Manchester and the wider North West are home to a large, thriving community of independent accountancy firms serving the region’s SMEs. It is also one of our own delivery bases. Owners here often tell us the same thing: the practice is solid and the clients are loyal, but the prospect of another decade of compliance change and staffing headaches has them thinking about the future. If you own a practice in Greater Manchester, we buy directly, confidentially, and on your timeline.
Why sell your practice directly
We’re a direct buyer, not a broker. You deal with the decision-maker, keep the process confidential, avoid broker commission, and shape the deal around your timeline rather than a broker’s calendar. There is no listing your practice around the market and no parade of tyre-kickers — just a grown-up, private conversation. The full comparison is in our guide to broker vs direct.
Why does a Manchester delivery base matter to a seller?
Practice Group has people in Manchester as well as London, Ballymena and Pretoria. For a Manchester sale that is a practical difference rather than a marketing one: the firm is not being absorbed by a buyer running everything from somewhere else. There is capacity nearby to take compliance production off the team while the handover settles, which is usually the point at which client service is most at risk. If you would rather test that capacity before you sell anything, our white-label back office does exactly that job for firms that are not for sale at all.
What does the handover actually look like?
The timetable is agreed with you rather than imposed, but a phased handover is the common shape and it tends to run like this.
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Before completion | Confidential call, an indicative range, light-touch due diligence, then heads of terms. |
| The first weeks | Deliberately quiet. We learn the workflow and meet the team; clients see no change. |
| The following months | Production work starts to move across, and reporting and systems are tidied up. |
| Your step-down | Fast exit or a gradual reduction — whichever was agreed, at the pace agreed. |
Where in the North West do you buy?
Across Greater Manchester — the city centre, Salford, Stockport, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Trafford, Tameside and Wigan — and out into Cheshire, Warrington, Merseyside and Lancashire.
What kind of practice are you looking for?
UK practices are usually valued on a multiple of gross recurring fees rather than profit, because owner-managed profit is distorted by how the owner pays themselves. Our valuation guide puts the range for general practice at broadly 0.8× to 1.2× GRF, with weaker firms below that and high-quality fee blocks attracting 1.3× or more. Beyond the number, fit matters more than size: we buy limited company and sole practitioner firms, and we are flexible on service mix, software and how involved the owner wants to remain.
Our promise as a buyer
- Respect the legacy you have built
- Protect the team — in most deals, keeping the people is how you keep the clients
- Improve systems without wrecking the culture
- Confidential from the very first conversation
If you own a practice anywhere in Greater Manchester and you are even loosely thinking about the next chapter, a first conversation is private and commits you to nothing.
Ready for a confidential conversation?
Wherever your practice is, you deal directly with the buyer — confidentially, and on your timeline.
Book a confidential call