For acquirers: finding the right care business
If you are looking to buy a care business, you will find that the businesses openly for sale are a small and not especially representative sample of the market. Some are for sale because the owner is ready to retire and has prepared well. Others are for sale because something has gone wrong. From the outside, the two can look surprisingly similar.
Many of the businesses you would most like to own aren't for sale at all. Their owners are busy running them. They have not hired an adviser or prepared an information memorandum, and they will not appear on any list. Some would consider a sale, to the right buyer, approached the right way. Most acquirers never find out which ones.
That is the problem buy-side advice is meant to solve.
Who we act for
We act for acquirers buying into Australian healthcare and care: operators expanding into a new region or service line, private equity backed groups building a platform, not-for-profits merging for scale, and groups entering Australia from overseas. Each mandate is a one-off search for a particular kind of business. On any transaction we act for one side only.
“Many of the businesses you would most like to own aren’t for sale at all.”
How a search works
Scoping. Every mandate starts with a short paid scoping stage, usually two to three weeks, where we agree exactly what you are looking for. That sounds obvious and is often where searches go wrong. "A home care business in Victoria" describes hundreds of businesses. "A home care provider in the eastern suburbs with steady utilisation, a stable care management team and no open audit findings, that would fit our systems without a major change" describes a handful. We agree the criteria a target has to meet, the ones that are preferred but negotiable, and the things that rule a business out. The scoping fee is credited against the search if you proceed.
Mapping the market. We build a list of every business that could fit, from public registers, provider listings and our own knowledge of the sector, whether or not the business is for sale. For each one we gather what can be learned from the outside: size, services, location, registration and audit history, and anything on the public record.
Assessing fit. We narrow the list to the businesses that genuinely fit, on two tests. The first is operational fit: whether the business would work inside yours, with your systems, your clinical governance and your culture. The second is longevity: whether what makes the business valuable today is likely to still be there in three years, given the funding rules, the workforce and how much depends on the current owner. Businesses that pass both are worth approaching. Businesses that pass only the first are usually a project rather than an acquisition.
The approach. Approaching an owner who isn't planning to sell is a delicate thing, and it is where many acquisitions fail before they start. An owner who receives a clumsy approach, or one that feels like a fishing expedition, will usually decline and remember who sent it. We make each approach confidentially, with a clear reason why this business and this buyer, and without pressure. Some owners are not interested, and that is a useful answer. Some want to talk. A few were already thinking about it and hadn't known where to start.
Conversations and an offer. Where an owner is open to it, we arrange the first conversations, help you form a view of value, and structure an offer. With an owner who wasn't planning to sell, how the offer is built often matters more than the headline figure: how much is paid at completion, whether the owner stays on and for how long, what happens to staff, and in a not-for-profit, what happens to the mission.
Due diligence and negotiation. We coordinate due diligence with your accountants and lawyers, keep it to a timetable, and deal with what they find in the negotiation. The aim is simple to state and harder to do: avoid overpaying, and avoid inheriting problems that diligence should have found.
Integration. The integration plan is in place before completion, so what you learned in diligence flows into the first 90 days of ownership. The integration page sets out what that involves.
A search usually runs three to six months, depending on how many businesses fit the criteria and how many owners are open to a conversation.
What you receive
- A written scoping note setting out the criteria, agreed at the start.
- A map of the market against those criteria, including businesses not for sale.
- An assessment of each shortlisted business for fit and longevity.
- Confidential approaches to owners, and management of the conversations that follow.
- Support on the offer, structure and negotiation through to completion.
- An integration plan ready before completion.
Rules that affect acquirers
Care is regulated, and some rules apply to the buyer specifically. In aged care, a buyer of a business's assets must already be registered in the right categories, and clients move across with at least 90 days' notice to the Department. In disability, NDIS registration can't be transferred to another ABN, so an asset buyer needs its own registration, and participants choose whether to move. Since 1 January 2026, larger acquisitions must be notified to the ACCC, the competition regulator, and a buyer's acquisitions of similar businesses over the previous three years are counted together, so an active acquirer can be caught by a small purchase. These rules shape which structure is realistic, and they are worked through during scoping rather than discovered during diligence.
Exclusivity
Acquirer mandates carry exclusivity within the relevant subsector, on terms set out in each engagement letter. You won't find us running the same search for a competitor.