Most people believe you need money to buy a business. You don’t. What you need is the ability to structure deals, raise capital, and execute. In The Dealmaker’s Playbook, Paul Seabridge shares the real lessons from completing over 100 transactions and raising more than $500 million in capital across multiple countries. This is not theory. This is what actually works. • How to buy businesses without using your own money • How to raise millions in funding — even as a first-time buyer • Why deal structure matters more than price • How to build, scale, and exit businesses for life-changing paydays • The mistakes that can cost you everything — and how to avoid them From sourcing deals to structuring them, raising capital to exiting for 7 and 8 figures, this book gives you a practical, no-nonsense roadmap to building wealth through acquisitions. If you want to stop thinking about deals and start doing them, this book will show you how. Paul Seabridge is the Group CEO of OPC Capital Partners and a specialist in leveraged buyouts, buy-and-build strategies, and structured finance. He has completed transactions across multiple countries and industries, helping investors and entrepreneurs acquire and scale profitable businesses.

Turning a Competitor’s Failure into 50% Revenue Growth: A Distressed Deal Case Study Distressed Acquisition We Advised On We don’t usually do these but thought I’d share the case study. We don’t normally touch them because they are messy, time compressed, legally constrained, light on diligence, heavy on execution risk, and emotionally draining for everyone involved. Most buyers underestimate the cash required, overestimate how quickly synergies arrive, and forget that in an insolvency process you are buying problems, not just assets. That said, we recently advised on a distressed situation where the strategic logic was unusually compelling — and where the downside was well understood and actively managed. This article outlines why the deal made sense, and then walks through a live deal analysis, covering the real world considerations buyers need to think about when acquiring a business out of administration. The strategic backdrop A year ago, we helped a JV partner acquire a profitable construction business: • £11m turnover • £1.1m EBITDA • Well-run, scalable, and operationally disciplined Recently, a direct competitor — operating in the same region, with overlapping customers, assets, and workforce — moved toward administration. From the outside, the distressed business looked unattractive: • Loss making • Overstaffed head office • Factored receivables • Asset heavy • Operationally fragmented across multiple sites But from the perspective of an experienced operator already in the sector, it represented something else: An opportunity to add almost 50% to turnover, improve margins through scale and consolidation, and acquire hard assets at a fraction of replacement value. This wasn’t a financial engineering play. It was a strategic bolt on rescue, driven by operational synergies. The core investment thesis The buyer’s logic was straightforward: • Revenue upside • Retain core customers • Cross sell into an existing client base • Renew live contracts • Margin improvement

Last week I ran a live four hour training on how business acquisitions actually work. We recorded the entire session. It’s almost four hours long and covers the practical side of buying businesses — from finding deals through to structuring and funding them. Topics covered include: • How to position yourself as a credible buyer — even if you’ve never acquired a business before • How to find motivated sellers directly (without brokers or auctions) • What to say on first calls so owners actually want to sell to you • Handling seller objections and building trust during negotiations • How to quickly assess whether a deal is worth pursuing (structuring) • How leveraged acquisitions really work in the lower mid-market • Structuring offers that get accepted without overpaying • Term sheets and negotiation tactics used in real transactions • How deals are actually funded (including low or no equity structures) • Due diligence — what really matters vs what wastes time • The legal process explained in plain English • How to grow and derisk a business after acquisition This training is not theoretical — it’s focused on how acquisitions are actually executed in today’s market, with real examples and case studies. If you’d like access to the recording: Share this post and comment “FREE TRAINING” and I’ll send it to you.

The £2M vs £4M Sale A business owner I spoke with assumed his company would sell for around £5–6M. Revenue: £5M Profit: £700k When buyers looked at it, the offers came in around: £2M. Nothing was wrong with the business. The issue was preparation. After 18 months improving the management structure, cleaning up the financials and running a structured sale process… The same business eventually sold for just over £4M. Same company. Same profits. Preparation doubled the valuation. Most business owners only sell once in their lifetime, and many leave millions on the table simply because they don’t understand how buyers think. I’m running a free webinar on how owners can maximise the value of their business before selling. Comment EXIT if you'd like the details.

Most business owners we approach aren’t ready to sell, and that’s completely normal. But something interesting has happened over the past year… Many of those same owners later came back to us not to sell to us but to get structured sell-side support to maximise their valuation and create a competitive buyer environment. So we formalised a Sell-Side Advisory Program designed for founders who want to: ✔ Control the process ✔ Position their business for a premium valuation ✔ Attract strategic (not just financial) buyers ✔ Create competition to drive offers up ✔ Achieve a strategic exit — not a transactional one And we’ve backed it with a performance guarantee: 👉 5 qualified offers within 12 months — or we continue working free. Recent outcomes: Construction firm — 5 offers, 28% above broker appraisal Marketing agency — 5 offers in 10 weeks, sold to UK PE Engineering services — exit in 8 months, 80% cash at completion If you’re thinking about valuation, timing, or positioning even 12–24 months out — I’m happy to share a snapshot of how the process works. Just comment “Checklist” and I’ll send you the 10-point Exit Readiness Checklist. 📘 My book “Built to Sell Well” covers how to prepare early so you exit on your terms: https://mybook.to/builttosellwell