Cherie-Anne from Unividual - GOING

Situation
Unividual is a family-founded financial planning business. Established by John Baxter over 25 years ago, daughter and son took over the leadership of the business in 2015. Cherie-Anne and Lewis grew the firm to three offices; in London, Edinburgh and Bath, advising £200m across 1,000 clients, over half of whom were women, giving the business a unique market position.

But change was coming. John was ready to retire. Cherie-Anne wanted to move on. Lewis wanted to stay and lead. At the same time, the firm needed greater resources across technology, marketing and finance to keep growing in a post-Consumer Duty world. The family wanted to find the right partner who could support that future while respecting the business they had built.

What we did
One of our first jobs with Unividual was coaching sessions around the succession plan, exploring different routes including external shareholders and funding options. After a full discussion, a full share sale emerged as the best fit for the family’s objectives.

Melo then prepared a confidential seller profile, positioning the firm’s unique strengths and why they would matter to the right acquirer. We built a carefully curated list of potential buyers, combining our extensive buyer database with those buyers already known to the firm, and ran a structured process.

This generated more than 40 expressions of interest and 25 formal buyer meetings. After deciding on which offer to go with, the buyer unfortunately changed direction, so we relaunched the process to keep momentum. The second round of meetings led to the right outcome with a suitable offer and terms. Melo guided the family through due diligence, contract negotiations and Heads of Terms, being by their side the whole way. We also introduced a specialist solicitor who proved invaluable in completing the transaction smoothly.

The sale has now completed. Cherie-Anne was so impressed with Melo, she decided to join the team as an Exit Partner. Now she is using Melo’s specialist knowledge, and her own personal experience, to help others through their business sale.

Cherie-Anne’s words
“We picked Melo because not only are they representing us complete, there’s no conflict of interests. We enjoyed the people (at Melo) that we worked with. I think they have over 100 sales under their belt, and we knew there wasn’t much they hadn’t seen and would be there for us every step of the way.”
”Working with Melo was a complete game changer. Not just for our deal and the business, but also for our clients and the staff that worked so hard for us”
“I wanted to stay in the industry and give back to the profession. So as a result of the amazing experience we had with Melo, I wanted to work with no-one else. I’m now an exit partner at Melo and I’m helping people go through the same journey that I’ve been through”.