First step toward Acquisition

What we offer

A way to find UK businesses worth approaching before anyone puts them up for sale, and enough on each one to decide whether to make the call.

What you can do with it

Build a shortlist in a sector and a place

Pick what the business does and roughly where it is. You get companies that are trading now, run by the people who own them, and either licensed by a regulator or trading from premises they own. Not adverts. Not businesses already on the market.

See the shape of a business before you spend anything

Searching costs nothing and every result already tells you the sector, the town, how long it has traded, whether it is licensed, whether the premises are traceable, how ownership is held and whether there is money secured against it. Enough to reject most of them without paying.

Open a report on the ones worth a closer look

One page per company: who controls it and for how long, what it is licensed to do, the premises and who holds them, what is owed and whether filings are late, and its size and results. Every line names the register it came from.

Take it away

Save any report as a PDF, dated to the minute, to put in a deal file or send to whoever is looking at it with you.

What it is not

It is not a broker and there are no listings: nothing here is for sale, which is the point. It gives you no introduction and no valuation, it ranks nothing, and it scores nothing. It tells you what public registers record, and the judgement stays yours.

A sample report

This is a specimen. Northfield Care Holdings is not a real company and the figures are illustrative. A real report has the same shape, drawn entirely from public registers, with the source named on every line.

SME44 SAMPLE REPORT

NORTHFIELD CARE HOLDINGS LIMITED

Care homes · Company 00000000 · Active

Registers as of 21 Aug 2026. This copy generated 21 August 2026 at 09:00 BST.

Ownership and control

Control
Multiple controllers, one surname2 individuals on the PSC register across 1 surname.
Longest-serving director
A ExampleAppointed 11 Mar 1994, 32 years in post.

The licensed operation

Licence
CQC care home registrationCare Quality Commission syndication API. 2 locations, 48 beds.

Premises

Route
The company is the registered proprietor3 titles matched by company number to HM Land Registry CCOD. Trades from Leeds and Bradford.

Money owed and filings

Charges
2 outstanding of 5 registeredEarliest created 2 Apr 2019, held by a bank.
Filings
Up to dateAccounts made up to 31 Mar 2025.

Company record

Size
62 employees, turnover £4.2mNet assets £1.84m. Latest filed accounts.
Trading since
11 March 1994Private limited company.

What it costs

Searching is free and unlimited. You pay only to open a report, and an opened report stays open for 24 hours. Plans start at £49 a month for ten reports; a single report is £9. See pricing.

Start searching

SME44 can make mistakes. Public registers contain errors and delays, and our matching of one register to another can too. Verify anything important against the source register before acting. Nothing here is legal, financial, tax or investment advice.