The Dental Business Guide
Presented by the team at Samera Business Advisors. The Dental Business Guide is all about helping aspiring dental practice owners build and grow their dental business empire. Tune in for tips and tricks by leading industry experts on how you can start and grow your dental business.
The Dental Business Guide
How To Finance A £1m Dental Practice In 2026
Trying to buy a £1 million dental practice without overpaying or overleveraging? We’ve got you. We break down the market forces shaping 2026—cooling interest rates, tighter supply, stronger buyer competition—and show how to turn that context into a smart acquisition strategy that protects cash flow and compounds long-term value.
We start with the number that decides your deal: EBITDA. You’ll hear how lenders underwrite dental practices, why net profit won’t cut it, and how to rebuild a normalised EBITDA that stands up to bank stress tests. We compare NHS, private, and mixed models through a lender’s lens, exploring where predictable income helps and where growth can stall. Then we get specific on costs: arrangement fees, RICS valuations, legal work for leases and NHS contracts, and the extras people forget when chasing a headline price. If you’re considering freehold plus goodwill, we map the two-loan reality, typical LTVs (often 90% for goodwill and up to 100% for freehold), 15 to 20-year terms, and the structuring that can set you up for a cleaner exit later.
Deal discipline is the throughline. We explain why sales brochures overstate value, how to sanity-check multiples, and when to bring in independent valuations and financial due diligence to test wages, labs, UDAs, and chair utilisation. If the numbers don’t match the story, renegotiate or walk—because you make your money when you buy, not when you sell. We also share realistic timelines: fast indicative terms in days, but six to twelve months to complete depending on CQC and NHS steps. And once the keys are yours, we talk post-completion optimisation: joining a buying group to cut consumables by 6–10%, adopting AI and digital workflows to lift margins, and tracking the KPIs that keep lenders and owners happy.
If you’re serious about owning rather than associating forever, this is your playbook to fund the right asset, at the right price, with the right structure. Subscribe, share with a colleague who’s hunting for a practice, and leave a review to tell us what financing or valuation question you want answered next.
If you require any help, don't hesitate to reach out to the Samera team at www.samera.co.uk. We are all here to help you!
Thank you,
The Samera Team
Good evening, everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, wherever you may be listening to this uh recorded webinar. My name is Aaron, and I have got who have I got here?
SPEAKER_00:Euros. You're a commercial finance broker.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, our expert on finance. Now, today we're going to be talking all about funding a£1 million dental practice in 2026. We are coming towards the end of Jan 2026, and I know we've had interest from quite a few dentists, young, middle-aged, even some people who trying to acquire a second practice, how to fund the practice in 2026, private NHS mixed, all these types of things. So we thought we would do a webinar. But I've got a lot of experience. So I think between his youthful energy and my um grey haired experience, we'll be able to share with you our insight and knowledge. Um let's take it away, Euros, shall we? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We'll start a presentation. So let's see what we have.
SPEAKER_01:There we go. Let's try and get us one here. Okay, that's the presentation we've got. You can see that, I hope everybody. Um let's crack on. So funding a 1 million pound dental practice in 2026. Right. So is now a good time to buy practice, Euros.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, that's the quickest answer to this.
SPEAKER_01:That's a quick example, and you can see all the answers, responses down there. So interest rates are dropping. What are they at the moment, Euros? What are interest rates?
SPEAKER_00:Uh, current uh Bank of England rates are 3.75, uh little drop from December essentially. So it's dropped from four percent, which is only good news for everybody who is buying at the moment.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, and so that's the positive if anyone wants to borrow money. Um, this is another point that people are seeing is that um we're seeing there are less practices for selling than say a little while ago. Okay, demand is higher, so um we kind of feel it's now's not the time to wait. Opportunity is that practice values, I think, will start probably rising maybe in the next year or two. Okay, in the next year or two. What's your feeling on that, Euros?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, even now we're already seeing the valuations. The usual Ibitha was uh multiplier times five, it's its highest. We're already seeing six being quite normalized. So let's not just wait. We need to take the opportunity while we have it and never sleep on an opportunity.
SPEAKER_01:Sure, sure, okay. And then we're seeing technology and AI with transforming practices. We're we're involved in the AI game ourselves here at Samara, and uh we can see how things are going to trend practices around, which is quite exciting, perhaps daunting, but at the same time, it could run make practices run more efficiently, uh, ultimately engross grow the EBITDA. So that's an opportune moment, okay. Um, what about the private demand from patients?
SPEAKER_00:Higher and higher out there. Absolutely, yeah. There's higher and higher. Uh NHS, as we all know, has its ups and downs, so there's more and more potential for private dentistry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay. And then freehold opportunities. I think one thing we've seen over the last two years are more freeholds becoming available, landlords wanting to sell up. So for anyone, any budding dentist who wants to own their freehold, um, that is an opportunity as well to purchase as well. So definitely a good opportunity there. Um, and then I suppose the last point is having been in the game of owning dental practices myself with my wife, owning a practice is definitely a great way to grow your wealth over a number of years. Is it hard work? Of course it is, okay. Everyone else will everyone will be doing it otherwise, okay. But um, if you've got the temperament, the aspiration, and the drive, then you can probably start um buying you can take that first step to buy that first right practice and uh hopefully build your wealth over the long term for you and your family. So let's move on, Yoros. Let's go on to some of the more interesting practical bits. Okay, so let's talk about finance. Uh, what are the key concepts? All these funny.
