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Report · TIC M&A series · For buyers
How do you check a TIC business before you buy it?
Check what a competitor cannot copy quickly, before you sign. In our judgement, that is what you mostly pay for: the accredited scope and recognitions, the people they depend on, customers who stay after the sale, and results that stand up to checks.
Buying a TIC business is a report with eight AI skills that do the reading and the sums for each step, from the deal thesis to the first 100 days. A named person checks every material claim, and the board decides.
What it is
A toolkit for one route: buying a TIC business.
This report is a toolkit for one route, buying a Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) business: eight AI skills, each with its prompt, its checks and a worked example. Part 1 gives the evidence the skills rest on. It is not a full market study, a valuation, or advice on a particular deal. For those, use your corporate finance, legal and tax advisers.
Large TIC groups buy in growth areas, and sell or review the businesses outside them. In one adviser's data, larger deals sold at higher multiples of profit. The main reason to buy rather than build is time: a business that already holds the accredited scope can serve customers now.
The skills tell the assistant to work only from what you attach, and to write "not found" where something is missing. They give no verdict.
6 of 6
large TIC groups studied sold a business or reviewed which businesses to keep, 2021 to mid-2026
Counted from the six groups' own reports · Derived
11.0x
EBITDA: the median price of 114 TICC deals that disclosed a multiple, 2015 to September 2026. Another adviser's series has a mean of 14.4x, 2016–2026. The samples differ, so do not combine them
4 of 9
large TIC deals we selected, 2024 to 2026, involve a private-equity buyer or investor. Two were still pending at the cut-off, and for a third no completion was found. In one adviser's wider count, private-equity buyers made 64% of TICC deals so far in 2026
Checked at the companies' own releases · Derived. Aventis Advisors · Benchmark (vendor)
Both advisers sell deal advice. TICC (Testing, Inspection, Certification, and Compliance) is the wider group both advisers track. Deal statuses are as at 11 October 2026, the research cut-off. Every figure carries its source and a label saying how much weight it will bear. How the research is done sets out the checks behind them.
Contents
What is in the 77 pages.
- Summary, how to read the report, and one page for the board3
- Words used in this report6
- Part 1 · Strategy and the market8
- 01Strategy in six questions9
- 02Five findings about TIC deals now16
- 03Why buy, and what makes a TIC business worth buying31
- 04How to use the skills safely36
- Part 2 · The eight skills41
- 05Skill B1 · Deal thesis42
- 06Skill B2 · Target pipeline and fit44
- 07Skill M1 · Valuation self-check47
- 08Skill M2 · Approvals map50
- 09Skill B3 · Due-diligence red flags52
- 10Skill B4 · Customer overlap57
- 11Skill B5 · People and culture fit59
- 12Skill B6 · First 100 days and 12-month review61
- Part 3 · The other side, and reference63
- 13What the seller is checking64
- AAppendix A · TIC due-diligence checklist66
- References69
- How this report was made75
Included
Every licence includes the eight skills.
A skill is a file you add to an AI assistant, so a workflow runs without pasting a prompt into the chat.
Each skill carries the report's eight rules, one chapter's workflow, its prompt and the steps for running it, word for word. They come at no extra cost, and the report is complete without them, because every prompt is printed in its chapter.
Uploaded as skill files and run in Claude on 19 October 2026 (Claude Pro, Opus 5.5, medium effort), each on the report's invented example: all eight gave the answers the example expects. Built to the open Agent Skills format; links to each maker's instructions are on our skills page. We do not claim what we have not tested.
- B1 Deal thesis – the route test for each service you want to grow (buy, partner or build), and a deal thesis with walk-away conditions
- B2 Target pipeline and fit – a target list from public records, each candidate scored 0 to 3 on your own weighted criteria, with dated sources
- M1 Valuation self-check – a valuation range from your own figures: discounted cash flow and multiples, with net assets for comparison only. No verdict and no price
- M2 Approvals map – every body or party that must be told or must agree when the business changes owner, with who asks and when
- B3 Due-diligence red flags – each red flag in the data room, across eight areas, with its document, page and a question for the seller
- B4 Customer overlap – shared customers, concentration and revenue at risk, worked out inside a clean team
- B5 People and culture fit – the signatories and key people the accreditation depends on, with the risk of losing each one
- B6 First 100 days – Day 1 and first-100-days plans and a 12-month review, protecting accreditation, people and customers first
Licences
Choose the licence that matches how the report will be used.
