R BARKLEY & SONS LIMITED

📈Growthactive
NI038757 · ltd · incorporated 2000-06-09
Investment thesis
Growth-phase business — story-led; valuation sensitive to momentum.
Why interesting: Trading is scaling; acquirers paying for trajectory get disproportionate leverage.
Why risky: Price often leads fundamentals; dependency on founder often high.
Opportunity decay
approaching window · 12-months
Approaching a transaction window — refinance or sale event plausible in the next 12 months.
  • · Oldest live charge 12.5y old — refinance window within 12 months
🔒Estimated value
—
Upgrade to see
Turnover
£14.06M
year to Mar 2025
Net worth
—
book net assets
Opportunity
82/100
Exceptional
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What this business does
Primary activity: Freight transport by road
Sector: Transportation & storage
Investor take
Pursue
Conservative operator with a 72-year-old founder — textbook succession opportunity.

Opportunity 82/100 (exceptional), bankability 80/100. Strong seller-intent signal (83/100, director aged 72). Share purchase looks the cleaner deal structure. Most likely exit: strategic trade sale (78/100).

🏦

Refinance opportunity

1 live charge · oldest 12.5y

95/100
ready

Refinance conversation should be productive — structure clean and timing right.

  • · Oldest live charge is 12.5 years old — likely at or near maturity.
  • · Single lender — cleanest path to refinance.
  • · Legal-friction score 15/100 — clean.
  • · Profitable and stable/growing — lender coverage supportable.

Data confidence

Overall: high (80/100)

Strong data coverage across all sections. AI outputs should be trusted with minimal caveats.

Company profile
address, 1 SIC codes, incorporation date
100
Financials
2 years of iXBRL accounts extracted (YoY deltas available) + narrative notes parsed
75
Lenders & charges
1 charges (1/1 with lender, 1/1 with type)
90
Directors & officers
4 officers (3 active, 4 linked, 3 with DOB)
85
Ownership & PSC
1 active PSC(s) of 1 total, 1 with control declared
90
Director network
2 connected companies via shared directors
51
Filing history
70 filings on record
85
Gazette notices
No matching gazette notices (standard for active companies)
60
🔒Estimated company valuation

Sector-multiple EBITDA, turnover, and NAV-proxy valuation range with confidence tier — derived from extracted iXBRL financials.

Available from the Pro tier upwards.

See pricing →
Opportunity Score
82/100Exceptional
PassWatchWorth a lookStrongExceptional 

Strong composite across quality, acquirability, and risk. High-priority target — progress to serious diligence.

Business quality
70
Active, clean filings, stable charge profile.
Acquirability
80
Strong succession / seller-readiness signals.
Risk profile
85
Few red flags.
Signal strength
100
Good data coverage for analysis.

Signals from accounts

Derived from iXBRL accounts · FRS 102
Profitable
Profit before tax £460,544
Turnover YoY
+2%
Year on year

Key financials

2 years extracted from filed iXBRL accounts
Cash
—
Net Worth
—
Current Assets
—
Current Liabilities
—
£0£0£0£0£0£0Mar 2024Mar 2025

Hover to see exact values · click legend to toggle series

Financials

Extracted from Companies House accounts · FRS 102
Metric2025-03-312024-03-31
Turnover£14.06M£13.74M
Gross profit£1.96M£1.53M
Operating profit£499.1k£229.7k
Profit before tax£460.5k£187.4k
Average employees87009400

Amounts extracted automatically from iXBRL. Fields left blank were not reported or not mapped. Values in GBP unless stated.

🔒Filing-note intelligence

3 signals detected in this company's narrative notes — going-concern language, audit opinion, contingent liabilities, related-party transactions.

Available from the Pro tier upwards.

See pricing →

Recent activity

Last 30 days
1
filing
  • • 1 officers
Last 90 days
1
filing
  • • 1 officers
Last 180 days
2
filings
  • • 1 officers
  • • 1 accounts
Counts from Companies House filing history.
Corporate timeline (23 events)Click to expand
  1. 2026-05-19
    📄
    change-person-director-company-with-change-date
    officers · CH01
  2. 2025-12-22
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-medium
    accounts · AA
  3. 2025-08-30
    📄
    gazette-filings-brought-up-to-date
    gazette · DISS40
  4. 2025-08-26
    📄
    gazette-notice-compulsory
    gazette · GAZ1
  5. 2024-12-18
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-medium
    accounts · AA
  6. 2024-03-21
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-medium
    accounts · AA
  7. 2023-01-01
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-unaudited-abridged
    accounts · AA
  8. 2022-01-10
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-unaudited-abridged
    accounts · AA
  9. 2021-03-19
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-unaudited-abridged
    accounts · AA
  10. 2019-12-18
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-total-exemption-full
    accounts · AA
  11. 2018-12-19
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-total-exemption-full
    accounts · AA
  12. 2018-09-15
    📄
    gazette-filings-brought-up-to-date
    gazette · DISS40
  13. 2018-09-11
    📄
    gazette-notice-compulsory
    gazette · GAZ1
  14. 2018-02-08
    📄
    notification-of-a-person-with-significant-control
    persons-with-significant-control · PSC01
  15. 2018-01-03
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-full
    accounts · AA
  16. 2017-01-05
    📄
    accounts-with-accounts-type-medium
    accounts · AA
  17. 2013-11-20
    🔒
    Charge registered #1
    Lender: Ulster Bank Limited
  18. 2000-06-14
    ➕
    BARKLEY, Brian appointed
    director
  19. 2000-06-14
    ➕
    BARKLEY, Kenneth appointed
    director
  20. 2000-06-14
    ➖
    PALMER, Robert Desmond resigned
    director
  21. 2000-06-09
    🏢
    Company incorporated
    As R BARKLEY & SONS LIMITED
  22. 2000-06-09
    ➕
    BARKLEY, Kenneth appointed
    secretary
  23. 2000-06-09
    ➕
    PALMER, Robert Desmond appointed
    director

Owner dependency

100/100
Critical — business is the founder

The business appears inseparable from the founder. Acquisition without a serious earn-out or meaningful transition period would likely destroy value.

