Looking for a dental practice for sale?
Below you will find a great article detailing how the dental practice sales process works. Before you read on let us firstly highlight why you should sell your dental practice though our dedicated dental broker:
s Process:Selling your dental practice is both an exciting and stressful time during your career. It is difficult to continue to maintain the high levels of patient care, manage your business and engage in the sales process. This guide to selling your dental practice should provide you with valuable information to aid you with making plans that suit you. Not every two practices are the same so the more information you have to hand, the better. Here are a series of frequently asked questions to inform you when deciding to sell your dental practice:
There are numerous reasons why you might want to sell your practice. It may be that you are retiring or simply want to realise the benefits of all your hard work and then move onto the next steps in your career/life.
This is a key point and our dental broker partners fully understand the nature and requirements of our vendors. Their aim is to keep the sales process as anonymous as possible to minimise any possible interference from within a practice. Your marketing and financial data on your practice is fully anonymised however when a serious buyer wants to meet you and see your practice before they submit an offer then our brokers will need to tell them who and where you are. Don’t worry as all your potential buyers are screened and have signed confidentiality agreements prior to receiving any information on your practice.
As with any other type of business there are many types of valuation methods. The two commonly used ones in the dental practice industry are multiples of EBITDA and multiples of gross profit. Our brokers knowledge of the industry gives them further market benchmarking methods to validate the correct price for your dental practice. Reasons for requesting a valuation may be because of planned incorporation, retirement, refinancing, colleague buying in or an outright sale.
The market is buoyant with many more buyers than there are practices on the market. Our allocated brokerage team have a database of registered buyers with their exact requirements. They actively seek to pair up those new practices that come to the market with registered buyers. We always encourage new practices to be fully marketed on our website so that the correct market value is achieved. In the past this has been above the practice valuation point particularly when there are two or more interested parties in your practice.
You decide to implement your exit strategy from your business and engage in the sales process
You decide on either a direct sales process driven by you or to use the services of a dental practice broker
If you decide on the use of an experienced dental practice broker then you are guided through the remaining steps
You sign a letter of engagement with a practice broker. This legally commissions the use of the broker to act on your behalf during the sales process
You request a practice valuation in order to value the business and ascertain all the required information that the buyer will want in order to purchase your dental practice
The broker works with you to produce all the documents required to successfully market and sell your practice. This will involve the preparation of a sales brochure and information pack about the strengths of your business. A full set of financial accounting data is also prepared however this is only passed onto fully screened buyers who are still interested in purchasing your practice after reviewing the marketing material.
You will review, make suggested alterations and agree to the marketing material on your practice
Our broker markets your practice in this website and others and distributes to their database of already registered buyers
All buyers are fully screened and have signed a confidentiality agreement with us. Our brokers deal with day to day enquiries for information about your practice and screen for serious buyers with whom we subsequently introduce to you
When a buyer after reviewing the marketing and financial data wishes to visit your practice to look around our brokers will make an appointment for them to visit you at a convenient time. This is to maintain the confidential nature of the sales process and not to disrupt the normal day to day workings of your business.
Offers to purchase the practice are made through our broker.
We pass on these offers to you and help with the negotiation process based on our appraisal of the interest to date from the market about your practice. On some occasions your case will proceed to sealed bids if there is more than one acceptable offer from more than one party.
A letter of acceptance subject to contract is sent to the buyer
The buyer makes a deposit to our broker to secure the removal of your practice from the market
The buyers legal representatives submit a heads of terms agreement which is agreed upon by both parties
The due diligence process occurs. Our brokerage team co-ordinates between both sets of accountants and legal representatives to facilitate this process and help the deal to progress as smoothly as possible. They, if required can recommend a short list of lawyers who regularly work in the dental practice sales field so that you can acquire the appropriate legal representation.
On satisfactory conclusion of the due diligence process a sale and purchase agreement is produced by the buyers legal representative. Once you are happy with this agreement both parties sign. Contracts are exchanged and the deal is completed
The agreed transaction value from the sale of your practice is wired to your account or solicitors account
The sales process is completed and it is time for you to enjoy the rewards for your hard work and plan the next steps in your life/career
Yes. More than 50% of practices are sold directly without the use of a broker.
As the sales and legal process is both time consuming and stressful a substantial percentage of those who complete the sale of their practice individually have some regrets about this decision.
It is believed that by using a broker achieves approximately 10% higher market values than through the direct sales route. Experience is knowledge in this field and the maximised sale value commonly dwarfs any commission paid to a broker.
How long does it take to sell?
This depends on the type of case mix, practice location and market demand. On average the process takes between 4-6 months from the day of marketing to completion however some practices have sold before this time frame.
There are many different brokers in the market however we value our brokers individual approach to each practice sale. We believe in choice and transparency which is why our selected brokers have taken a completely different approach and offer a completely unique service. Here are some other key fundamentals to the service that our brokers provide. The choice of service is up to you.
1) Dental Practice Valuation Service:
Our team has years of experience in this field to give you the correct assessment of your practice worth. This is part of the practice appraisal service.
2) Simple no fuss Fee Structure:
Our dedicated dental brokers use a simple no fuss formulae for commission.
Other reasons to use us include:
Free seller registration
Free buyer registration
Great website marketing exposure using state of the art techniques to get your practice to the greatest number of possible buyers in order to find you the right buyer at the right price. If you are reading this now then so are possible buyers.
The PCT contract is a valuable asset to any practice owner and in the current market NHS practices are highly sought after. Following the agreement to purchase the practice and after a satisfactory due diligence process the transfer of an existing NHS PCT contract is the next step. The commissioning manager of the PCT should meet with both the outgoing and ingoing dental principle. Following the standard checks and once the commissioner is happy with the new practitioner they should arrange to cancel the existing contract and re-commission it to the new practitioner. This should be co-ordinated so the implementation date of this contract coincides with the sales process to ensure a smooth transition.
What to do next?
If you would like our dental brokerage team to market your dental practice please contact us. If you've thought "how do i sell my dental practice" then do contact us for a confidential discussion about your available options.
To view a list of dental practices for sale please follow this link
Please note we will need to confirm your GDC number on the General Dental Council website
