Maximise what your business is worth — before you go to market.
Strategic exit preparation for European SME founders. We help you fix pricing, sharpen profitability, and position your company to attract the right buyers at the right valuation.
Most owners leave 15–30% of potential deal value on the table because they enter negotiations without a commercial strategy. Cedarum works with you in the 12–24 months before a sale to close that gap.
From first assessment to deal-ready in four steps.
Take the Scorecard
A 5-minute self-assessment that benchmarks your business across the dimensions buyers care about: pricing, profitability, owner dependency, and commercial positioning.
Review Your Results
Receive a personalised readiness report with your score, benchmarks against comparable CEE/DACH transactions, and the three highest-impact areas for improvement.
Strategy Call
A focused 20-minute conversation to discuss your score, your timeline, and whether a structured exit preparation engagement makes sense for your situation.
Build the Plan
If we work together, you receive a detailed 12–24 month roadmap: pricing optimisation, metric cleanup, buyer positioning, and market-readiness milestones.
Two sides of the same equation.
We work with founders preparing to sell and with buyers looking for well-positioned targets.
SME Founders & Owners
Owner-managed businesses in Europe with €1–30M revenue, planning an exit within 1–5 years. You know the business is worth something — we help you prove exactly how much, and then make it worth more.
- Planning a sale but unsure where to start
- Received an unsolicited approach and feel unprepared
- Know your pricing or metrics suppress valuation
- Want to move from intuition to a structured exit roadmap
Holdcos, ETA & Search Funds
Holding companies, search fund operators, and PE funds seeking pre-qualified bolt-on and platform acquisition targets in CEE and DACH. We don't compete with your deal team — we feed you better-prepared companies.
- Need proprietary deal flow in opaque CEE markets
- Tired of targets that fall apart in due diligence
- Looking for commercially improved, acquisition-ready SMEs
- Want to reduce time-to-close and deal-break risk
What we do for you.
Every engagement is tailored to the business, the owner, and the timeline. Three core service areas.
Exit Readiness Assessment
A structured diagnostic of your business across the dimensions that drive valuation multiples: pricing architecture, revenue quality, customer concentration, financial metric transparency, and owner dependency. You leave with a clear picture of where you stand and what to fix.
Value Uplift & Pricing Strategy
The differentiator. We apply value-based pricing methodology and commercial strategy to improve your margins, strengthen your revenue narrative, and position the business to command a premium. This is the work that moves multiples before a process begins.
Buyer Positioning & Market Readiness
We help you articulate why your business is a compelling acquisition: the strategic narrative, the bolt-on logic, the synergy story. Then we connect you into the right buyer ecosystems — holdcos, search funds, PE, strategic acquirers — when the timing is right.
The best time to start preparing was two years ago. The second best time is now.
Find out where you stand in 5 minutes. No commitment, no hard sell — just clarity.
Common questions.
Brokers run a transaction process. We work before the transaction begins. Our focus is the 12–24 months of preparation that determines how much value you capture when you eventually go to market. We are not a listing platform, and we do not charge success fees on deals. Think of us as the strategic partner who makes the broker's job easier and your outcome better.
Profitable, owner-managed SMEs with roughly €1–30M in annual revenue and positive EBITDA. The sweet spot is €2–15M: large enough to attract serious buyers, but typically lacking in-house M&A sophistication. We are sector-agnostic, with particular depth in B2B services, IT services, light manufacturing, and healthcare.
Europe-wide, with a strong focus on Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Baltics) and DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Our team has deep experience, established networks, and a genuine affinity with these regions, which means we understand the local deal dynamics, buyer expectations, and business cultures that shape successful transactions there.
The scorecard is a 5-minute self-assessment covering pricing maturity, financial readiness, owner dependency, and buyer attractiveness. You receive a personalised score benchmarked against comparable transactions in your region, plus the three highest-impact areas to improve. It is free, confidential, and designed to give you immediate clarity on where you stand.
Cedarum is a specialised advisory practice focused on exit readiness and value uplift for European SME founders. Our team brings experience spanning strategy consulting, value-based pricing, and wealth & asset management — a combination that lets us lead on the strategic and commercial dimensions that drive valuation. We collaborate with trusted lawyers and accountants for legal and tax execution.