Once a Vet has decided that they want to be their own boss and own a vet practice, the next question that they face is “should I buy an existing practice or set one up from scratch?”

When a practice is valued, it is often for goodwill and equipment, “plus stock”. That is to say, the stock levels will be determined closer to settlement and an amount added to the valuation to compensate the vendor for the stock that will be onsite at the date of transfer.

In October 2019, a bottle of The Macallan Fine and Rare whisky sold at auction for $US1.9 million, becoming the most expensive bottle of wine or spirit ever auctioned. This whisky was bottled in 1986, after maturing for six decades in European Oak at Macallan's distillery near the River Spey in Scotland. The cask this bottle was from has produced six record-setting bottles, beginning in 1986 when the first one was sold in New York, winning the Guinness Record at the time for "The World's Most Expensive Spirit".

So, you’ve decided to sell your practice and after years of blood, sweat and tears, doing whatever’s necessary to build it into the success it has become, you want to make sure you get top dollar for it.

Any business is made up of both tangible assets (those that you can see and touch, like equipment, fit-out and furniture) and intangible assets (like goodwill, brand recognition and intellectual property).

A practice or real estate sale is usually a high-stakes transaction involving hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars changing hands. Quite often, the buyer and seller will base the price paid for a practice on an appraisal or valuation that has been done by an accountant.

There is a school of thought that in a price negotiation, the buyer should point out every fault, weaknesses, minor flaw and imperfection of the acquisition and talk down any strengths in order to justify giving the vendor a lower than expected price.

There is a famous Aesop’s fable about a race between a tortoise and a hare. The race starts and the hare races ahead and soon leaves the tortoise far behind. Confident of winning, the hare takes a nap towards the end of the race and when he awakens, he finds that he has lost the race.

A valuation can be one of the most important tools in a business. It can help you with business strategy and planning, it can guide the decision to sell your practice and retirement planning. Somehow though, there is little understanding among vet practice owners surrounding:

For every good practice that Practice Sale Search has for sale in one of the state capitals, we have many buyers competing with each other to submit a winning bid…and yet…when the practice is located in a regional or rural centre, the demand often dwindles …