Finding the right legal representation for pharmacy buying or selling
Finding the right legal team for the sale or purchase of a pharmacy is very important, almost as important as finding the right broker. If you have decided to use a large, national broker, you might have access to their legal team (some pharmacy brokers offer a full service including valuation and legal support).It is common for the seller’s solicitor to draw up the sale contracts so make sure your solicitor has experience of creating this type of document. It is a good idea to check their fees to ensure you can cover them (although this calculation should be done already, as you will need to include these costs in the summary figure of how much finance you need).
Read more: Find a Legal representative for pharmacy purchase
How to get finance for the purchase of a pharmacy business
This is a topic that goes hand in hand with the issues surrounding how to buy a pharmacy, and is the starting point for the purchasing process. This has been touched on previously in the article covering how to buy a pharmacy business, but deserves much more elaboration.Before you can go about looking for finance for a pharmacy you need to know a ballpark figure of what you will be paying for. You will need to cover (on top of the sale price of the pharmacy) solicitors’ and accountant’s fees, loan repayments (for any source of pharmacy finance), the cost of the stock, cash flow for the first few months and possibly stamp duty and property lease costs depending on the circumstances of the premises you are looking at buying. When these costs have been added up you can seek funding for the purchase of the pharmacy.
How do I work out the value of my pharmacy?
View our current pharmacies for sale.
If you’re thinking of selling your pharmacy business, or have been made an offer on your pharmacy, the first thing you will need to do is find out the true value of your business. There are different ways of going about this but the two main methods of determining pharmacy valuation are
a) a calculation based on past net profit (also referred to as ‘traditional’ valuation) and,
b) goodwill valuation.
Finding the right pharmacy broker
Finding the right pharmacy broker is essential as they are your guiding light through the sometimes tricky process of buying or selling a pharmacy. As mentioned in previous articles, your agent is an invaluable source of help and advice at every stage, and will always act in your best interests; their interests are the same as yours – to get the best price possible, whether buying or selling, and to make the handover as quick and easy as possible.A good agent will have up to date knowledge of the market, of current valuations and of the sites they represent.
How to buy a pharmacy 
View our current pharmacies for sale
If you are looking at buying a pharmacy business then there are more factors to consider than when buying any other type of business. Dealing with the NHS and being licensed to provide NHS services is one of the main obstacles in running a pharmacy business; under the NHS Pharmaceutical Services Regulations (2005) all pharmacies require a fitness to practice check before they can provide full NHS services, and they must be registered to dispense NHS prescriptions. As this is the backbone of a dispensing pharmacy business it is very important to check that there will be no problems satisfying these requirements before committing to buying a pharmacy.
How to sell a pharmacy
View our current pharmacies for sale:
The market for pharmacy business is currently in favour of sellers, with an average of six offers per sale. You may either be wanting to sell your pharmacy and have been advertising it for sale, or you may have been solicited by an eager buyer. Whatever the circumstances, there are some things you need to know before selling a pharmacy business.The sale of a pharmacy encompasses not only the transfer of assets (including property, staff contracts and NHS contracts) but also the ownership of the business itself. If you own the freehold to the premises on which you operate there is another decision to make about whether the freehold is part of the sale, or whether to lease the property to the new owner.
