Valuation

M&A Valuation Software

Five valuation methods in one versioned engine, weighted by sector, seeded from the target's own accounts and stress-tested on the drivers that move price. The arithmetic is deterministic and unit-tested; the AI writes the commentary and cannot change a figure. The output is a number you can defend to a committee, an investor or a client.

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What M&A valuation software does

M&A valuation software produces an estimate of what a business is worth to an acquirer, using several recognised methods, from the company's financial information and a set of stated assumptions — and records those assumptions so the figure can be explained, challenged and revised. It replaces the per-analyst Excel model whose conventions nobody else can audit.

A valuation is only as useful as its provenance. A number without the assumptions behind it is an opinion; a number whose every input can be traced to a filed account, a management figure or a stated assumption is a position. TrueValue is built around the second kind. Every input is labelled with where it came from and what it is worth, every method's answer is shown beside the others, and the report a committee reads is generated from the same figures the engine used.

Five methods, one blended answer

Each method answers a different question about the business. The engine reports all five, weights them by sector, and shows the range they span. See business valuation methods used in M&A for when each applies.

  • Net asset value

    What the balance sheet is worth after liabilities. The floor for asset-heavy businesses and a sanity check for the rest.

  • Discounted cash flow

    The present value of projected free cash flow at a discount rate reflecting the risk. Tax is charged on EBIT, never on EBITDA, and depreciation is never "added back" because it is never subtracted — the two errors that most home-grown DCFs make at once. A terminal value falls back to an exit multiple when the growth spread is too thin to support Gordon growth.

  • Seller's discretionary earnings

    Owner-benefit earnings times a multiple, for owner-managed businesses where the buyer is also the operator. See EBITDA vs SDE.

  • EBITDA multiple

    Normalised EBITDA times a sector multiple, adjusted for size, growth, margin and concentration. The most common method in the mid-market and the one most sensitive to the adjustments.

  • Comparable transactions

    The only method whose multiple is observed rather than modelled: the median of relevant completed transactions in your own comparables library, in the same sector and size band. With too few comps the method stands down rather than guessing, and the valuation is identical to the four-method engine.

From the accounts to the report

  1. Step 1

    Read the accounts

    Drop in filed accounts, management accounts or a CIM. The financials are extracted into statements — income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, working capital — with every period labelled by what it is worth: filed, management-stated or a projection.

  2. Step 2

    Seed the model

    The valuation wizard is pre-filled from the statements. Only stated figures travel; missing ones are named so nothing is quietly defaulted to a plausible number.

  3. Step 3

    Run the engine

    Five methods, sector weights, a blended figure with a range whose width reflects the completeness of the data and the dispersion of the comps.

  4. Step 4

    Stress-test and report

    Sensitivity on the drivers that move price, scenario comparison, a football-field chart, and a PDF, Word or Excel report with the methodology appendix. Version history keeps every revision.

Beyond the headline number

  • Quality of earnings

    Normalise reported EBITDA for owner costs, one-offs and accounting choices, and carry the normalised figure into the model with the adjustments recorded.

  • Asking-price benchmarks

    What businesses like this one are advertised for, drawn from the marketplace feed as a second series beside the valuation — labelled as asking, never merged into it, because asking is what vendors hope for and the gap is the information.

    AI Agent for M&A teams

  • DCF, LBO and three-statement builders

    Full models that persist, seed from the extracted accounts, and share the one DCF and the one LBO engine with the valuation so no two surfaces can disagree.

  • Monte Carlo simulation

    A seeded distribution over the assumptions, returning the seed so a chart shown to a committee can be reproduced afterwards.

  • Returns at your hurdle

    For acquirers: the price the deal supports at your target IRR and cash cover, with the funding structure, transaction costs, working capital and covenants modelled in the same engine.

    M&A deal management software

  • Reports for the audience

    Committee-ready PDFs for an IC, white-label reports for a client, Excel for the analyst who wants to see the cells.

Deterministic by design

Every figure in a TrueValue valuation is computed by a versioned engine that runs the same way for every user and is covered by its own test suite. The AI writes the narrative — what the number means, what drives it, what a buyer would push back on — and has no path by which it can alter a figure. That is a deliberate constraint. A model that can be talked into a higher valuation is not a valuation tool.

The same discipline applies to inputs. A figure the accounts do not state stays blank and is named as missing; a total whose components are not all present is not produced; periods in different currencies are never summed. When the seller's projection and the filed accounts disagree, the valuation says which one it used and what that is worth.

Frequently asked questions

Which valuation methods does TrueValue use?

Net asset value, discounted cash flow, seller's discretionary earnings, EBITDA multiple and comparable transactions, blended by sector weight into one figure with a range. Each method's own answer is shown beside the blend.

Where do the multiples come from?

Sector multiple tables with size, growth, margin and concentration adjustments for the modelled methods, and your own comparable-transactions library for the observed one. Asking-price benchmarks from the marketplace feed are shown as a separate series and never mixed into the valuation.

Can I override the assumptions?

Yes. Every input is editable and every edit is recorded. The engine re-runs on your assumptions and the report shows what was changed from the seeded values.

Does it work from filed UK accounts?

Yes. Filed accounts are read into statements, including filleted small-company accounts, and the model is seeded from them. Where an account does not state a figure the model says so rather than estimating.

Is a free valuation available?

Yes. Value My Deal runs the same five-method engine on your numbers, free and without an account, and gives you a deal score across seven dimensions. The EBITDA calculator is a quicker indicative range.

Can the AI change a number?

No. The AI writes commentary around figures the engine computed. It cannot alter an input, a weight or an output.

Guides and tools on valuation

Run a valuation on your own numbers

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