For commercial finance brokers
A business whose owners are approaching retirement often needs funding before it changes hands: a refinance, working capital through a sale, or a buyer’s acquisition finance. Succession Radar helps commercial finance brokers find those companies on the public register and open the conversation early.
It reads the Companies House register and finds companies where everyone in control is approaching retirement age and the register shows no materially younger controller. For brokers it adds two things the register already holds: the charges registered against each company, and the debtors figure on its filed accounts.
Filters built for brokers
Outstanding charges by age, and by lender
Filter to companies with an outstanding charge created between, say, three and seven years ago, the age at which many facilities come up for renewal or refinance. Add part of a lender’s name to keep only charges in favour of that lender. A charge counts while the register shows it as not fully satisfied. The age is worked out from the date the charge was created, so it tells you how long the security has been in place, not the term of the loan behind it.
Total debtors from the latest filed accounts
Set a minimum and a maximum for debtors, read from the latest accounts held for the company. This is the total debtors figure as filed: trade debtors together with other debtors, prepayments and amounts owed by group companies. Small companies are not required to split it, so it is not a trade debtors figure, and it can overstate the book an invoice finance facility would lend against. Companies with no debtors figure on file, including micro-entities, drop out once you set either end of the range.
Combine with the usual screens
The broker filters sit with the rest: region or postcode area, sector, the age bracket of the eldest controller, filed turnover, net assets and profit where they are filed, employees, and whether a parent company sits above. A paid plan’s watchlist can tell you when a company on it registers or satisfies a charge.
What the figures are, and are not
Every figure is what the company filed, as at its accounts date, which can be well over a year old. Charges record security, not the amount lent or what is still owed. Neither is a credit assessment, and nothing here says a company needs or wants finance. It is a reason to ask, with the evidence shown beside every company.
The approach is yours, and so are its rules. Succession Radar contacts nobody. Letters go out in your name, and if you telephone or email, the rules on direct marketing apply to you as the sender, including screening against the Corporate Telephone Preference Service. Anyone named on the register can remove their details from the service at any time.
Start with three free searches
The free tier gives you three searches, three results each, and no card. Monthly access (£149 +VAT a month, rolling) unlocks unlimited results, the score’s working, letters and outreach tracking. The annual licence (£49 +VAT a month, billed as £588 +VAT for 12 months) adds CSV export. For how the score works, read the method; for how purchases are funded, read funding an acquisition.