The number the price
conversation starts from
A consulting practice for owners and buyers: understand what the business is worth before negotiations begin and before someone names a price to you. If you are buying — understand what exactly you are being sold. This is analysis and an explanation of the mechanics, not a statutory appraisal report — the difference is explained below, and it matters.
Business value
Express value analysis
A working range for the value of a company or a stake — for decisions and negotiations.
- A range, not a single number
- Income-based maths, cross-checked with multiples and net assets where data allows
- An explanation of where every figure comes from
Financial model
How specific decisions show up in the value — before you make them.
- Scenarios: growth, stagnation, decline
- Sensitivity to key assumptions
- What adds the most value
Preparing for a sale
What the buyer will look at and what is worth fixing in advance.
- Weak spots that will knock the price down
- The data package for the buyer
- Bargaining logic and price justification
Second opinion on someone else's numbers
When the price was named by the other side and you need to know what stands behind it.
- How well the assumptions match your situation
- Where a figure looks inflated or understated — economically
- Arguments for the negotiation
Negotiation support
At the table on your side of the price conversation — with numbers, not hunches.
- Position and bargaining limits prepared in advance
- Taking apart the other side's arguments
- Recording what was agreed
Preparing for a statutory appraisal
Where the law requires a formal appraisal report — I help you get through it cleanly.
- Collecting and checking the data
- Framing the assignment for the appraiser
- Walking through the finished report with you: what it says and how to use it
Before you pay —
know what for
The seller shows the business at its best, and that is normal. The buyer's job is to see the same picture without the stage lighting: what the revenue rests on, what leaves together with the previous owner, and what number remains when the one-offs end.
What you are actually buying
What stands behind the revenue: where the money comes from and how stable that construction is.
- Revenue structure and dependence on two or three key clients
- What rests personally on the owner and leaves with them
- Contracts that do not transfer to the new owner automatically
Verifying the seller's numbers
How well the management story matches the accounts and the contracts.
- Normalising profit: one-off income and expenses
- Debt load and off-balance obligations
- Discrepancies worth asking about before signing
Price and deal terms
What turns into a discount and what into a contract condition.
- How the findings change the number you were quoted
- What justifies a discount
- The economics of instalments and earn-outs — your lawyers put the wording into the contract
Services in this area are consulting: calculations, analysis and a walk-through of the assumptions for your management decisions and negotiations.
A statutory appraisal report under Russian Law No. 135-FZ may only be issued by a licensed appraiser — a member of a self-regulated organisation holding a qualification certificate. Where the law requires such a report — mortgage and pledge of state property, in-kind contributions to charter capital, share buyouts in JSCs, transactions with state and municipal property, challenging cadastral value, certain insolvency matters — I bring in a certified appraiser and manage the work on your side. Expert review of appraisal reports under Art. 17.1 of Law No. 135-FZ is performed only by SRO experts — I do not provide that service.
The pre-acquisition review in this format is financial and managerial: numbers, model, revenue stability. Legal and tax due diligence — title, licences, litigation and tax risks, the legal consequences of the deal — is run by lawyers and auditors; I work with them as one team and consolidate the findings into a single picture for the price decision.
Send the basics — what the company is and why you need the number. I will reply with what I can calculate and what data it takes.
Send the basicsThe other five tasks
Crisis management
Financial diagnostics and a recovery plan when liabilities outrun cash flow.
02 / 06Mediation
Dispute resolution with a neutral intermediary — before court or alongside it. Faster and cheaper than litigation.
04 / 06Career strategy
For executives at a turning point: profile diagnostics and workable scenarios for the next step.
05 / 06Recruitment
From line staff to engineers and mid-level managers. Volume flow, targeted search, project teams.
06 / 06Training
Seminars and corporate programmes: money, negotiations, disputes, business value and hiring — on your cases.
Describe the task
in your own words
Write what is going on: you need a person, negotiations have stalled, you are weighing a move or a sale of the business, the cash flow does not add up. I will reply within one working day: what I can help with, how long it takes and the rough order of the price — or tell you straight if the task is not mine.
All messengers work on this number. Write by email or call — whichever suits you. The first conversation carries no obligations and no invoice: first we find out whether working together makes sense. There is no price list, because the price depends on scope, not on the service name; I give the order of magnitude in my first reply, before any work starts.
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