Succession, Price & Probability: Making the Most of Today’s M&A Market

The Australian deal market in 2025 is showing mixed signals, with analysts pointing to rate cuts, stabilising inflation, and recovering consumer confidence as catalysts for renewed activity. Buyers are there with capital to deploy, but they are more selective and disciplined than in the last cycle. For business owners, this means opportunity is there but only for those prepared to meet the market with a strong succession plan and a well- structured M&A process.

Succession as a Core Driver

Recent market insights show that succession planning is one of the biggest drivers of middle-market M&A. Many private businesses remain founder-led, with wealth tied up in the business and limited depth below the owner. Without a clear succession plan, owners risk leaving money on the table, or worse, struggling to transact at all.

Succession planning isn’t just about retirement or exit. It is about preparing the business to operate successfully beyond the current owner, ensuring continuity for staff, customers, and investors. Done well, it provides the foundation for a successful sale process by reducing key-person risk and giving buyers the confidence that the business can thrive post-transaction.

Why a Structured M&A Process Matters

All business owners have different things that are important to them when selling their business, whether that’s looking after staff, timing, legacy, or confidentiality. But two things that can’t be avoided are price and probability of closing. An organised, competitive M&A process has a direct impact on both.

• Impact on Price
  Not all businesses will have several quality potential buyers, but most businesses generate a significant uplift in offers (both price and terms) if they run a competitive process. Meaning creating competitive tension from multiple potential buyers. Additional upside comes when the right strategic buyers are involved, those with the most to gain from the acquisition. Those who can see synergies, market entry advantages, technology alignment, or pure market share gain and pay above fair market value. Strong historical financial performance, and well supported growth forecasts underpins that premium.

• Impact on Probability
  Preparation drives the probability of transacting. Not all businesses that go to market successfully sell, in fact, less than half. Mostly because businesses have not prepared prior to the sale, and not prepared the sale process itself. Key stages of the sale process to increasing the probability of sale are presenting the business in the right way to the right targeted buyers, and being well prepared for due diligence. Buyers must tick boxes to get a deal done, and the best deals have those boxes ticked before the buyer enters into DD. Such as, clean financials, client contracts, well documented systems, technology, processes, no HR issues, and tax compliance. A structured approach helps keep momentum, avoids deal fatigue, and makes it far more likely a signed offer becomes a completed transaction.

What Buyers Want to See (and Hate Seeing)

From the buyer’s perspective, certain attributes consistently drive confidence:

• Management depth beyond the founder, often supported by Employee Share Schemes (ESS) that keep key staff aligned
• Customer diversity and recurring revenue
• A scalable tech stack and systems that support future growth
• Transparent, defensible financials that back up the growth story

On the flip side, buyers hesitate when they see

• Dependency on one or two client relationships
• A founder essential to daily operations
• Hidden issues in diligence
• A business that can’t provide organised information.

These factors don’t just impact negatively on price but reduce the chances of a successful transaction.

Pulling It Altogether

In today’s market, owners who combine succession planning with a disciplined M&A process give themselves the best chance to achieve both a higher price and a completed transaction. The businesses that will succeed are those that prepare early, build depth in leadership, and run a professional sale process that attracts the right buyers.