Start a business or buy a business?

Personally, I would buy one for not much money - think about it – let’s use my previous background as an estate agent - you are an estate agent you have had a successful career, you have proven you can make good profits for your employer and your choices are to keep working for someone else and climbing the career ladder, or go for it alone.

Starting a business whilst exhilarating is demanding work, requires a lot of investment both financially and in time. You have to find premises, recruit staff, market yourself, manage the finance and all whilst doing what you do currently. In my experience, it takes a good 18 months to reach a point of break even at best - whilst it can be done in a quicker timescale, I mean if you do it properly - launch big to generate big returns. Why not buy a business then?

Think about it - you already then have an established brand, staff, property stock (using the estate agency example again), an active pipeline, active cashflow - all you then need to do is turn a business around (buy a distressed one - they don't cost as much as a highly profitable successful one) - arguably it’s easier to turn around a failing business (fix the problems) than take an already successful highly profitable one and grow it further. It probably doesn’t cost anymore to buy & cashflow a business than to start one.

That's what I do - I back solid operators in their sectors to launch themselves into business by funding them to buy a business. We can get returns quicker and to where we want to be quicker. Most of my interests are in estate agency, lettings, recruitment although I do own businesses in other sectors as well.

Me and my team will help you make the acquisition (we have lawyers & accountants ready to make deals happen) and will leave you to the day to day running. Of course, we are here to offer help & guidance particularly around running the business so you are free to do what you are good at - but instead of making money for someone else, you are making it for you. We act as a mentor and partner rather than a boss.

Obviously, we don't just hand out cash willy nilly, we need to be convinced you are the right person to turn a business around (because of your track record) and we will want to take a stake in any new venture so we are both financially motivated to make and get the returns we both want.

A good place to start will be to identify operators in your marketplace that are underperforming, or evidently distressed. It may just be a business owner is at retirement age, lost interest and perhaps running their business the same way they did 20 years ago and that lack of adaption & change has put the business into a spiral of decline. We can then make acquisitions happen, and quickly.

This is the biggest barrier to people starting or buying their own business - the money - do they risk their savings, even if they do, they still have to support themselves financially until the business (they started or bought) can afford to pay their salary.

Anyone interested in buying a business & making some serious money than starting something from scratch, and wants some financial backing to do so get in touch.

Paul Seabridge is a private investor & runs a corporate capital firm JWD Capital Partners PLC.

He has expertise in mergers, acquisitions, business turnaround & enterprise.

Contact me at [email protected]