Transition Radar listens to the register's live stream, and scores 1,481,261 owner-led UK companies against 17.7 million company-years of filed history — to surface the ones approaching a sale, before anyone calls.
Everything we claim is measured on the register itself — walk-forward, on vintages the models never trained on.
| pattern | companies flagged (7 vintages) | sale lift vs peer pool |
|---|---|---|
| B2B tech buyout | 97 now | 5.7× |
| Roll-up: prof. services | 1,192 now | 3.1× |
| Cash fortress | 20,368 now | 2.5× |
| Prime target | 6,992 now | 2.4× |
| Roll-up: healthcare | 2,917 now | 2.1× |
| Roll-up: trades | 1,545 now | 2.0× |
| Quiet compounder | 58,696 now | 1.9× |
| Cash-rich owner | 32,160 now | 1.8× |
Lift — how many times more often flagged companies went on to be sold than their peer pool, measured across seven annual snapshots 2018–2024. Probabilities on lead cards are calibrated the same way: on a held-out year, when the model says 10%, close to 10% happen.
Hand-built from the register's own tells — owner age, control structure, balance-sheet shape — then kept only if the backtest says they precede real outcomes.
founder-led B2B tech at 40–200 staff, growing and structurally profitable, no outside equity on the register — the bootstrapped growth-buyout profile (£5–15m ARR class)
founder-led professional-services firm at scale (accountancy, legal, consultancy, IFA, insurance broking) in a sector PE is actively consolidating — sells 3.2× the base rate
cash is over half of net assets (≥£500k) while headcount stalls — the owner is stockpiling liquidity and winding the business down; the deal can finance itself
a cash-rich owner running a quiet compounder — the two strongest sale signals stacked (2.6× the base rate); the warmest buyout lead we score
founder-led care / dental / veterinary business at scale in an active consolidation vertical — sells 2.1× the base and almost never fails
founder-led HVAC / electrical / plumbing / fit-out contractor at scale — the trades consolidation theme, sells 2.1× the base rate
net assets have grown three years running with a steady team — a healthy, boring, cash-generative business (sells 1.6× the base, almost never fails): the clean PE / trade acquisition target
retirement-age owner (62+) sitting on cash worth 40%+ of the balance sheet — the pre-sale posture the backtest actually links to a sale (1.9× the base rate; replaced the weaker 'sunset harvester')
Live: companies entering a pattern as filings land — anonymised. Names go to feed subscribers.
Six of the strongest current profiles on the radar. Every figure is real and current; the names unlock in the weekly feed.
The week's strongest profiles with names, numbers and the why — picked from the radar, verified against the register, sent to your inbox. Free.
No spam, no card. Unsubscribe with one click.
We ingest the full Companies House register monthly (5.7M companies, every PSC), parse every iXBRL account, and hold a live connection to the filings stream. Signals are 36 hand-built patterns validated by walk-forward backtest; probabilities come from gradient-boosted models trained on 17.7M point-in-time company-years and calibrated on a held-out vintage. Names and per-company detail stay in the subscriber feed.