I’m spotting a new trend in UK dentistry.
A Management Buy-Out created as a joint-venture between associates and managers in independent practice.
The Clinical & Management Buy Out (CMBO).
 
My first experience of this was some years ago, when a far-sighted dental principal changed his sole tradership to a limited company and then sold 25% each to his practice manager and his lead associate. He enjoyed a partial equity release, they were able to re-mortgage their homes to buy in and all three have since worked together to grow the business. Skin in the game all round. Perhaps in a few more years he will sell the final tranche of shares (and the property) then sail into the sunset.
 
Nowadays, I’m starting to get involved in a few more of these conversations because:

• few, if any, corporates are interested in private purchases
• the ‘valuation gap’ I have written about before creates a situation where larger private practices are tough to sell to individual purchasers
• principals care about their teams and their patients and they don’t want the discontinuity and disruption that a corporate sale can create

 
So why not offer shares to your best existing players?
It makes absolute sense – and it means you can sell at ‘lifestyle valuation’ and not ‘corporate valuation’.
I also hear more and more principals telling me that the idea of a phased exit, starting early, is attractive – compared to waiting until a significant age or date and hoping that market conditions are suitable.
 
As MD of the BKH Group, I’m reflecting on what this means to us – perhaps we become a source of mezzanine finance and management services to those CMBO teams.
I’m changing my thinking on acquisitions – and want to talk to the buyers and not the sellers.