01Building longlists
Filter European companies by sector, province, financial profile, director age, and succession signals. Use group structure and ownership context to remove targets that do not fit before you invest time in outreach.
- Combine NACE codes with revenue or EBITDA ranges
- Use director age to screen succession
- Check whether targets are standalone or part of a group
Choosing a sector for buy-and-build
Start from sector structure rather than individual names. Compare company counts, employment, margins, return on equity, growth, profitability, regional concentration, and the share held by the top 20 companies.
- Look for fragmented markets without a dominant consolidator
- Review regional concentration before outreach
- Use the top-20 analysis as a consolidation reality check
Comparing a target with competitors
Use website-based similarity to find operational comparables rather than relying only on NACE codes, then benchmark the target against strict or broad peer sets.
- Start with the most similar companies
- Broaden the peer set for market context
- Combine operational similarity with financial ratios