Dunfermline-headquatered McKinnon & Clarke yesterday confirmed it was seeking to sell the stakeholding of co-founder Sandy McKinnon, the 66-year-old former military intelligence analyst who chairs the company and is now considering retirement, should “the right offer come along”.

McKinnon, along with his family and associated trusts and funds, has a controlling stake in the group of more than 55%.

A spokeswoman for the company yesterday told The Herald: “McKinnon & Clarke is not for sale, but – as the company has said before – Sandy McKinnon is at retirement age and as part of his exit strategy he would sell his controlling stake, but only if the right deal comes along.

“Any deal would have to support McKinnon & Clarke’s independence and freedom from a single utility provider. I can tell you the business has had offers in the past and they were rejected.”

Nonetheless, the sale of McKinnon’s stake also opens the door to a possible MBO or an outright sale of the business, which could net windfalls of more than £10m for shareholders.

Sources say shareholders in McKinnon & Clarke have appointed corporate financiers to sound out potential interest in the business, which provides advice on cutting energy and other utility bills to clients stretching from Scotland to the Far East.

They are also believed to have attached a £15m price tag to the business – sufficient to guarantee a very comfortable retirement for McKinnon.

According to documents obtained by The Herald from Companies House, McKinnon & Clarke’s annual return lists 69 shareholders, including an employee share scheme and employee share ownership trust, which together hold an 11.1% stake in the group, suggesting that a significant number of its 300 employees would also benefit from an outright sale.

Other big winners would include Roy Clarke, who co-founded the business with McKinnon in 1976 and, with his family, owns almost 25% of the group.

The timing of the proposed sale appears to be intended to allow McKinnon & Clarke to cash in on the surge of interest in energy matters on the part of businesses. Many have faced big increases in their bills in recent years and may be keen to use the kind of cost-saving expertise offered by McKinnon & Clarke.

Energy is a core market for the company, which started trading from a small office in Maidstone but moved its headquarters to Dunfermline in 1982.

It has expanded into a range of overseas markets and has offices in 18 countries. It has also diversified into areas like telecoms, through the acquisition of firms in countries including Sweden and the Czech Republic.

In the year to June 2008, pre-tax profits surged to £1.7m from £1.4m in the preceding year. In April, managing director Simon Northrop told The Herald: “Sales are going like a train. We have never before experienced such demand for our services.”

With that sort of record McKinnon & Clarke may generate strong interest at home and overseas.

The owners have entrusted the sale to Livingston Partners, which claims to have a 32-year pedigree of closing deals for clients around the world. The firm has offices in London, Madrid and Chicago.

The company may have to make the most of its expertise in order to achieve the price the vendors may be seeking at a time when M&A markets are in the doldrums.

This reflects concerns about the outlook for the economy and the fall-out from the credit crunch.

With banks focused on rebuilding their balance sheets, many that were keen to fund takeovers during the boom are now reluctant to provide debt to support acquisitions. The shortage of debt has caused big problems for the kind of private equity firms that have been keen to back growth businesses like McKinnon & Clarke.

However, a source said that the front runner to buy McKinnon & Clarke was a management buy-out team that had won backing from a private equity firm.

It is believed that Lloyds Development Capital, part of the giant Lloyds Banking Group, wants to support the MBO team. The operation opened an office in Edinburgh in 2007 to scout for deals in Scotland. London-based Lyceum Capital Partners is also thought to be in the running.

The recent sale of Edinburgh-headquartered oil and gas consultancy Wood Mackenzie by the private equity firm Candover to its rival Charterhouse for £553m showed that financiers that can raise debt will still pay big bucks to buy firms in their preferred markets.

Dunoon-born McKinnon spent nine years in the Army before applying his intelligence training to the energy market, working for a US consultant.

M&C says it saves its customers on average an Olympic-sized swimming pool of water every day and achieved refunds on incorrect billings and leaks of more than £1m in the past year. M&C last year saved its clients 15,518 tonnes of carbon.