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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Selling a Brisbane company or buying one, you need a price anchored in evidence that is still standing after the other side's due diligence team has worked through it. That is the figure we prepare.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
A sale or purchase valuation for a Brisbane business settles maintainable earnings after owner and related-party adjustments, a multiple supported by comparable deals, and the completion terms that move value: working capital, net debt, earn-outs and scrip. Vendors use it to set a range before marketing; buyers use it to fix the price they will not exceed.
In most private sales across Greater Brisbane the argument narrows to two figures: what the business really earns and what multiple those earnings deserve. When an Acacia Ridge steel fabricator is offered to a trade buyer, the vendor's accountant adds back one set of costs and the buyer's diligence team strikes half of them out. Whoever holds the better-documented analysis tends to carry the point, and the gap between the two positions routinely dwarfs the cost of the valuation that resolves it.
A considered opinion lets you hold a position when it is pushed. The vendor learns where the floor sits before anyone has heard a number, so there is never a need to walk a figure upwards. The buyer learns what the business is worth to an ordinary purchaser and where to stop. A Fortitude Valley software company billing on annual subscriptions and a Chermside allied health clinic that relies on its founder will not attract the same multiple, and the report sets out the reasons in writing.
It also protects the people who sign. Directors who approve an acquisition or a disposal carry a duty of care and diligence under the Corporations Act 2001, trustees must account to their beneficiaries, and minority holders can later ask how the price was justified. A signed report from a certified valuer with nothing riding on completion is the usual record that the duty was met, and it is among the first documents a lender financing the purchase asks for.
We work for vendors, acquirers and boards across Greater Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton Bay and the Redlands, and inland to Toowoomba: engineering and construction firms working on the 2032 Games infrastructure pipeline, freight operators around the Australia TradeCoast, mining services companies run from CBD head offices, and professional practices in Milton and the Eagle Street precinct. Our fee is the same whether or not the deal completes, and if the evidence will not support the asking price, the report says so.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Most of the negotiating energy goes on the headline multiple. In practice a large share of the value in a private deal is settled somewhere quieter: in the earnings the multiple is applied to, in the mechanism that sets the completion price, and in any part of the consideration paid later or in shares. We test all four on every engagement.
Wages for the owner and family members reset to what the roles would cost to fill, rent paid to a related property trust brought to market, private expenses taken out, and one-off items removed in both directions. Vendors are quick to spot unusual costs and slow to spot unusual income. Every dollar adjusted here is multiplied straight into the price.
Drawn from identified Australian private transactions and listed peers, then moved for size, growth, customer concentration, the strength of the team below the owner and the share of revenue that is under contract or recurs. A multiple resting on general market talk does not survive the first question about its source.
A locked box fixes the price to an earlier balance sheet and passes the trading after that date to the buyer. Completion accounts adjust the price for the net debt and working capital actually on hand at completion. The working capital target is the most overlooked figure in most private deals and should be set from monthly balances across at least one full trading cycle, never from a single month end.
A payment that depends on future results is worth its probability-weighted outcome after discounting, not the ceiling in the agreement, and the metric needs protection from the way the buyer runs the business afterwards. Shares in the acquirer are valued as the vendor will actually hold them: usually a minority stake, often escrowed, rarely easy to sell, and not automatically worth the issue price.
For a vendor the work is done before the business is offered: an evidenced range, the adjustments that support it and the ones a buyer is likely to challenge, so each is answered before it is raised. For a buyer the valuation runs beside financial due diligence but asks something else. Diligence checks what the past numbers were; the valuation asks what they are worth and whether the earnings will survive the vendor's departure.
A management buy-out, a sale of assets between related entities or the buy-out of a founder who also sits on the board can lead directors to seek an independent view on whether the terms are fair to the company. That is not the same document as the expert report the Corporations Act 2001 requires for takeovers, schemes of arrangement and some member approvals, which is licensed work. Ask your lawyers to settle the statutory requirement before either is commissioned.
The standard of value in a private sale is market value: the price a willing but not anxious buyer and a willing but not anxious seller would agree, each properly informed and dealing at arm's length. Any premium that one particular acquirer could unlock by combining the business with its own, say an Eagle Farm freight operator absorbing a rival's depot and customer contracts, is strategic value. We measure it separately, so the vendor sees what is genuinely available and the buyer sees how much of it they would be handing over.
The income approach usually leads. For an established trading business, capitalising future maintainable earnings mirrors how buyers actually think: a normalised earnings figure and a multiple or capitalisation rate reflecting the risk that those earnings continue for a new owner. Where earnings are changing sharply, the business is capital intensive or a clear forecast horizon exists, such as a contractor with a defined order book, a discounted cash flow does the job better. Any forecast from the vendor is checked against track record, capacity and the capital needed to deliver it before we rely on it.
The market approach provides the cross-check, and where businesses trade often, as Brisbane cafes, pharmacies and allied health clinics do, it may supply the main evidence. Australian deal evidence counts most and is the hardest to obtain, because private terms are rarely disclosed and the multiples that circulate tend to leave out the earn-out and the working capital adjustment. The asset approach marks the floor and matters most where the trading company owns surplus assets, such as the freehold under a Rocklea workshop, or runs divisions worth more apart than together.
These patterns come up again and again when a deal reaches us after a price has been floated, heads of agreement signed or due diligence already completed.
How deep the report goes depends on who will read it and how hard they will test it. A vendor weighing an unsolicited approach, or a buyer working out whether a target is worth pursuing, needs a defensible range for internal use. Once the figure is going to the other party, a lender, a board or a trustee, a certified report is the right document.
Each report begins with the purpose of the valuation, the standard and premise of value, the valuation date and the information relied on. Normalisation adjustments are listed line by line with the reason for each. The multiple or discount rate is traced to named sources, every relevant approach is applied, and the results are reconciled into a range with the weighting explained in plain English. Where a locked box, an earn-out or scrip alters the economics, each element is valued separately so the whole bargain can be seen, not only the headline price.
A certified valuer signs the report, takes your advisers through the conclusion, can brief you ahead of negotiations, and will defend the opinion when the other party's adviser challenges it. If the deal later ends up before the Supreme Court of Queensland, for example over a completion accounts or warranty claim, the same reasoning has to stand up as expert evidence, which is why it is written that way from the start. The valuation informs the transaction rather than running it: your corporate adviser or broker still leads, and we work alongside them, your transaction lawyer and your tax adviser.
If the other side could attack only one assumption in this valuation, which would it be, and what is our reply? An adviser who cannot answer has handed you a number rather than a position.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.