​Turner Butler​​​​: Reviews, Feedback, Complaints, Fees, Testimonials, T&Cs...

​​Intro: The company that refers to itself as Turner Butler states this on their website: "Turner Butler has over 30 years experience in selling Businesses".

30 years. However, the company name they disclose in the footer of their site is Turner Butler Ltd, a firm that was ​registered in 2012, according to their Companies House page​, images below.

The discrepancy between the 30 years and 12 years immediately puts us on high alert. We are aware that there was a previous company called Turner & Co operating at this website. Perhaps the 30 years reference includes experience gained as Turner & Co. However, the people who worked in Turner & Co, such as Shaun Sweeney, are no longer working for Turner Butler.

Disclaimer: This review was written in March 2020 and may not be regularly updated so please check for latest information. Content below is believed to be correct as of March 2020. Please do further research before using this company.

From the Turner Butler website:

turner-butler website snapshot

From ​Companies House:

snapshot from Companies House


Connections / Connected Parties 

Related companies are OwnerSellers UK Ltd (dissolved in 2019) and Owner Sellers Ltd - both with the same director, Rupert Cattell. Rupert Cattell's LinkedIn page says he's the MD of Turner Butler (previously MD of Redwoods business brokers). There was a website at ownersellers.com which claimed to be owned by Owner Sellers Ltd, but the site ceased to be operational circa end 2019 / early 2020. As of the date of this review (March 2020), the domain ​is available for purchase and looks to have been abandoned. 

The latest accounts filed for Owner Sellers Ltd shows a company in heavy loss with a negative balance sheet of circa £124K. Turner Butler Ltd's last balance sheet looks better and shows a modest bottom line of £41,525. We have not checked all the other related companies.

ownersellers.com is up for sale


Turner Butler and Turner and Co were acquired in 2012 by the Bourcour Group, venture capitalists and they are listed on AIM as B P Marsh & Partners Ltd.  They also own Amberglobe, who claim this: "Amberglobe Limited, a business that acts as agents for the sellers of SME businesses in the sub £3 million price bracket, such as childcare centres".

From here: "In March 2008 the Group assisted in establishing Amberglobe, a business sales platform that provides valuation and negotiation services for the sale of SME businesses in the sub £3m sector. In July 2012 Broucour was formed as a new holding company for Amberglobe, and the Group financed the acquisition of Turner Butler.

​Summary: Lots of inter-connected companies / companies with the same owner/s / companies that have been wound up etc.

Contact Details


Address for Turner Butler Ltd: ​​Woodwater House, Pynes Hill, Exeter, EX2 5WR.  
​There are hundreds of other companies registered at this post code​ so it may be an accommodation address.
Phone: ​0800 028 9999
Website: https://www.turnerbutler.co.uk/. ​
Social Media: Turner Butler have this LinkedIn company page (but it's setup, strangely, as a personal page rather than a company page so we can't tell how many employees work there)​. They have a Twitter account with 791 followers. They had a previous Twitter account that was suspended for violation of Twitter's rules. They run a blog at the free Blogspot site which blog was started in 2014, abandoned for a few years and on which they resumed posting in 2019.
They also have a Facebook presence.
Size: On the date of this review they had 187 businesses publicly listed for sale at Daltons.
Fees: Turner Butler do not charge a retainer i.e. no up-front fees and they claim that they "don’t believe in asking for payment in advance". ​We believe that the no-sale-no-fee arrangement is not as attractive and risk-free as it may look. Read our page on broker fees here​.

Turner Butler's Twitter account

Information we have on this company: ​We have extensive information on this company supplied to us by previous clients. ​We have copies of ​their Terms & Conditions, fees, invoices, signed agreements, quotes, copies of their annual accounts and correspondence they've exchanged with previous clients. ​

Reviews

This company has review pages on multiple review sites. They are on Google reviews ​with 9 reviews and a 3.6 out of 5 stars.

Google Reviews for Turner Butler

There are some reports around of Turner Butler suing their clients for large sums of money despite not selling their businesses - example 1 | example 2. In one of those cases the owners of the business were sued for £12,000 despite the business having been liquidated. It's about the small print in the contract.

We do not know how often this happens but Turner Butler were part of a report by the Mirror newspaper here.

On the other side of the coin, Turner Butler have posted a lot of glowing testimonials on their own website and on places like Slideshare​ so it would appear that they do have some satisfied clients.

Fees

Th​is is a no-sale-no-fee agent. They claim to charge no advance fee and only charge a fee at the point of selling your business. You might want to read our advice here on no-sale-no-fee deals and ​read our guide to business brokers.

Your Feedback​​

Errors & Omissions: If there is any information on this page that you feel needs to be corrected, or other important data that you feel needs to be included, please contact us.