The Langley Team

Roger Stirling Smith is an Author of “Sell your business FAST” and has been a Business Broker since 2000 when he used his middle name to form Stirling Business Solutions, based at Birmingham. Prior to this, Roger had 24 years of business experience at Langley London Ltd, where he reached Chairman & Managing Director level and where Group Turnover for the building materials market reached £13.9m, employing over 200 people. Although Langley London Ltd was sold in 2000, Roger subsequently bought the Langley name back but operating as London based Business Brokers. From experience gained of selling two of his own businesses Roger produced a well received “Guide to buying and selling businesses successfully”. Having created a comprehensive data base of business owners, buyers and investors, Roger is able to gain enquiries for businesses for sale, particularly from Information Technology, Business Services, Building Services, Engineering and Manufacturing sectors. Roger provides business owners a cost effective & flexible approach to maximise Shareholder Value.

“What I liked about working with Roger Smith, is that we didn’t get ripped off with fees and false promises. It was good to see someone who had a practical approach to business, someone who could actually understand our business and get results that didn’t cost the earth!” Steve Marsh

“We needed to appoint a business broker to find a buyer for our business. Having considered various alternatives, we chose Roger Smith where we appreciated his wide range of contacts (even within our specialist market), fair terms of business, including his honest and friendly approach in dealing with business. In particular, the sale memorandum document was produced on time and was clear and easy to understand. Roger helped to ensure that there was a sufficient number of interested parties and a deal was completed within our agreed time-scale.” L Peters

“Roger provided an efficient, tailor-made service from the initial introduction to the eventual sale of my engineering company.” Nick Hewinson

“Roger’s thorough approach to selling my company meant that a buyer was found after only a few months. Despite some difficulties in the negotiations, Roger persevered in bringing the sides together and encouraged frequent discussion, resulting in a deal that both sides are pleased with more than a year down the line.” J Patrick

“Roger is personable, knowledgeable and very easy to work with. I have no doubts about his expertise in the buying and selling of businesses……” P Bayliss

“Roger Smith has been a loyal customer of my internet service provider business for nearly 15 years. During that time – I have got to know roger extremely well – so what follows is borne out of true long term experience and working with Roger through many challenging situations which is where the true person reveals themselves Roger is a first class businessman and – In my long term considered view – conducts business to the highest professional standards and is totally trustworthy in the way he operates in his area of buying and selling businesses . I would have no hesitation in recommending his services. Moving on to a personal point of view, again, having known Roger for 15 years, he is an outstanding and very sociable person with extremely varied interests in life he is a keen cyclist thinking nothing of cycling 100 miles or so and also is a fully qualified train driver for both diesel and steam locomotives – driving them regularly on the Severn Valley Railway ‘ Roger is, put quite simply the ideal person to have alongside you in any social ( and of course business) gathering. It is this rare mix of being excellent at both “business and social life” that makes Roger an indispensable part of any operation. And fun to be with! What more could one ask ?” Eric Churchyard, Managing Director, Severnserve Ltd – eric@severnserve.net

Nigel is a Finance Specialist and a senior executive with over 35 years’ experience in businesses. He acquired his first business at the age of 24 and completed his first successful exit three years later.

He specialises in structuring deals and raising the finance for mergers, acquisitions and achieving growth plans of in excess of £10s millions in recent years. He utilises his network of finance institutions and alternative funding contacts to source all types of business finance to support UK SMEs including unsecured loans, secured loans, property finance, asset based finance including invoice finance.

Nigel combines his background in creating and realising a company vision for multi-site businesses and start-ups, implementing recovery plans for underperforming businesses and driving change to generate growth in declining markets with his ability to build strong, trusting relationships to ensure successful outcomes for all parties.

Nigel helps Langley with our “Acquire a business” service.

Richard is an experienced SME owner-manager with a good track record, running a successful retail design and manufacturing business for over 20 years. Developing an innovative, sustainable and devolved business model he sold his company in December 2013 as part of a long term exit strategy and gained first-hand experience of preparing businesses for sale, creating value and handling the sale process. Richard now helps a wide range of SME’s to re-engineer their businesses in order to deliver sustainable growth, in preparation for MBI or acquisition with the “Prepare to Sell Scheme“. Richard enjoys helping companies achieve an alignment of personal values and motivations with ambitious corporate objectives to release the real drivers that build value. Appointed Enterprise Ambassador for Leeds University in 2015, supporting their Management undergraduate courses with seminars and workshops on creativity, innovation, growth models and exit strategies.

“I personally feel more focused and have a clearer mind taking these initial steps.” David Bradley, Managing Director, Lydian Investments Ltd.

“Richard is a great communicator and a very valuable advisor. His wealth of experience across various sectors is proving to be a real asset to our company planning and strategy. A strong and clear thinker.” David R Robinson, Founder, The Original Sofa Co Ltd.

“Richard is friendly and enthusiastic, providing clear recommendations and good ideas which he is also helping to implement. His experience in manufacturing and team management has given me the confidence to trust the processes he has initiated and he has provided useful guidance on any pitfalls that might occur. I have found his depth and breadth of expertise extremely valuable and would certainly recommend him to SMEs looking to grow.” Jeremy Greenwood, Managing Director, Greenwood Magnetics Ltd.

“I am more than happy to recommend Richard for advisory services as he has been extremely helpful and professional in his mentoring role with my business.” C Lowe, Managing Director, Cloud Source.

Caroline Hall is one of our independent Business Valuers.

Caroline graduated from London University with a First Class Honours Degree in Maths and then worked for KPMG in London for six years.  There she trained as an auditor and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1986 before specialising in taxation of private individuals and companies for a further three years with KPMG. During her period working as a tax consultant she covered a wide range of work including remuneration issues, emigration & immigration for tax purposes, Business Expansion Schemes, business sales & acquisitions & capital gains tax & inheritance tax planning as well as preparing valuations of owner managed businesses & report writing on all of the above areas.

Caroline moved to Shropshire in 1989 and has been a partner, and more recently a director, of D.R.E. & Co since 1994.

Caroline is an Audit Principal and is involved with a large number of family companies, giving tax, business and accounts advice. Over the last 30 years she has prepared valuations for partnership splits & matrimonial purposes on numerous occasions, usually on the instruction of the parties involved in order to reach amicable or mediated solutions. Caroline has received instructions by solicitors for business valuations and tax planning advice in more contentious circumstances as single joint expert reporting to the Court. She also performs valuations for share sales, share schemes, business acquisitions and probate purposes.

As an author for Tottel Publishing, Caroline was responsible for updating “Tax Planning for Buying and Selling Businesses” from 2007 to 2010.

A Senior Executive at corporate level, who joined Stirling as a Director in February 2014, Mark has an extensive experience of buying and selling businesses, including business valuations and negotiating at the highest levels, with both SME’s and large corporates. Mark has both successfully started and merged his own IT reseller business from scratch, becoming a group MD, prior to negotiating a further 5 acquisitions. The Group was subsequently sold after Mark had assembled a disposal team including accountants and lawyers, arranged an independent company valuation and formulated a negotiation strategy, which led to a cash only trade sale worth £35m (significantly above market value).

Mark has since developed the Finance for Business service, where Mark now acts as an independent Commercial and Business Finance Broker with access to over 250 alternative UK Commercial Lenders and Private Banks. A complete cross-section of Finance projects are handled, including finance for share purchases, business acquisitons, MBO’s, MBI’s, finance for properties or property development, plant & equipment, working capital etc etc. Once the information has been gathered, a decision in principle is normally reached within just two to three working days. For further information, please CLICK HERE.