Wow, end of the third quarter already. This year has flown by.
And what a year it’s been! We’ve been lucky enough to work with some amazing people and achieve outstanding results so far.
And we’re just getting warmed up…
Our Acquisition Entrepreneurship Program is almost fully subscribed, with only two positions still available. On the finance front, stay tuned for an exciting update about the launch of our capital division shortly.
With so much happening, we thought we would take a minute to capture a few of the key lessons were have learned along the way:
The rise of off-market opportunities
We have reviewed over 200 private business opportunities for our clients and can understand why investors are fatigued with the search process.
While there are hundreds of smaller businesses on the market (<$500k asking price), there’s a real shortage of quality opportunities above the $1m price tag. Increasingly we are seeing these businesses being transacted off-market, rather than through the traditional broking infrastructure.
At present, over 70% of our clients are engaged in negotiations with private off-market business opportunities.
Listed Business Opportunities by Asking Price (as %)
Funding & Deal Structures
When it comes to financing business acquisitions, not only have the goal posts shifted, the entire playing field is moving!
Banks are increasingly tightening their lending into the SME space, forcing businesses and buyers to seek alternative sources of funding. We are finding sellers to be more relaxed on deal structure as a result, accommodating vendor financing terms to secure a deal.
Octavian’s close engagement with the market across so many transactions is allowing us to feed these market conditions back to our clients when they need it most. To learn more about deal structuring, vendor financing and what the marketplace is currently accepting, enquire about our Acquisition Accelerator Workshop.