FACTORS
  • +Two-director setup: Only two active directors — typical of owner-managed SMEs but limits succession.
  • +Founder name in company name: Company name contains director surname "BARKLEY" — strong identity link between founder and business.
  • +Long-tenure founder: Senior director has been in place 26 years — deep operational knowledge concentrated in one person.
  • +Founder age: Director aged approximately 72 — succession pressure is live.
  • +Family involvement: Multiple officers share a surname — likely family business, which concentrates governance.

Succession & seller-readiness

96/100
Likely off-market candidate

Strong acquirability signals converging. Worth approaching directly — this is how off-market deals start.

SIGNALS
  • primaryFounder aged 70+: Senior director is approximately 72 years old. Natural succession window is now.
  • secondaryTwo-director governance: Small-team governance. Succession depth is thin but not absent.
  • primary20+ year tenure: Director in role 26 years. Very long tenure is a classic succession signal.
  • secondaryStable-but-static management: Company is 26 years old and no new directors in the last 3 years — succession not yet being planned internally.
  • supportingClean filings + long tenure: Disciplined long-tenure operator — classic lifestyle-business pattern that often sells quietly.

Red flags

clean
No red flags detected from available public data. (This is not a clean bill of health — detailed accounts review still recommended.)

Shareholders & ownership

1 active beneficial owner
NameSharesVoting rightsNature of controlNotified
Mr Kenneth Barkley
Individual · British · DOB 07/1956 · age 70
25–50%
25–50%25-50% shares · 25-50% voting06/04/2016

From Companies House Persons with Significant Control filings. Share ranges are banded per the public PSC regime.

🔒Co-director network graph

Radial SVG graph showing every company connected via shared directors, colour-coded by status.

Available from the Pro tier upwards.

See pricing →

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£226.0k–£376.6k
——7716y9458y
Peers ranked by estimated value, then turnover, then opportunity score.See all →
🔒Tailored diligence questions

7 specific questions generated from this company's actual signals — liquidity, leverage, director age, charge count, red flags, age-of-company.

Available from the Pro tier upwards.

See pricing →
🔒Advanced scoring suite

Exit-route ranking, improvement thesis, quiet-distress detector, covenant-pressure proxy, extraction monitor, approaching triggers, ownership drift, local cluster, value trap, debt capacity, archetype classification — 48+ scoring modules.

Available from the Pro tier upwards.

See pricing →

Company details

Statusactive
Typeltd
Incorporated2000-06-09
Jurisdictionnorthern-ireland
Primary SIC49410 — Freight transport by road

Registered office

14 Landhead Road
Ballymoney
BT53 7HD

Filing status

Accounts
Next due: 2026-12-31
Last made up to: 2025-03-31
Confirmation statement
Next due: 2026-06-23
Last: 2025-06-09

Officers (3 active · 1 resigned)

BARKLEY, Kenneth→
secretary · appointed 2000-06-09
View their other companies + combined net worth →
Active
BARKLEY, Brian→
director · ~72y · appointed 2000-06-14
View their other companies + combined net worth →
Active
BARKLEY, Kenneth→
director · ~70y · appointed 2000-06-14
View their other companies + combined net worth →
Active
PALMER, Robert Desmond→
director · ~85y · appointed 2000-06-09 · resigned 2000-06-14
Resigned

Click a director name to see their full track record across all companies.

Mortgages & charges

1
Total charges
1
Outstanding
1
Active lenders
Status:Lender:1 of 1 shown
TypeProperties
outstanding
NatWest Group
Ulster Bank Limited
A registered charge1 property20/11/2013—
Click column headers to sort. Use filters above to narrow by status and lender.

Recent filings (70 total)

change-person-director-company-with-change-date
officers · CH01
2026-05-19
accounts-with-accounts-type-medium
accounts · AA
2025-12-22
gazette-filings-brought-up-to-date
gazette · DISS40
2025-08-30
confirmation-statement-with-no-updates
confirmation-statement · CS01
2025-08-27
gazette-notice-compulsory
gazette · GAZ1
2025-08-26
accounts-with-accounts-type-medium
accounts · AA
2024-12-18
confirmation-statement-with-no-updates
confirmation-statement · CS01
2024-06-25
accounts-with-accounts-type-medium
accounts · AA
2024-03-21
confirmation-statement-with-no-updates
confirmation-statement · CS01
2023-08-02
accounts-with-accounts-type-unaudited-abridged
accounts · AA
2023-01-01
confirmation-statement-with-no-updates
confirmation-statement · CS01
2022-07-22
accounts-with-accounts-type-unaudited-abridged
accounts · AA
2022-01-10
confirmation-statement-with-no-updates
confirmation-statement · CS01
2021-07-16
accounts-with-accounts-type-unaudited-abridged
accounts · AA
2021-03-19
confirmation-statement-with-no-updates
confirmation-statement · CS01
2020-06-12