A few months ago I was on the phone with the CEO of a production company. It was not a call he was expecting. We had been retained by a large international media company to scan the Australian market for acquisition targets, and after weeks of analysis, his business had made the shortlist. We wanted to talk.
He was lovely about it. Flattered, curious, engaged. And then I asked him to send me three years of historical financials, current management accounts, and a three year forward forecast based on his current development slate.
There was a pause.
"How long do I have?" he asked.
This happens almost every time. Not because these businesses are poorly run. Most of them are not. It is because the information exists, somewhere. With the accountant. In a folder on someone's desktop. In a format that made sense at the time but does not translate easily into what an acquirer needs to see. And in some cases, like a clear picture of who holds what rights across which projects, it does not exist in any usable form at all.
The irony is that pulling this information together is not actually about selling. It is about running a better business.
Let me be specific about what an acquirer actually wants to see, because it is not as complicated as people imagine. They want to understand where you have been, where you are now, and where you are credibly headed. That means three years of clean historical financials, current management accounts, and a forward forecast of at least three years built off your actual slate and pipeline. Not a wish list. A realistic projection of revenue based on the projects you have in development, the deals you are close to closing, and the relationships that are likely to generate work.
That last part is where most screen businesses struggle. Project-based revenue is inherently lumpy and hard to forecast, and most business owners have never had to articulate their pipeline in a way that makes sense to someone outside the industry. But the discipline of doing it, of sitting down and mapping out what is realistically coming in over the next three years and when, is one of the most useful things a screen business owner can do. It forces clarity about which projects are real and which are wishful thinking. It surfaces revenue gaps that you can do something about now rather than discovering them when it is too late.
The rights question is a separate issue and often a more uncomfortable one. Across a slate of ten or fifteen projects, accumulated over a decade or more, the picture of who holds what rights and under what conditions can get complicated very quickly. Co-production agreements, distribution deals, format licences, underlying rights, music clearances: the documentation exists, but it is rarely in one place and rarely in a form that gives a clean read on the value and encumbrances of your IP. An acquirer needs that picture. More importantly, so do you.
We call it corporate hygiene, but that makes it sound like flossing (which you absolutely should do). It is more than that. It is the difference between a business that is being built and a business that is just happening.
The businesses that handle that phone call well, and a few of them do, are not necessarily the biggest or the most profitable. They are the ones where the owner has been running the business as if someone might ask hard questions at any moment. They know their numbers. They have a view on where they are going. They have their house in order.
And the benefits go well beyond being acquisition-ready. A business that knows its financials deeply makes better decisions about which projects to greenlight and which to walk away from. A business with a clear three year forecast knows where its revenue gaps are and has time to do something about them. A business with its rights position documented is less exposed to the kind of disputes that quietly destroy value over time. These are not things you do for a buyer. They are things you do because they make you a better operator.
The call might come from an international buyer running a market scan. It might come from a local competitor looking to consolidate. It might come from a platform wanting to bring production capability in-house. It might come from a private equity firm that has decided the screen sector is interesting. You probably will not see it coming.
The best time to get ready for it was three years ago. The second best time is now.