I am interest in buying a business, it is for sale for $100,000 and has been operating for 5 years. I have seen the financials as has my accountant and we are both happy. I only have $18,000 in savings and don’t own a property … is it possible to get finance to help with the purchase, I need about $85,000, thanks

Hi Tim

Thank you for your question.

We'd like to recommend two accountants that might be able to help. Both are located near Hornsby.

Andrew Jeffers in Sydney - https://www.simplyaskit.com.au/profile/1850/andrew-jeffers

Brendan Curran in Newcastle - https://www.simplyaskit.com.au/profile/1964/brendan-curran:

Best of luck

Hi Tim,

as you have already had your bean counter go over the figures and you are happy, I guess you have already had discussions about risk, business structure, record-keeping, and tax management. If not, let me know and I will be more than happy to give you some pointers.

In terms of getting your hands on some cash, without knowing what the business is, it seems to me that you are leaving yourself VERY light on for working capital.
you have $18k
bank gives you $85k
you buy the business for $100k

that leaves $3k of wiggle room.

I try to get people to look at their cash requirements and make sure that they can handle a reasonably predictable drop in cashflow without running out of cash to keep the doors open.

for example if you are selling $1 widgets averaging 1500 widgets a day......and sales are consistent and predictable, the amount of cash reserves wont be as high as (say) a business that sells lamborghini cars.....because you might not sell a single car for weeks and months.....so you need to have some cash in reserve to keep things ticking over until you sell a car.

I am sure you have covered off the cashflow requirements with your accountant. Good luck. I have to warn you that obtaining finance through traditional means (ie Big Four) for business purposes will need substantial assets to back up the loan.......which means you are likely going to have to deal with second or third tier lenders......who generally charge significantly more interest, and the payback period is generally a lot shorter......which puts a LOT more pressure on the cashflow equation.

let me know if you would like to discuss it further mate

bc

I hope this makes sense Tim.