Define what the business makes and promises
Start with a product and capability register. Separate make-to-print, design-and-manufacture, proprietary products, repair, maintenance, fabrication, machining, assembly, integration, and contract manufacturing. Record the customer sector, site, material, process, specification, tolerance, approval, testing, warranty, and responsible person for each material line.
Do not describe an approval, certification, preferred-supplier position, design authority, or customer qualification as transferable until the governing documents and transaction advisers confirm the position.
Reconcile earnings, backlog, and working capital
- revenue and gross margin by customer, product, site, process, project, and recurring order pattern
- signed orders, schedules, forecasts, blanket orders, call-offs, variations, cancellation rights, and historic conversion
- raw materials, work in progress, finished goods, slow-moving stock, obsolescence, and customer-owned material
- debtors, creditors, deposits, retentions, supplier terms, foreign currency, and cash conversion
- scrap, rework, warranty, expedited freight, downtime, subcontract processing, and unabsorbed overhead
Backlog and repeat orders are evidence, not guaranteed revenue. A buyer will test legal rights, demand, delivery capacity, margins, working-capital needs, and downside cases.
Prove quality, product, and regulatory control
ACCC Product Safety business guidance covers product-safety laws, bans, mandatory standards, sourcing and testing, compliance programmes, recalls, and mandatory reports. Applicability depends on the product and the company's role in the supply chain.
Map specifications, drawings, revisions, inspections, test records, calibration, non-conformance, concessions, corrective action, traceability, complaints, warranty, recalls, and regulator or customer correspondence. Product labelling, measurement, origin, instructions, warnings, and other requirements must be checked for the actual product.
Assess assets, capacity, safety, and environment
- asset ownership, finance, age, condition, maintenance, calibration, utilisation, capacity, and replacement needs
- site layout, utilities, leases, landlord approvals, power, ventilation, lifting, storage, and expansion constraints
- plant guarding, hazardous chemicals, high-risk work, consultation, incidents, notices, and corrective actions
- waste, emissions, contaminated land, dangerous goods, fire, trade waste, and site approvals where relevant
- single-source materials, tooling, software, subcontractors, spare parts, and technical support
Safe Work Australia develops national policy and model guidance, while state and territory regulators administer and enforce workplace duties. Environmental, dangerous-goods, fire, transport, and local requirements can follow separate pathways.
Map people, intellectual property, and owner dependence
Identify who owns estimating, design, programming, process knowledge, customer approvals, purchasing, quality release, maintenance, safety, production planning, and problem resolution. Record licences, competencies, authorisations, confidentiality, restraints, invention or design assignments, and realistic retention risk.
Use the Australian seller diligence checklist and owner-transition guide. A handover can transfer knowledge but cannot replace a required qualification, customer approval, regulator consent, or documented intellectual-property right.
Compare value and transaction terms
Buyers may examine maintainable earnings, customer concentration, order quality, margins, working capital, assets, capital expenditure, quality systems, product exposure, people, owner dependence, growth evidence, and transaction structure. There is no dependable universal manufacturing multiple.
Bridge enterprise value to cash, debt, working capital, stock, surplus or excluded assets, deferred consideration, warranties, indemnities, tax, and seller obligations. Read the Australian valuation guide before treating a headline figure as seller proceeds.