Built from first-hand experience.
Most M&A advisors come from one world: the institutions, the banks, the boardrooms. We came up in another, building companies at the speed and through the networks of a new generation. Few people sit credibly in both. That is the gap LePrince Group is built to close.
Hugo LePrince
- Co-founder, Creed Media
- Aldren, retail distribution for emerging DTC brands
- Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe
- Eight-figure consumer exits
Hugo LePrince has spent the past decade building companies. He started young, co-founding his first venture as a teenager, and went on to co-found Creed Media, a Gen-Z marketing business recognized in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list, which he grew from a three-person start-up into a global team working with some of the world's largest artists and brands, through to a strategic sale.
After Creed, he turned to consumer. He sold consumer products for eight figures, brought brands into US retail, and built Aldren, the leading retail distributor for emerging DTC brands. Along the way he found M&A the way most people who are good at it do: by actually doing it, learning the mechanics of a deal from the inside. What a business is really worth, what a buyer is really paying for, and where value is won and lost in a transaction.
The moment that matters most.
Hugo created LePrince Group to bring that experience to the moment a business is bought, sold, or prepared for either. The firm pairs founder-side judgment with disciplined M&A execution, helping owners and shareholders realize the full value of what they've built.
The work is driven by a belief learned firsthand: most businesses go to market before they're ready, and leave value behind because of it. LePrince Group exists to change that. To make a business worth more before it sells, run a process that protects its value, and stand on the same side of the table as the people who own it.
And it's built on one discipline the industry lacks: we only represent businesses we believe will sell. Every mandate carries the firm's name, so every mandate has to be one we'd stake it on.
Most advisors have only ever advised. We've built, scaled, and sold. So we know what a business is really worth, what a buyer is really paying for, and where value is won and lost.
Between two generations of business.
Business is in the middle of a generational handover. The companies built over the past decades are changing hands, and the people selling, buying, and advising rarely come from the same world. Most advisors speak to only one side of that handover.
We're fluent in the digital, AI-enabled, borderless way business now works, and legible to the people who hold the capital and the decisions today. From our base in Abu Dhabi, working globally, we bring the pace, the relationships, and the instincts of how business works now to an industry that still runs the old way.
Founder-led, by design.
The person who pitches you runs your deal
No handoff, no pyramid, no junior team you never meet. Senior judgment on every mandate, from the first conversation to close.
Selective on purpose
A limited number of mandates at a time, each one a bet on the firm's own name. Rejection comes with honest reasons and a path.
Paid on the outcome
Outcome-based pricing: the fee rides on the close. It's what makes the honesty and the selectivity rational, not just stated.
Modern by default
Lean, global, AI-leveraged. We move in days where traditional firms move in weeks, without cutting the corners that matter at close.
You won't find our deals online. That is the point.
We do not publicise mandates, name clients, or announce transactions. The best outcomes are reached quietly, and confidentiality protects the seller, the process, and the price.
Confidential by default
A sale is the client's business, not our marketing. The market learns only what serves the client.
Selective by mandate
We take a limited number of companies and turn the rest down. Selectivity is the product, not a constraint on it.
Vetted and verified
If we represent a company, it is proven to be one of the best in its category, with a clear opportunity for the right buyer.
If you're weighing a sale, an acquisition, or an approach, we should talk.
Every conversation starts with the LePrince Read: an honest, evidence-based view of your position and your options. No pitch for a transaction you don't need.