Single reader
US$199
- Licensed to one named person
- Read it, print it, keep one copy
- Not to be shared with anyone, including colleagues
Report · TIC M&A series · For sellers
How do you prepare a TIC business for sale?
Review your business as a buyer would, before the first offer. In our judgement, a buyer pays for what it cannot copy quickly: your accredited scope, the people it depends on, customers who stay after the sale, and records that stand up to checks.
Selling a TIC business is a report with eight AI skills that do the reading and the sums for each step, from the ways out of the business to comparing offers. You and your advisers check every material claim, and you decide.
What it is
A toolkit for one route: selling a TIC business.
This report is a toolkit for one route, selling 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.
Buyers include large TIC groups, which publish where they want to grow, and private-equity buyers. In one adviser's count, private-equity buyers made 64% of TICC deals so far in 2026. In the same data, larger deals sold at higher multiples of profit.
Put right what you can, disclose the rest openly, and know the approvals and consents the sale needs.
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 S1 · Exit options42
- 06Skill S2 · Sale readiness45
- 07Skill M1 · Valuation self-check47
- 08Skill M2 · Approvals map50
- 09Skill S3 · Likely-buyer map52
- 10Skill S4 · Customer concentration and contracts55
- 11Skill S5 · Sale story and data room57
- 12Skill S6 · Offer comparison59
- Part 3 · The other side, and reference62
- 13What the buyer is checking63
- AAppendix A · Handover checklist65
- 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.
- S1 Exit options – the ways out of the business, weighed against your written goals, with what each route needs and what is still unknown
- S2 Sale readiness – your own files reviewed as a buyer would, across eight areas, with what to put right or disclose, owners and dates
- 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
- S3 Likely-buyer map – possible buyers from their own published words: what each wants, sources and dates, and similar deals. No ranking
- S4 Customer concentration and contracts – concentration, contract terms and change-of-control clauses, with a prepared answer for each risk
- S5 Sale story and data room – a teaser, an information memorandum outline, a data-room index and a question log, with every claim tied to a document
- S6 Offer comparison – offers compared on cash at closing, money at risk and certainty, against your goals and lowest terms. No recommendation
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.
Team
US$399
- Share the file with your named colleagues
- Quote short extracts in internal documents, with credit
- Store it on a drive your team, and only your team, can reach
Buying for an organisation? You can enter its VAT or tax number at checkout.
Buy team licenceEnterprise
US$999
- 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
Buying for an organisation? You can enter its VAT or tax number at checkout.
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 selling 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 sell a TIC business, what will a buyer check first?
Its accreditation, people, customers and records. So review your business as a buyer would, before the first offer.
Here is the report's sale readiness skill, tested in the AI assistant Claude, on the report's invented deal. Its summary named four main gaps.
Only the founder, who plans to retire, approves key test reports and makes certification decisions. Two nonconformities from the accreditation body are still open: points where the lab did not meet the standard. The largest customer, 22% of revenue, can leave if the owner changes. And a test equipment cost is missing from the forecast.
For each, it is told to suggest a fix, or what to disclose. In the report's worked example, the seller closes the two nonconformities, starts training successors, and gets the equipment cost quoted and discloses it. Disclosing a gap openly limits claims under the sale agreement. Ask your lawyer.
The skill is told not to advise on whether, or when, to sell. You and your advisers decide.
This skill is one of eight that come with the report, Selling a TIC business. The free preview is on deepdivereports.com.
Who buys TIC businesses, and what are they looking for?
In the report's evidence, large groups buy in growth areas.
The report studied six large TIC groups, from 2021 to mid-2026. All six sold a business, or reviewed which businesses to keep. Five of them name growth areas, driven by new rules, standards or technology. Examples are cybersecurity, AI certification and sustainability, data centres, and testing for PFAS, known as forever chemicals.
Private-equity funds, which buy businesses to grow them and sell them later, are possible buyers too. For a seller, a group's stated growth areas show where it wants to grow. The report's likely-buyer map skill is told to map possible buyers from their own published words, with no ranking, because the order depends on your goals.
Six groups are not the whole market, and stated plans change. So read a group's latest report before relying on its plans.
This is one of five findings in the report, Selling a TIC business. The free preview is on deepdivereports.com.
Is the higher offer for your TIC business the better one?
Not always. Compare what you receive when the deal completes, what is at risk, and how certain each offer is.
Here is the report's offer comparison skill, tested in the AI assistant Claude, on the report's invented deal.
BuyerExample offers US$13.0 million. US$11.5 million is paid up front, when the deal completes. The other US$1.5 million comes after 12 months, if revenue holds. Bidder B offers more: up to US$14.5 million. But only US$10.0 million is paid up front. Up to US$4.5 million is an earn-out: part of the price, paid over three years, only if profit targets are met. And Bidder B's offer still depends on raising the money and on checking the business in full. It also wants the founder to stay three years, past the founder's goal of retiring within two years.
The skill is told to give no verdict and no recommendation. The owner decides, with their lawyer and accountant.
This skill is one of eight that come with the report, Selling 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