Specialist brokers for the private security sector.
Part of the Reads Advice Partners network, we focus exclusively on UK private security businesses.
Reads M&A Advisory: built on Simon Read's many years of business sales.
Reads M&A Advisory is a specialist business brokerage founded by Simon Read, who has advised on the sale of accountancy practices and businesses across a range of sectors. Along the way he has built strong relationships with private equity investors (investment firms that buy companies to grow and sell on), business investors and family offices actively seeking acquisition opportunities.
The service is built around what security buyers look at first.
What we bring is a substantial buyer network, and the specialists you can meet further down this page, who help prepare a business for sale.
Buyers are active in the private security market.
In 2025, 70% of UK fire and security transactions involved private-equity-backed buyers, up from 57% the year before, and groups that grow by adding smaller firms to one larger business are consolidating owner-managed businesses (Grant Thornton, UK Fire and Security Sector M&A Review 2025). Recurring monitoring revenue, NSI Gold or SIA Approved Contractor status, BS 7858-compliant vetting and long-term commercial contracts are among the strongest valuation drivers acquirers are seeking right now.
If you are exploring a sale, you will deal directly with Simon Read. Decisions on your sale are made with him.
Key Facts
- Part of Reads Advice Partners Ltd
- Company No. 12124192
- Registered in England and Wales
- Nationwide coverage
- Private security sector specialists
- Free initial consultation
- Confidential process
Direct access to a sector specialist.
Simon Read manages the Security Business Sales division, working directly with every client from initial conversation through to completion.
The person running your sale holds the buyer relationships and understands the sector.
Simon knows the difference between a business built on a book of monitored alarm and CCTV accounts and one built mainly on manned guarding contracts. He understands how NSI Gold or SIA Approved Contractor status changes a valuation, why BS 7858 vetting and recurring monitoring revenue matter to private equity buyers, and what Martyn's Law and the PSTN switch-off mean for the acquisition market.
This direct, personal approach means nothing is lost in translation. Your business is positioned accurately, your concerns are heard by the person making decisions, and you always know exactly where you stand in the process.
The people who work on your sale.
Alongside Simon, six people each look after one part of the Reads Pre-Sale Programme, from the years before a sale to the day it completes.
Simon Read
Founder & Managing Director
Simon Read founded Accountants For Sale, then Reads M&A Advisory, and has spent many years selling businesses. He brings together independent buyers, acquisitive trade companies, private equity-backed groups and strategic investors from across the UK. He does not work on volume: each sale starts with what the owner wants from it, then the right buyers, then the negotiation. He advises owners who are weighing up retirement, planning succession or preparing a business for sale, and every conversation with him starts in confidence.
He takes you through each stage of the sale and stays involved for the handover after completion.
Nick Hunt
Strategic Growth & Exit Adviser
Nick Hunt is a non-executive director, trustee and EMCC-accredited executive coach, and a former FTSE100 financial services executive with more than 15 years' experience across strategy, governance, risk and organisational development. He works with founders and leadership teams through growth and change, helping them make clearer decisions. He also founded Cotswold Lakes Brew Co., an award-winning certified B Corporation.
In the years before a sale, he leads the work on profit, management depth and how much the business depends on you.
Ian Mills
Non-Executive Director
Ian Mills is an entrepreneur, business adviser and author who founded, built and sold a global professional services firm. He has worked across more than 60 countries and mentors senior leaders of mid-sized businesses. He is co-author of three books, the latest being The Leader's Secret Code.
He works alongside Simon on larger sales, and with owners who want the sale to secure more than a price, such as a future for their management team.
Angela Roberts
Office Manager
Angela Roberts is Office Manager at Reads M&A Advisory, where she keeps the business in good order and makes sure owners and buyers get a prompt, professional service. With a background in IT and marketing, she founded Cotswold Networking, an award-winning network of business groups across the Cotswolds, Bristol and Bath.
Organised and approachable, she supports the team and its clients through the buying and selling process, on whichever side of the sale they sit.
Ben Davies
Financial Preparation Specialist
Ben Davies is a CIMA-qualified management accountant who helps owners understand the numbers behind a sale. He spent ten years at a building society, working his way up from apprentice to accountant, before founding his own practice. His strengths are management accounts, cash flow forecasting and the commercial insight that shows what a set of figures is really saying. When a buyer wants the figures behind a business explained in plain terms, Ben is the person who makes them clear.
In the final year before a sale, he gets your figures ready for a buyer's questions.
Martin Dugan
Head of Deal Origination
Martin Dugan finds the conversation before it becomes a listing. He identifies owners who are weighing up a sale but have not yet gone looking for an adviser, and connects them with buyers already registered with Reads. Most of that is patient groundwork, which suits a sector as discreet as security: proprietary research, careful targeting and direct approaches made quietly and without pressure. He runs AA2, a B2B data and outbound business.
Alongside either route, Martin leads Buyer-ready presence, putting the online foundations in order for customers and a future owner. He also leads growth marketing, which puts the same research, careful targeting and patient direct approaches to work on winning the contracted security work buyers pay more for.
Emily Jeans
Marketing and Administration Manager
Emily Jeans is your point of contact from the initial agreement to completion, keeping each case moving and chasing the small details so nobody else has to. Calm and quick to reply, she holds things together when several parts of a sale are moving at once.
Once your sale is under way, hers is the name you will come to know well.
Reads also works with specialist partners: experienced financial planners who help owners with their own finances before and after a sale. Simon can introduce you. See how financial planning around the sale works.
Start a conversation.
Tell us about your business and we will be in touch within two working days.
Thank you for getting in touch.
Simon Read will be in contact within two working days. Direct conversation, not a sales team. Everything you have shared is treated in the strictest confidence.
Start with a free first conversation, in confidence, then choose whether you want the paid written Snapshot: see how the two routes fit together.