In our eBook Partners in Your Business, guest contributor Gareth Banks from Champ Ventures explained how private equity works and what sort of opportunities private equity investors look for.

This blog comes from Chapter 1 of the eBook, in which Gareth answers the following questions:

• What is private equity and how does it work?
• What type of business opportunities does private equity look for?
• As a business owner, how can I benefit from private equity?
• As a private equity investor, what affects your appetite to invest?
• As a business owner, how do I become private equity ready?
• Where do I go for more information?

Topics: Succession planning, business advice, Private equity, business management, growing your business, growth strategies

If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while now, you know I love a well-written business plan.

I encourage my business advisory clients to write things down, even in a summary sense, because it’s a good way of pressure testing your objectives and communicating them to your team.

Despite my penchant for written plans, I do know successful business owners who don’t write things down and still manage to be supreme at operational and business planning.

They do, however, employ a number of other important techniques, some of which we’ve summarised in the following cheat sheet:

Topics: Business Planning, Succession planning, business advice, business management, growth strategies, strategic planning, annual business plan, business plan

Business owners often seek a business valuation after being prompted to do so by a 'significant event’, for example:

• a family break-up
• retirement
• need for business restructuring
• bank lending requirement
• purchase offer
• bringing in a new shareholder or partner, and so on.

In this video I explain how valuation can actually be used as an ongoing management tool, adding value while you’re running the business and also potentially boosting value on exit.

Topics: Business Value, Valuations, Exiting your business, Video, Business advisor, business management, growth strategies, James Price, JPAbusiness, Parramatta

More than a third of respondents to our recent survey indicated they plan to invest in new plant and equipment in 2018–19, with most of these investments driven by the need to adapt to new technology (61%) and meet replacement schedules (45%). Just over 16% indicated the planned investment was due to new contracts.

If you’re in this situation, you may need to seek finance from a bank or other lending institution. 

As highlighted in our eBook, Managing your banking relationship, there are many things you can do to influence your bank's 'appetite' for financing your business.

Topics: Banking, business advice, growth strategies, finance, seeking finance

Private equity is not for everyone but, in situations where it aligns with your business goals, it can be very effective.

So what do you need to know if you're thinking about seeking private equity investment?

The following infographic provides some private equity basics, for anyone starting out on the PE journey.

Topics: infographic, Succession planning, business advice, Private equity, growing a business, growth strategies

In our eBook Partners in Your Business, guest contributor Gareth Banks from Champ Ventures explained how private equity works and what sort of opportunities private equity investors look for.

In this blog Gareth answers the following questions:

• What is private equity and how does it work?
• What type of business opportunities does private equity look for?
• As a business owner, how can I benefit from private equity?
• As a private equity investor, what affects your appetite to invest?
• As a business owner, how do I become private equity ready?
• Where do I go for more information?

Topics: Succession planning, business advice, Private equity, business management, growing your business, growth strategies

Business owners often seek a business valuation after being prompted to do so by a 'significant event’, for example:

• a family break-up
• retirement
• need for business restructuring
• bank lending requirement
• purchase offer
• bringing in a new shareholder or partner, and so on.

In this video I explain how valuation can actually be used as an ongoing management tool, adding value while you’re running the business and also potentially boosting value on exit.

Topics: Business Value, Valuations, Exiting your business, Business advisor, business management, growth strategies

We have had many people come to us over the years looking to move from an employed environment into their own business.

More commonly, however, our business-buying clients tend to be established business owners with successful businesses who are looking to grow further.

The choice for these clients is:

• ‘Do I grow organically?’ i.e. build on what they already have, or
• ‘Do I grow inorganically?’ i.e. buy a complementary business to ‘bolt on’.

It’s about evaluating the pros and cons of spending money upfront to purchase a business and network that someone else has already developed, versus keeping your money and spending the time and energy to develop it yourself.

Topics: Buying a business, business advice, growing a business, growth strategies, organic growth, inorganic growth

Private equity is much more than just some capital.

You can get capital from plenty of places, but private equity aims to be an aligned partner, helping a business to grow, set strategy and problem-solve.

In our eBook Partners in Your Business, guest contributor Gareth Banks from Champ Ventures explained how private equity works and what sort of opportunities private equity investors look for.

We have distilled some of Gareth’s advice down into this cheat sheet, to help you make your business private equity ready.

Topics: cheat sheet, business advice, equity investor, business partners, Private equity, growth strategies