Even after 2 years of restrictions during a pandemic and now the outbreak of war in Ukraine, there is no evidence that this is affecting interest in buying and selling businesses. On the contrary.
The Covid-19 pandemic had a profound impact on the world and changed everyday life as we know it. The many widespread lockdowns and restrictions changed the rules of the game for the way you run and grow your business.
As a result, many owner-managers have reviewed both their personal and business lives. The pandemic has also affected potential buyers, who are responding to the many new opportunities that arise as a result. The trend is that instead of continuing to outsource to subcontractors in distant parts of the world, they are now looking at insourcing production to subcontractors in our own part of the world to gain better control over the supply of vital components to the industry.
Of course, the global events are not without cost for companies working to manage rising energy prices, unreasonably high freight costs and soaring commodity prices. Still, the challenges are not something that negatively impacts the order intake of the customers we work with. Nor do they affect the number of both small and large transactions we complete on an ongoing basis.
Lack of skilled labor is one of the biggest challenges
While everything is getting more expensive, it's not the rising energy, raw material and freight prices that are causing the most concern among business owners.
The labor shortage, on the other hand, is a major challenge that business owners have been living with for a long time. As a result, many owner-managers are focusing on implementing advanced automation technology in production, as it will solve many of the skill shortage challenges and increase capacity.
Investing in and implementing new technology requires not only a financial investment, but also a lot of effort from both the owner-manager and all employees.
Many owner-managers are at a point in their lives where they feel it's time for a new person to take over
And because many owner-managers are at a point in their lives where they would rather spend time planning the next phase of their lives than working on developing and implementing new technology, many owner-managers choose to put their business up for sale.
This gives a new owner access to utilize the strong position the company has built up in the market. Combined with the skills and experience accumulated over the company's lifetime, the market position provides a strong and sustainable basis for future operations and development.
This is one of several key reasons why many owner-managers are putting their businesses up for sale, highlighting why buying a well-established business is so attractive right now.