Nash Advisory Review

Nash Advisory is a Melbourne-based boutique corporate advisory firm that focuses on business sales, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, and valuations for mid-market Australian companies.

With offices in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane and a global buyer network spanning 30 countries through its REACH partnership, the firm has built a track record that includes over $1.9 billion in total enterprise value transacted, 63 completed deals, and more than 15 transactions per year across 14 industries.

Nash Advisory positions itself squarely in the mid-market. This is the segment of the Australian business landscape where companies are often too complex for a business broker but too small to attract the large investment banks.

Founders and owners in this bracket typically have between $2 million and $50 million in EBITDA, and the decisions they're making (selling the business they've built over 10 or 20 years, raising capital, restructuring ownership) are the biggest financial decisions of their lives.

Nash Advisory's service suite speaks directly to that reality.

The firm offers seven core services:

The breadth of this service list means Nash Advisory can work with a client across multiple stages of their business lifecycle, not just at the point of exit.

One of the more concrete things Nash Advisory offers is a documented, repeatable transaction process.

For business owners who have never sold a company before, this level of transparency is useful. The process unfolds in seven stages, and the timeline is worth understanding upfront.

• Education (4–6 weeks): The firm learns the business, prepares a valuation report, explains buyer types (trade buyers, private equity, private owners), and creates a scorecard identifying areas for improvement before going to market.
• Preparation (4–12 weeks): This is the most time-intensive phase. The Nash team works with management to gather 50 areas of business data, normalise financials, and create sale documents including a non-disclosure agreement, one-page teaser, and full information memorandum.
• Research (4 weeks): Nash identifies the buyer pool, speaking with potential acquirers early to get an indicative sense of value before formal marketing begins.
• Marketing (6 weeks): Targeted outreach to relevant buyers, management of enquiries, and site tours.
• Negotiation (4 weeks): Term sheet exchange, financial modelling, and securing agreed heads of agreement.
• Diligence (6–10 weeks): Legal engagement, request for information management, and further Q&A sessions.
• Finalise (2 weeks): Document signing and funds flow management.

The full process can take anywhere from six months to over a year, depending on deal complexity. Business owners should factor this timeline in when planning an exit.

Director Tom Butler put it plainly on the firm's website: "We don't just put an ad in the newspaper like it was 1992. Your business is unique, and we specialise in finding the right buyer for your business."

That line captures something real about how Nash Advisory wants to be perceived: as a firm that does targeted, research-driven buyer matching rather than passive deal listing.

Nash Advisory discloses that the majority of its fees are back-ended. That structure means the firm collects most of its compensation at settlement, rather than through large upfront retainers.

From a client's perspective, that creates a financial alignment between Nash and the seller: both parties benefit from maximising sale price and completing the deal.

This is a common model in boutique M&A, and it differs from how some larger firms operate.

The tradeoff is that it can create selection bias: advisors with back-ended fee structures have an incentive to take on deals they believe will close, which means some businesses may be declined if Nash doesn't see a clear path to a completed transaction.

Nash Advisory covers 14 industries, which is a wide scope for a firm of 22 people. Their completed deals show particular activity in tourism and leisure, healthcare, food processing, professional services, and IT.

Recent transactions include Pinnacle Travel Group (July 2025), Kincumber Nautical Village (June 2025), Chefgood (May 2025), and a March 2026 professional services deal involving Geosyntec Consultants.

The firm also publishes industry-specific EBITDA and revenue purchase multiples across all 14 sectors.

For a business owner trying to understand what their company might actually be worth in a competitive sale process, that kind of benchmarking data has practical value before any formal engagement begins.

Industries covered include:

• Agriculture, Automotive, eCommerce
• Education, Energy/Power/Utilities, Financial Services
• Food Processing, Healthcare, IT and Digital
• Infrastructure and Construction, Professional Services
• Tourism and Leisure, Transport and Logistics, Waste and Industrial

Through its partnership with REACH, Nash Advisory claims access to industry contacts and local market specialists in 30 countries.

For sellers of Australian businesses, this matters most in sectors where international strategic buyers (particularly from the US, UK, and Southeast Asia) tend to pay premiums over domestic acquirers.

Healthcare, IT, professional services, and food processing are areas where cross-border interest is often strong.

The firm's completed deal with Fujitsu is the clearest public example of this international reach in practice.

Nash was engaged by Fujitsu to lead the acquisition of Enable Professional Services, a cross-border transaction that settled in August 2022.

Nash Advisory operates with 22 team members, including two Managing Directors (Sean O'Neill and Lucas Couper), three Directors (Tom Butler, Paul Nemets, and Eric Sengstock), and a board that includes a Head of AI and Innovation.

The inclusion of a dedicated AI role is worth noting: for an advisory firm, using AI to accelerate research, buyer identification, or document preparation could translate into faster and more competitive deal processes.

The firm's promise that clients work directly with directors (not juniors) is a genuine differentiator from larger mid-market firms, where senior partners often hand off day-to-day transaction management to associates.

For business owners who want continuity and seniority throughout a six- to twelve-month sale process, that matters.

Completing 25 private equity bolt-on deals is a specific data point worth highlighting. PE bolt-ons are typically add-on acquisitions for portfolio companies, and they require a firm to have relationships on both the buy-side and the sell-side.

That volume of PE work suggests Nash has developed real relationships with private equity funds operating in the Australian market.

Nash Advisory is a well-structured boutique with a clear process, public deal history, and transparent numbers. A few things are worth thinking through before engaging:

• The firm works across 14 industries with a 22-person team. Depth of industry-specific expertise will vary. For sellers in niche technical industries, it's worth asking directly how many deals the relevant director has closed in that sector.
• The 4–12 week preparation phase before going to market is a serious time commitment from the business owner and their management team.
• The back-ended fee model is client-aligned, but prospective clients should ask for clear fee schedules upfront, including what retainer (if any) applies before completion.
• Nash Advisory's public deal announcements don't always include disclosed transaction values, which makes independent verification of specific sale multiples achieved difficult.

Nash Advisory operates in a segment of the Australian advisory market where quality execution genuinely matters, and the firm's documented process, director-led model, and $1.9 billion in transacted enterprise value give business owners reasonable grounds for confidence.

For mid-market founders thinking about a sale or acquisition in the near term, it's a firm worth a direct conversation with.