs to a maintainable figure everyone can rely on.
Not sure where to start? Ask one question.
Most people aren’t ready to commission a valuation — they just have a question on their mind:
“What is my business roughly worth?”
“Do I even need a formal report for the financial remedy proceedings?”
“Is the other side’s valuation worth challenging?”
Send me the one question you have. I will answer it personally, by WhatsApp or email — no form, no pitch, no obligation.
Send me the one question on your mind and I will tell you honestly whether a valuation — or a review of someone else’s — even makes sense for your situation.
