Why Our Clients Are Prepared To Hire A Broker
This is often a difficult concept for a client to come to terms with. ‘How can you act for both sides’, they reason? The metaphor of Britain’s belief in adversarial law, against much of Europe’s use of a single legal examining body, helps to arrive at an understanding. APMA believes that it is always possible to achieve a situation where both the vendor and the purchaser (or the merging firms) are happy with the deal which has been struck; it is simply a question of matching ’round pegs with round holes’.
A purchaser is often concerned that he may be buying ‘scotch mist’, and the vendor is worried that his inexperience might lead to him selling to a purchaser who drives his clients away then claims under the claw back clause. The agent acts for one side only but a broker, usually with much more wide ranging experience, can bring it to bear from the very early stages of negotiation. He has answers for all the potential problems encountered by both parties, and only one objective – a win, win situation.
Who are APMA’s clients? Our clients are existing practices and first time buyers. They have one thing in common, they want to change the status quo – they are not content with their lot and come to APMA to change it. They represent a diverse range of people and businesses. They include first time buyers, who may be employees in practices, waiting for ‘dead men’s shoes’, or they may have left public practice and gone into industry or commerce, and now want to come back into the profession.
First time buyers often moonlight from their day jobs, with a small portfolio of their own clients which they service in the evenings and at weekends. Our clients are also small practices, often sole practitioners or 2-partner firms, who make up to 75% of all accounting firms. We also act for a number of group practices, those firms who usually have a number of offices covering a specific geographic area such as the West Midlands, the Fens, East and West Yorkshire, etc. Additionally, we number among our clients the medium sized firms, in the turnover band of typically £6M to £25M, who are ‘always on the lookout’.
The more substantial firms tend to use us for the ‘one-off’ exercise performing a role with practices which is similar to the role of the ‘head hunter’ in executive search – a sort of identify and approach ‘but strictly off the record’! (please go to the Current Opportunities page & scroll down to see archives of many of the clients we have assisted over the years).
What do we do for our clients? The simple answer to this question is ‘anything which is legitimate and professional’. Apart from the obvious solutions for firms wishing to buy, sell or merge, we get to know our clients intimately so that we can propose solutions they have often never conceived of. In short, where the answer is not obvious, APMA ‘manufactures deals’!
What have you done for your clients? We have succesfully negotiated and brokered many high-profit and high-profile deals over the last decade. Details of these deals can be found on our Successes listing underneath Current Opportunities.