What Buyers Pay For Now: Five Quality Markers Across Eight Sectors
We reviewed our research across all eight sectors we cover - and the same five quality markers decided pricing in every one of them. Sector multiples set the range; these markers set where in the range a company lands. Owners planning an exit within three years should treat them as the work plan.
1. Revenue that provably recurs
SaaS net retention, insurance renewal books, dedicated-carriage contracts, facility-services agreements, energy offtake: every sector has its version, and every buyer now underwrites it first. The test is contractual survival - does the revenue outlive a change of ownership and a bad quarter?
2. Independence from the owner
The single most common source of the valuation gap remains key-person dependency. Platform buyers in services, sponsors in healthcare, strategics in industrials - all now price management depth explicitly, through earnouts and rollovers when they doubt it. A company that runs without its founder for ninety days converts that discount into premium.
3. A defensible position in a favoured theme
Capital is thematic in 2026: AI durability, automation, dispatchable power, health-and-wellness categories, recurring-volume logistics. Companies inside a theme enjoy competitive processes; companies outside one need genuine niche dominance to generate tension. Knowing which you are - honestly - shapes the entire process design.
4. Numbers that survive diligence
Quality-of-earnings adjustments remain where sale prices quietly erode: owner compensation, one-offs, related-party arrangements, aggressive revenue recognition. Deal structures this year - heavier on earnouts and performance-based payouts - are precisely how buyers price residual doubt. Seller-side preparation removes the doubt before it becomes a discount.
5. A story the buyer can retell
Every acquirer must justify the deal to an investment committee, a board or a lender. The companies that command premiums hand the buyer that argument ready-made: clean data, a documented growth plan, and an equity story that fits the buyer's own thesis. That is not decoration - in our experience it is regularly worth a full turn of EBITDA.
Five markers, eight sectors, one conclusion: valuation in this market is earned in the two years before the process, not negotiated in the two months during it.
"Sector multiples are the headline. The five markers are the price. We have yet to value a company where they did not decide the outcome."
Charlotte Meyer, Partner, Valuation & AnalyticsHow many of the five markers do you hold?
Request a marker-by-marker readiness review with our valuation team - confidential, and often two years before any sale.