Buying a Business?

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Financial advisers wishing to buy or sell businesses in South Africa are very much in the dark as to how to go about doing it, and very little support is available.

Centurion Market Makers is an Australian firm specializing in assisting buyers and sellers of financial firms. They regularly produce blogs which are of great value in guiding local businesses.

The latest blog is titled, Two questions I ask every buyer I meet…

‘What are your reasons for wanting to buy a business?’

For the most part, the buyers I speak with are buying a business for growth. They are practice owners who want to accelerate revenues and grow their number of clients. Often they currently manage a successful existing practice, however the rate of organic business growth is slower than required to meet their personal and business objectives. So, after evaluating the strategies and investment required for organic growth against the alternative of acquisitive growth, they arrive at the decision to ‘buy growth’ rather than nurture or farm it.

‘What do you find to be the hardest thing about buying a business?’

Consistently I hear that finding the right asset is the most difficult part. This is unsurprising and similar to buying a house or any other high value asset. If you are investing a significant amount of money, you want to ensure you spend your hard earned dollars wisely. This leads to the second biggest challenge buyers face which is receiving the right information from the seller.

Please click on the link above to read the full article, as well as other interesting aspects of buying and selling a business.