What Xcllusive Says:
 Zoran Sarabaca, Pricipal |
“This survey has shown a lot of uncertainty on the market, with buyers either equally divided about the possibility of finding a good business or uncertain. One thing that most of the buyers seem to agree on is the availability of finance for SMEs being either very hard or at best, difficult to attain. Because of this market state, it is a frequent occurrence that sellers will provide some form of vendor finance in order to secure the sale.Uncertainty in the market always increases perceived risk from the buyers’ point of view. This, together with hard to obtain finance has definitely created a buyers’ market. When the market is in this state, owners of good businesses are generally discouraged from selling, creating a shortage of quality businesses for sale. Ironically, this in turn makes good businesses easier to sell due to a lack of competition, though, still with prices lower than pre-GFC. From what we can see in this market, it doesn’t look like this trend is going to change any time soon.”
– Zoran Sarabaca |
The Results
This month’s survey has seen neutral or low results for all questions asked. Question one, which indicates the likelihood of buyers finding a business that suits their requirements in the current market, returned a fairly even spread of results. 37.5% of respondents returned a positive response, 31.5% reported that they were unsure, and 30.9% of respondents returned a negative response.
Question three, which asked respondents whether they would be more likely to purchase a business now or in six months, returned a similar spread of results with 38.5% responding negatively, 27.7% reporting that there will be no change and 33.7% saying that they believe that now is a good time to purchase a business.
Question two, which compared the current business sales industry to how it was six months ago, returned a more definitive result with 46.3% of respondents reporting that there has been no change in the industry from that time.
Of the four questions, the most significant result was from question four which indicates the ease at which finance for a business purchase can be accessed, with a massive 73.2% of respondents reporting that finance is either difficult or very hard to obtain, and only 6% of respondents returning a positive response.
The sum of these results has indicated that the overall sentiment from business buyers is low, sitting just below neutral.
By Zoran Sarabaca
Xcllusive Business Sales
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