Eleanor Harrow
Founding partner
Twenty years advising the owners of family businesses. Left a large firm to give advice without a success fee attached.
Independent advisory · London
Advice that does not depend on the deal closing.
Harrow & Lane advises families and founders on selling, merging and handing on the business they built. Fixed fees, one partner from the first call.
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London
How we work
Our engagement letter, compared with the usual one.
Most disagreements between an owner and an adviser start in four clauses. Here is how ours reads against the market standard.
Fees. The adviser will be paid a success fee of 2% of the sale price, payable only if a transaction completes a fixed fee agreed in writing before work begins, payable whether or not a transaction completes.
Who does the work. The engagement will be led by a senior partner at the pitch and a team of associates thereafter one named partner, who takes every call and writes every memo.
Our advice. The adviser will recommend the buyer whose offer carries the highest headline figure the buyer and the terms that leave you best off in three years, which may be no buyer at all.
Conflicts. The adviser may introduce other services and products of its group has no other services or products, and will say so again if anything changes.
Signed for Harrow & Lane
Eleanor Harrow, founding partner · no success fee attached
Recent matters
Clients are described, never named.
Details are shared at a first conversation, with the client’s permission.
| Client | Matter | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Third-generation joinery group | Succession between three siblings with different appetites for risk | Staged buy-out over five years, agreed without litigation |
| Founder, logistics software | Sale to a strategic buyer with an earn-out under negotiation | Earn-out reworked around revenue, not profit |
| Owner, regional dental group | Three unsolicited approaches from investors | Advised not to sell. All three declined, with reasons in writing |
| Regional family brewery | Merger with a neighbouring producer | Both brands kept, back office combined |
| Architecture practice | Bringing in employee ownership | Advised to wait a year, then trust established |
“A good adviser is the person who is allowed to say no.”Eleanor Harrow, founding partner
Partners
The people you will speak to.
James Lane
Partner, tax and structure
Trained as a tax adviser. Known for making the structure of a sale simple enough to explain at the family table.
Priya Nair
Partner, mergers
Leads negotiations. Nobody leaves a room without knowing what happens next and who is responsible for it.
Speak with a partner
A first conversation is free, and confidential.
Tell us where the business stands. A partner will reply within two working days.