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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
From a medical-centre pharmacy in Springfield to a late-night pharmacy in Fortitude Valley: measured against what similar pharmacies have sold for, with ownership eligibility, PBS approval and the lease treated as part of what changes hands.
Brisbane community pharmacies are valued mainly against comparable pharmacy sales, since only eligible pharmacists can buy one and they trade often. The multiple from those sales is applied to maintainable earnings once the owner-pharmacist is paid a market salary, then tested against script volume, the balance of PBS, front-of-shop and professional services revenue, and the lease.
Most requests follow a change in who will own the pharmacy. A pharmacist in Bulimba plans to bring an employed pharmacist in as a partner. A banner group member in Mount Gravatt has an offer from an owner of several stores. Two partners in an Indooroopilly pharmacy cannot agree an exit price. A family law property settlement needs the business valued at a fixed date, or a restructure needs a value the ATO will accept. Executors of a pharmacist's estate need a figure as well, because only an eligible pharmacist can take the business on.
Each of those situations carries the same imbalance. Pharmacy buyers are pharmacists, many of them already owning a store and familiar with the figures of many others. A seller relying on a broker's rule of thumb is negotiating with someone who knows which metrics to discount. A valuation prepared before the first offer levels that ground.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Market Approach leads. Ownership limits and federal approval rules create a closed market of informed buyers in which pharmacies change hands regularly, so completed sales are the most reliable evidence of what one is worth.
Under the guideline transaction method, comparable sales are first sorted by site type: medical centre, supermarket-anchored shopping centre, strip shop or regional town. Inside that group they are matched on script volume, revenue mix, trading hours and lease, and the multiple is applied to maintainable earnings.
Capitalised earnings provide the main check and carry real weight where dispensing is steady. The adjustment that most often changes the result is resetting the owner's drawings to a market salary for the hours actually worked as a pharmacist, because in many stores part of the reported profit is a wage.
Before earnings are capitalised, the owner-pharmacist is charged at a market professional salary. Where the owner works in the dispensary every weekday, that one adjustment can take away much of the profit that seemed to be there.
Stock at realisable value, after short-dated, slow and discontinued lines are written down, together with fit-out, dispensing robots and equipment at market value. Stock is usually among the largest figures in the sale and rarely worth what it cost.
Most disagreements between valuers can be traced to normalisation, so every adjustment is listed in the main text of the report with its reason. In pharmacies the recurring ones are:
Two sets of rules shape what a Brisbane pharmacy buyer is acquiring. Queensland limits who may own a pharmacy business, mainly to registered pharmacists, under the Pharmacy Business Ownership Act 2024 (Qld), so a buyer has to meet those ownership requirements before settlement. Federally, dispensing under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme needs approval as a PBS supplier (Source: Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, PBS approved suppliers). Between them they narrow the field of buyers and make it difficult for a competitor to open nearby, which supports value.
Site type divides the comparable set more than suburb does. A pharmacy inside a medical centre in a growth area such as Springfield, North Lakes or Logan depends on prescriptions from the GPs in the building and on that tenancy. A pharmacy in a major centre at Chermside, Carindale or Indooroopilly pays a percentage rent and trades to the centre's hours. A strip pharmacy in West End, Paddington or Bulimba serves an established local catchment with more front-of-shop sales. Each has different scripts per hour, a different rent structure and a different risk, and because most of these tenancies sit under the Retail Shop Leases Act 1994 (Qld), the lease terms are read as closely as the accounts.
The national business count shows the two markets a pharmacy straddles. Over 2025 to 2026, health care and social assistance businesses increased 6.7 per cent to 227,702, while retail trade businesses grew 0.1 per cent (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). A pharmacy whose income leans towards dispensing and professional services tracks the first trend; one that depends on front-of-shop sales tracks the second.
The report states its purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the records relied on, including the dispensing system reports, and is plain about where those records are incomplete. It then works through each approach considered, names the method used, lists every adjustment with the reason for it, and reconciles the results into a range with the weighting described in words.
Those reasons are what get tested when partners fall out or a sale ends up in court. If a report cannot explain why the comparable sales outweighed capitalised earnings, or why stock was written down by the amount chosen, an opposing expert will find the gap, whether the matter is in the Supreme Court of Queensland or the District Court of Queensland, or turns on the Partnership Act 1891 (Qld) because the partners never signed an agreement. Our reports are prepared under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and signed by a credentialed certified valuer who will explain and defend the conclusion.
Ask which number in your pharmacy's valuation is most exposed to challenge, and how it would be defended. If the valuer needs time to work that out, the report is not ready.
An Indicative valuation suits an owner considering an approach from a buyer, or an employed pharmacist estimating what a partnership share might cost. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report suits a sale, the admission of a partner, or finance for an acquisition. A Detailed report is needed for a family law property settlement, a partner dispute, an estate where beneficiaries disagree (including a family provision claim under section 41 of the Succession Act 1981 (Qld)), or any matter where another expert will review the opinion.
Decide by who will read it. The more likely the report is to reach a court, a lender, the ATO or a second expert, the more complete it must be.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.