Plain English guide

Sellability score

How likely the owner is open to an exit conversation in the next 1-3 years, based on public signals: owner age, board make-up, debt tidy-ups, and filing behaviour. Higher = more likely a willing seller.

Attractiveness score

How good the business looks as an acquisition on public data: size band, longevity, filing discipline, debt profile, and how clean a deal the ownership structure allows.

Owner / PSC

PSC means Person with Significant Control -- Companies House's term for who really owns or controls the company. We say "owner". Their birth month/year is public, which is how age is estimated.

Charge / secured debt

A charge is a lender's registered security over company assets -- HP on trucks, invoice finance on the debtor book, or a bank debenture. Normal in haulage; the pattern matters more than the presence.

Invoice finance

Borrowing against unpaid customer invoices. Common in haulage. A company coming OFF invoice finance is often tidying itself up for sale.

EBITDA (derived)

EBITDA is never a filed line item. Where a company files full accounts we derive it: operating profit plus depreciation and amortisation, marked "derived". Most small companies file no profit and loss account, so the EBITDA filter only searches companies with full filed accounts -- a deliberate honesty, not a gap.

Filed vs estimated figures

Where a company has filed a profit and loss account, we show the real turnover marked "filed" with its year. Most smaller companies legally file no P&L, so no turnover exists publicly -- for those we show an estimate (fleet-based where licensed, otherwise an accounts-size band) always marked "est.". Net assets, cash and employee counts come from filed balance sheets. Nothing estimated is ever presented as filed.

Fleet / authorised vehicles

From the public operator licence register: the number of vehicles the company is authorised to run (not necessarily running today). Estimated turnover is authorised vehicles multiplied by a sector benchmark -- an estimate for prioritisation, not a filed figure.

Licence type

Standard International allows EU work; Standard National is UK-only. Restricted licences (own goods only) are excluded from this tool -- they are not haulage businesses.

Micro-entity / small / full accounts

Companies file bigger accounts as they grow. Micro-entity roughly means under GBP 1m turnover; "small" spans roughly GBP 1m-15m; full or medium accounts usually mean a larger business.

Group / PE-owned

The controlling owner is another company rather than a person -- usually a group structure or private equity. Harder, slower deals, so they score zero on ownership signals but stay visible.

Data honesty

Accounts lag reality by up to 21 months, and Companies House does not publish turnover for most small companies. Scores and turnover estimates are prioritisation signals, not diligence.