About
A quieter kind of exit advisory.
Ian Roundell
Four careers, one thread. I qualified as a chartered accountant and moved to Barclays in the early 1990s, then into the bank's investor relations function – working daily inside the machinery of large-cap capital. That meant shareholder activism, rights issues, acquisitions and major transactions; the Woolwich acquisition in 2000 was one high-profile and notable event that happened during my tenure, though by no means the major part of the role. The real value was learning how investors actually decide – what they price, what they discount, and where the real pressure points sit.
After Barclays, a year running finance for Barclays Wealth Management globally – part of the Barclays group – followed by investor relations for Fortis, the Belgo-Dutch international banking and insurance business headquartered in Brussels. Credit Suisse in Zurich came next. I project managed the Credit Suisse Investor Day that showcased Winterthur prior to its sale to AXA in 2006, and led a 12-person team operating out of Zurich, London and New York, managing Credit Suisse comparatively successfully through the financial crisis, culminating in a CHF 6bn rights issue. Fifteen years, in short, of watching sophisticated buyers and investors from the inside – a perspective most owners never see.
From 2013 that same perspective moved into a different room: advising UK owner-managed businesses through succession, value creation and exit – first at Shirlaws Capital, then from 2017 through my own advisory firm, Positive Returns. Building a book from scratch, running the P&L, sitting on the same side of the table as the owners I now work with. Major client successes include the sale of GameSparks to AWS (part of Amazon Group), a strategic investment by JP Morgan into Icon Solutions, and the multi-million employee-ownership transition of Home Legal Direct.
Architect Your Exit is the distillation of that arc: an accountant's rigour on the numbers, a capital-markets read on how buyers and investors actually think, and an owner-operator's honest feel for what it costs to build something worth selling. That combination is unusual – and, I think, the reason owners quickly sense that the conversation here is a different one.
LinkedIn →Why this exists
Most SME exit advice is transactional. A broker takes the business to market, runs a process, and takes a percentage of whatever completes. The incentive is a deal — any deal — not the outcome the owner actually wanted.
Architect Your Exit is built differently. Fee-for-service throughout, aligned to establishing and achieving what you're actually trying to do. No transaction completion fee, so the advice can honestly say "not yet" or "not that way" when it needs to.
How the work is done
- The owner's objectives come first.Price matters. So does what happens to the team, the customers, the building, the family. The Blueprint sizes every route against what you actually want — not the highest headline number.
- Small book, close attention.Four concurrent clients is the ceiling. You get the founder, not a junior in a firm. Every engagement is bespoke — no productised process pretending to fit every business.
- Substance over theatre.Not a broker. Not corporate finance. Not another list of buyers. The work is unglamorous: fixing earnings quality, closing dependencies, aligning shareholders — long before any of it becomes visible in a deal room.
- Honest about what this isn't.Architect Your Exit is not regulated to give valuation or investment advice, and doesn't try to be. Some owners need a different kind of adviser. Part of the first conversation is saying so if it applies.
See where your exit stands today.
Two minutes. Sixteen questions. No sign-up.