Section 5.1

Acquisition mandate

Every value below is editable before every search and stored per saved search. No engine holds any of these as a constant. The engine signature takes the mandate as an argument.

Where these values are read. app/config.py holds the defaults. Mandate is a persisted row, hydrated per search. Screening, scoring, valuation, funding and returns engines each receive it. A grep for a literal 2_000_000 inside app/engines/ is a build failure.

Price and profit floor

Deal size

Maximum purchase price (GBP) Minimum EBITDA (GBP) Minimum EBITDA margin Financial history years

History years drives the extraction window and the CAGR base. Below this count the opportunity routes to verification, not to rejection.

Profit trajectory

Earnings quality gates

Require positive EBITDAOn

Require EBITDA growthOn

Stable revenue allowedOn

Include distressedOff

Revenue need not grow every year where EBITDA improves for a credible, recorded reason. That reason is stored on the opportunity, not inferred at render time.

Geography

Location preference

Preferred location

Search UK wideOn

Online businessesOn

Ranking, never filtering. Geography applies as a score modifier. London, then Greater London, then commutable from London, then rest of UK, then online or relocatable. A materially superior UK-wide opportunity is never excluded on location.

Owner involvement

Buyer role

Prefer owner independentOn

Acceptable buyer involvement Ideal buyer involvement

Where the seller performs operational duties, the market salary to replace them is deducted inside normalised EBITDA. See the EBITDA bridge.

Revenue quality

Recurring revenue and concentration

Prefer recurring revenueOn

Maximum single customer Customer concentration warning

Prefer asset lightOn

Asset-heavy businesses are not excluded. They carry a lower multiple or a higher required return.

Returns

Funding and return hurdles

Buyer equity (GBP, optional) Minimum base IRR Preferred IRR Minimum downside IRR Maximum equity payback (years) Minimum DSCR

Buyer equity is nullable. Leaving it blank analyses the opportunity on its merits and presents indicative structures. It never excludes anything.

Sector

Sector policy

No sector is excluded. Sector-specific risk analysis applies instead of sector exclusion.

Facilities management Software and SaaS Engineering Healthcare services Logistics Ecommerce + all others

A sector-specific risk library replaces generic sector handling in Phase 2. Phase 1 applies the generic risk register.

Monitoring

Saved searches and alerts

Monitor saved searchesOn

Default alert High priority alerts

Stored, not acted on. The mandate holds these settings in Phase 1. The monitoring engine and the alert transport land in Phase 2, and checks 21 to 25 stay xfail until then.

Scoring weights

Stored in configuration, never as literals. Editing them per organisation is Phase 3. The total must equal 100 or the config fails to load.

Component	Weight	Notes
Financial quality	15	Margin level, margin stability, accounts reliability
EBITDA growth	15	Three-year CAGR and year-on-year consistency
Recurring revenue	10	Contracted share and retention
Cash conversion	10	Free cash flow over EBITDA
Customer diversification	10	Largest, top five, top ten
Owner independence	10	Classification net of replacement cost
Management quality	10	Eight sub-dimensions
Capital efficiency	5	Maintenance capex and working capital intensity
Competitive position	5	Switching costs, differentiation, tender exposure
Growth opportunities	5	Evidenced, not asserted
Overall risk	5	Risk register severity roll-up
Total	100

See the worked breakdown on the quality score screen.

AcquiScope produces analysis and modelling, not regulated investment advice. Figures require independent verification and professional due diligence before any offer.