Natural Selection (the Buying Process)
Why participation in the selection process matters when you’re competing to buy — updated for 2026
The process of mergers and acquisitions in accountancy practices works rather like a match-making service, helping compatible buyers and sellers find one another. The matches that get made are heavily influenced by personal chemistry, and are, in that sense, a kind of natural selection: the aim, as with any of nature’s own mechanisms for ensuring survival into the next generation, is to promote not just the continuity but the future growth of the client base being sold.
Just as in nature, the instinct to survive is strong — and so is the wish to be the successful purchaser, because there are relatively few opportunities to find a suitable match at any given time. Will your potential partner reciprocate your interest with an enthusiasm equal to your own? That depends almost entirely on what you can offer them.
Why the odds feel steep — and how to improve them
Where so many would-be purchasers all consider themselves suitable, is it reasonable to expect anyone to go through a selection process where the odds look unfavourable? Yes — because there is usually only one purchaser who will meet all of a vendor’s criteria at any given point in time, and there’s no reason it can’t be you. The way in is to put yourself in the vendor’s shoes: understand exactly what they’re looking for, what their particular concerns are, and how you can best address those concerns while offering a genuine solution to what they need. As in nature, the rest largely comes down to chemistry.
A purchaser should also recognise that fees acquisition is nothing like walking into a supermarket and choosing something off the shelf. If anything, it’s the vendor doing the choosing — from a pool of potential new owners who all promise to look after the practice they’ve built. The selection process exists to help sellers work out who is genuinely most likely to maintain and grow the fee base, which is very often the accumulated result of a life’s work, while offering staff a stable new home and giving clients continuity, and often a broader range of services delivered more efficiently.
What’s changed: who you’re competing against
The pool of buyers a vendor is choosing from looks different today than it did even five years ago. A meaningful share of the largest UK firms are now backed by private equity and actively acquiring, which has sharpened competition at the top of the market — but it has also, in a roundabout way, created opportunities further down: as consolidators focus on scale, integration and growth partners rather than simply adding headcount, independent buyers are increasingly able to pick up smaller blocks and practices that don’t fit a consolidator’s strategy. Vendors selecting a buyer are weighing this landscape too, and an independent purchaser who can show genuine commitment to the clients and staff — rather than folding them into a larger structure — often has a real point of difference to offer.
Who benefits
It isn’t only the vendor who gains from a properly run selection process. Purchasers who aren’t successful can generally depart knowing they simply weren’t quite as good a fit as another party — and, ideally, will have learned something useful from the experience for next time. The successful buyer, having demonstrated willingness, flexibility, compatibility, professional competence, the right attitude, and — not least — access to sufficient funding, can proceed with real confidence, knowing they were genuinely the most eligible match on offer.