Chris Small: ABC Business Sales CEO on the rising number of people looking to purchase businesses

Now is the time to sell your business. 

According to ABC Business Sales, the number of buyers enquiring about purchases is up 30%. 

Demand is currently outstripping supply, as new listings are down 10% on last year. 

CEO Chris Small told Mike Hosking much of the interest is led by migrants, and hospitality, services, and construction are the three sectors people are primarily looking to buy in. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The business of sales of business seems to be booming.
Our buy our inquiries are up thirty percent, listings down
ten percent. So you've got to demand out stripping supply
issue there, I guess Chris Small is the CEO of
ABC Business Sales and as well as Chris morning for you,
Mike Hey doing very well. Indeed, this has been happening
for a while. We've had you on several times, so
this is a thing, this is a trend. Is that fair?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah? Absolutely, we just we just had a record month
in May. We've had forty two business sales in May,
which is the most we've ever had. So it's as
you rightly point out in your first sort of statement there,
demand is sort of well, I almost call it out
of control. It's the highest we've ever seen in business
sales history. Currently.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Who are these people and what do they want?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yep, great question. So pretty much led by the migrants,
so there's a huge ethnic element to this or a
lot of Indian, Chinese and Filipinos are coming to New
Zealand and wanting to buy businesses. And then if we
do it, we've got do a sector analysis. You'll see
the hospitality services and construction are probably the three leading

(01:04):
sectors that they're looking to buy them. They would make
up over fifty pent as well as retails. You got
hospitality thirty percent, retail eighteen percent, services fifteen percent, so
that's over fifty percent from those three sectors.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
So explain to me then, because the number of people
coming to the country is starting to tail off, would
you then expect the number of people looking to purchase
businesses starting to tail off? Then if it's all immigration.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Good good question. What we're seeing is that people are
still arriving in New Zealand. From what we can see,
those people arriving in New Zealand are largely Asian migrants,
and the people that are leaving New Zealand are probably
largely European parkiha going to Europe for their own way.
So you sort of the people arriving and still wanting
to buy businesses and the people leaving are probably people

(01:47):
who would never buy businesses in the first place. So
just the shape of the population is trending towards I
guess a certain element to Wild's best business ownership with
it besus the young ones leaving would never buy a
business because they don't have the money currently.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
No, exactly. So the interesting thing for me is this
unemployment side of the equation. So immigration is a cultural thing.
They don't want to work for somebody else, they want
to work for themselves. Fully get that as an unemployed
person though. If I'm looking then all of a sudden
at a business, do I know what I'm doing?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, they're pretty good. I mean, anyone's obviously got obviously
we provide advice. People have got their own accounts and lawyers.
But it's becoming a real thing now with people are
coming to us and going you know what, I'm sick
of working for a big corporate. It's too woke or
it's too annoying. I don't like my boss, and I
want that financial freedom with Actually, if they work really hard,
you get rewarded. If you don't work hard, you're obviously

(02:38):
can be a lot of trouble. Versus in corporate New Zealand,
you can probably work pretty hard and not necessarily get
rewarded for the hours you put in.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
If you've got a good business a going concern, see
I mean, how many of your stock are kind of
it could go well if you did it better. Versus
it's not a great business anyway versus this thing's booming
and it'll sell them three minutes.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Majority of what we sell is all profitable because no
one buys a businesses that's making a loss. So we
always say that to people when they come and see us,
that you know, there's no point taking us to market
because no one's going to want to buy it. There
are exceptions to the rule, but to the majority of
what we sell are full going concerns, which which are
which are highly profitable, and that's why they're selling. Otherwise
there's no point taking it to market.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Are the banks on board with this stuff? Is there
money for this kind of activity?

Speaker 2 (03:25):
If you want to absolutely yeah, we'll look at the
bank's are funny things that they love. We all know
they love making money, and given the recent decline and
property transactions, they've really moved towards what we call SNAE
business and have been very, very happy to accommodate transactions,
you know, but they're they're sensible. They're not going to
lend to bad, bad transactions. But if it's a sensible transaction,

(03:45):
the bank's absolutely absolutely there for it.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Do you do a sauna and cold plunge every day?

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yes? I do. Who told you that I know?

Speaker 1 (03:53):
I know everything? Chris and and and you would, you
would speak well of it and you're a better person
for the experience.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Ah, I could not speak more Heil. I've been doing
it for five years and it is probably the best
thing I do in my twenty four hours each day. YEA,
couldn't recommend it more.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Good on you mate, Well go well, we'll see you,
saying Chris Mall, who's the ABC Business sales CEO. Cold
plunge and a sauna each and every day. You can't
go wrong. For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen
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