Many practices as they grow begin to take an interest in acquisitions most often because the steady % increase is to slow for the internal management changes they wish to carry out. Most often they wish to “make up” a salaried partner or senior manager into a partner but realise that the effect of this will be to reduce the partners profit for a time unless they can buy in fees maybe they need £250K?,. Similarly lower down the chain a sole practitioner starting from home (with fees of say £50K to £100K) wants to move into an office but realises that means his overheads will go up covering a receptionist, and rental costs again he can wait suffering losses until the new situation leads to new fees – many choose to buy in fees if they can (say buying fees of £20K to £50K) to assist in carrying them to a new higher level of work. There is another well known set up in costs where the sole practitioner with premises and some staff has to hire a qualified accountant to take off some of his responsibility this may come at a level anywhere between say £130K and £300K. If a qualified accountant cost even part time say £30K to £40K then using the 1/3 salaries, 1/3 overheads and 1/3 profit – he needs around £100K of additional fees.

So these are the motivators for acquisitions at the lower end. Higher up with larger firms its more about a) getting a foothold in new territories where the buyer is hardly known – he buys perhaps a satellite office with fees of say £300K to £500K around which he can build his traditional services and sell into that area. b) or else he can buy in a new skill if he is weak in taxation he can buy in a firm with exceptional coverage in that area, similarly with Corporate Finance or IFA work or IT specialisms. This new skill can then be sold by the buying firm into its existing client base!

HOW CAN JOBTEL ASSIST?

There are in practice THREE levels of our assistance.

1) We can REGISTER YOUR FIRM as buyer putting it into our massive database and ensuring that when ever we hear of anything for sale that you will be automatically contracted IT COSTS NOTHING at all to register. This is however a passive role and if nothing comes in that area then you will hear nothing – also of course we contact you when we mail many others so you get no exclusivity in the arrangement and have to compete directly with other buyers.

2) We can suggest that you take an ACTIVE ROLE this can be of two kinds depending on the time of target firm

2 a) at the lower end (suitable for the acquisition of smaller sole practitioners perhaps retirees) this takes the form of a mailshot using our special “hooks” letter designed to appeal to anyone wishing to sell – the idea being that the sellers are attracted to a known series of “good words” which appeal to them and encourage a response. This is then followed up by meetings etc – the costs of this is £1 per letter plus a success based fee if a deal emerges or

2 b) at the level of higher fees we can specifically target by mail or by phone calls the senior partners of specific firms – naturally this can take considerable time as just finding out the names of senior partners can take 3 phone calls (some firm protect their senior partners that it simply isn’t possible to find out!) In this case we build up a likely profile of the firms to be acquired and then target those that fir the bill! We create a budget for time and phone bills and clearly this is a very expensive route to acquisition – but it is never-the-less one which we are prepared to carry out for you.

In any case why not contact Jobtel for an initial discussion?