Every licence is for the same 77-page report and its skills pack. What differs is how many people may use them.
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- Quote short extracts in internal documents, with credit
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Buy team licenceEnterprise
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- Everyone in the organisation, worldwide, may read it
- Quote short extracts in internal documents, with credit
- Store it on your intranet, behind your own login
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Buy enterprise licenceWhat no licence allows
Reselling, sublicensing or redistributing the report or its skills. Publishing them, posting them online, or placing them in a shared drive open to people outside your organisation. Reproducing substantial parts of the report in anything published or sold. Removing our name, citations or copyright notices. Using them to train an AI or machine learning model.
Read the preview first
The free preview gives you the full contents page, the summary and sample pages. The seven-minute explainer covers the route test, four figures from the reports, the main deal risks, valuation and integration. Its full text is on its own page. Reports are delivered instantly and cannot be returned, so we would rather you decided with the evidence in front of you.
Video explainer · 7 min
How mergers and acquisitions work in TIC, in seven minutes.
Short videos · about a minute each
Three short videos on buying a TIC business.
Each video shows one finding or one of the report's AI skills at work. Two show a test run in Claude on 19 October 2026, on the report's invented deal, and AI answers vary from run to run. The narration is a synthetic voice made with Kokoro, from a script checked against the report. The illustrations were made with AI. The report is the authority.
Before you buy a TIC business, what should you check first?
Start with its accreditation, impartiality, people, and the integrity of its results.
Here is the report's due-diligence red flags skill, tested in the AI assistant Claude, on the report's invented deal. It found 18 points, each with a question for the seller. Here are three.
The accreditation body found two nonconformities, where the lab did not meet the standard. The seller says the body accepted the fixes. The letter is not in the files. Only the founder, who plans to retire, makes certification decisions. Test equipment due for replacement is missing from the forecast. The seller had fixed some of these and told the buyer about the rest.
The skill is told to give no verdict on the deal. Your own experts decide what each point means.
This skill is one of eight that come with the report, Buying a TIC business. The free preview is on deepdivereports.com.
When TIC groups announce a purchase, do they name its accreditation?
In the report's count, few did: 10 of 75.
Six large TIC groups list 78 acquisitions in their company reports, 2024 to mid-2026. The report found the buyer's announcement for 75 of these deals. 10 name the target's accreditations, recognitions, designations or approvals.
Announcements are short and written for investors. A buyer may value accreditations it does not mention. And many targets hold no accreditation, so the count does not show how many targets were accredited. But where a service needs accreditation, it decides whether the work can continue after the sale.
So check yourself what each accreditation and approval covers, and that it stays valid after the sale. The report's approvals map skill is told to list who must be told or must agree, and what to ask them.
This is one of five findings in the report, Buying a TIC business. The free preview is on deepdivereports.com.
When you buy a TIC business, how much of its revenue could you lose?
Not one number: a range, with a reason for each part.
Here is the report's customer overlap skill, tested in the AI assistant Claude, on the report's invented deal. First, it asked whether the run was inside a clean team: the few people allowed to see the seller's customer data.
One customer, 8% of the seller's revenue, buys from both companies. It has no contract, and the files do not say why it uses both. So the revenue at risk runs from nothing, if it stays, to US$0.72 million, if it leaves. Three other customers, 36% of the seller's revenue, have contracts that give them a say when the owner changes. Those should be checked with each customer before the deal completes, so the range leaves them out.
Your deal team decides what it means for the price and terms.
This skill comes with the report, Buying a TIC business. The free preview is on deepdivereports.com.
How this report was made
The evidence has five parts: the reports of six large TIC groups from 2021 to mid-2026; nine large deals, each checked at the company's own release; the buyers' announcements of the six groups' 78 acquisitions since 2024; the published deal data of two M&A advisers; and current research on strategy, acquisitions and integration. Sources are gathered, summarised and cross-checked with AI assistance under a fixed method, and AI drafts. Every figure is then checked against its original source by a person.
Allen Chen holds editorial responsibility for the report. He receives no payment from any company named in it, and no company named saw it before publication. It is not legal, tax, accounting, valuation or financial advice, and its skills give no verdict on any deal or price.
Deep Dive Reports · Wellington, New Zealand · Allen Chen · TIC