“Green Room Dental was founded by myself and my husband Richard in 1999, and we’ve always been committed to growing the practice in a way that genuinely served our community and looked after our team. In 2008 we moved into a new purpose-built practice to give us room to expand and to meet the needs of a growing local population.
After 25 years, we started to think seriously about the future. While we weren’t looking to leave the profession completely, we knew we wanted to step back from the day-to-day responsibility. It was really important to us that the practice and the team would be looked after in the long term. We’ve seen others in our position just shut the doors when they’re ready to move on, but that was never going to be right for us. We knew there had to be a way to plan our exit properly, with the right buyer, and keep continuity for our staff and patients.
UNW had looked after our accounts for a number of years, and we’d also heard about their specialist work in practice sales. What stood out straight away was that they weren’t tied to one corporate buyer. Their job was to get us the best deal and the right fit. We’d heard that corporate buyers could be very regimented, and our priority was to find one that would let us carry on. We knew there would be some change, of course, but we didn’t want anything that would fundamentally alter the culture or the benefits our team had.
We wanted to complete before the end of the tax year, so timescales were tight. There was a lot to pull together, especially for due diligence, but Michael and the team made the process so much more manageable. Having UNW already doing our accounts meant a lot of the heavy lifting was already done, which in a process like this makes a huge difference, plus having a corporate finance adviser delivering the deal meant we could focus on running the business while they managed the transaction for us.
From the start, we felt like they understood exactly what we were trying to achieve. We only needed one meeting and they’d grasped what mattered to us and who the right kind of buyer would be. We also spoke to a friend and colleague at another Practice in Cornwall, who had gone through a similar sale with UNW. He only had good things to say, which gave us a lot of confidence in our choice.
The negotiations were handled brilliantly. We were presented with multiple buyer options, and Michael worked hard to secure the best possible outcome. There had been strong growth in the business, but it was UNW’s ability to recognise that value and present it clearly to buyers that made a real difference. We know we achieved far more than we would have without their insight and support and that the level of advice provided to us appeared to be well above the level provided to the rest of the market. This gave us so much confidence that the transaction and the overall deal structure Michael and the team delivered for us was the best one possible.
Throughout the whole process, Michael and the wider team were easy to get hold of, supportive, and were just really nice people to deal with. Legal stages can be incredibly stressful, especially in such a condensed timeframe, but we always felt in safe hands. Having a qualified corporate finance adviser providing us with thorough advice and orchestrating the process just made it all so easy for us.
Even the buyer, Today’s Dental, commented on how smooth the process was. They knew there’d be no surprises with the accounts because UNW already had full oversight.
Looking back, what stands out most is how UNW worked across the full market to find the best deal for us. Some sales agents tend to steer you towards a corporate they have a close relationship with, but we never got that sense from UNW. They were fully invested in what we wanted to achieve and made sure everything stayed aligned with our goals.
If you’re thinking about selling, I’d definitely recommend speaking to UNW and Michael McCulloch early on. They really helped us get the outcome we were hoping for, in every sense.”
Sally Hudson, Owner
Green Room Dental