SPEAKER_00:We're always gonna be talking, yeah. We're always gonna be talking about EBITA. So that's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization. This is what is the true measure of profitability. Um, the banks, nor myself, would really care about the net profit because, in the end of the day, it's all about the EBITA, and you're gonna hear that word being thrown around all the time. We have the valuation of multiples at the moment. Associate led, we're talking on average about 10x, owner-led 3.5 to 6x. Like I already said, the Bank of uh England base rate has dropped to 3 uh 3.75 percent, and your normal practice types is NHS, mixed or private. Everybody always asks which is the best one, but only you have the answer, to be honest. You know, why you have NHS and it's a steady um pretty much revenue. There's sometimes a lot more potential in private and a mix in the mixed practices, the benefits of both of them.
SPEAKER_01:Well, benefits of both, but also the downsides of both as well. Just to flag that it can be. Okay, you could be sitting in the middle and um not really appealing to either party particularly well, which I have seen, sadly. Okay. Um, so you've got to be very careful, you've got and you've got to think about when you're doing a when you're running a practice or buying a practice, what kind of dentistry will I be doing, what kind of patients do I want to see? Um, and that will help determine what type of practice you will purchase or set up. Um, and and they all as Euros highlighted clearly, they all have their pros, but they all have their cons as well. And you just got to go in with your eyes wide open. And this today's webinar is just an initial kind of idea just to give you a better, better understanding a little bit around the financial aspects, right? So let's move on, Euros. So I I want to borrow a million quid. Well, how does it work?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'll just start up with the fees that usually the banks impose us. Anyone else? So um, we we're talking about arrangement fees. It's on average we're seeing 1.5% of the overall deal. So if we're talking a million pounds, it's about 15,000 pounds for the arrangement fee. The bank usually does offer to put that on top of the loan itself so you can pay it off with interest over time. Um, broker fees on average 0% for buying existing goodwill or freehold when we're talking about startups, which we're not gonna touch uh a lot on this subject today. It's 2%, a lot more work from our side as well. Security, the benchers, those the bank will impose. On average, we're looking between 500 to 2,000 pounds, but usually on the average of 500 pounds. Uh, valuation costs. The bank will also offer you about three to four different valuators to come and assess the goodwill and the freehold. It's mandatory, it's not an option. And we're talking between two and a half thousand to five thousand pounds. People just usually choose one of the cheapest ones, to be honest. It doesn't make much of a difference from the bank side. And solicitor fees, three to ten thousand pounds. But as soon as we're talking about NHS contracts, it's on the higher end because a lot more work from solicitors.
SPEAKER_01:Correct. And that and that fee, these are just rough, rough estimates, exactly. Yeah, just something that should be. Yeah, it could be higher if it's a complex lease, a complex property issue, then selling your fees could be racking up as well. Okay. Um, in addition, there are other costs you may need to consider things like accountants' costs and uh the and things like that, which we haven't highlighted here, which we'll we'll talk on a little bit later as well. Correct. Okay, so what are the pathways to financing a deal, Euros? What are they? What are people looking to do? What are they actually buying or setting up? Explain this in a little bit more detail.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so we have uh your startups, which is pretty much starting from scratch. It's like having another another child, essentially, so it's a lot more work. Um, a lot of people how can I say don't have the courage to actually do it. So you see less people there just starting up their own practice. The LTVs, interest rates are all higher, the LTVs are lower, and it's a lot more work, like I said. Um, goodwill and freehold. This is usually just buying your first, second, third, or tenth practice, and this is what we see normally on a day-to-day basis. Uh, refinance, which is like in the today's situation, the bank of um the interest rates dropped. So you want to go back to the bank and say, actually, I want to renegotiate the deal to get a little bit of saving. And then last but not least is asset finance, when it's just you uh buying a microscope or any equipment that you might need for the dental practice, or usually we use it in combination with the startups uh to pretty much help with the deposit amount.
SPEAKER_01:And that's it. Sure. So sure. So if we look at the first three items, typically that type of financing is for over a long period of maybe 10, 15, 20 year period. All right.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yeah, sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so refinance is typically where you're just refinancing against an existing asset already just to get a better real rate, better term, better deal. And then asset finance is usually financed over maybe a three to seven year period um of the life of the equipment. So different ways of financing, but there's different ways to um, as I say, there's different ways to skin a cat. Okay. Um, you want to use the appropriate finance in the appropriate way for the appropriate deal. That's that's a really important thing to consider. So, goodwill, leasehold, key concepts. What are they, Your O's?
SPEAKER_00:Uh, we'll start with goodwill, yeah. So it's the company's brand reputation, customer base, and pretty much everything that's inside of the dental practice, excluding the freehold itself. Uh, the downside is you have to pay for the rent, and that's usually you know the situation. So that's why it's sometimes better just to buy the freehold and pay for the rent and own it long term. Uh, we have the lease length is on average 15 years, and it has to be of a minimum of 15 years for the banks to even consider it. Um, qualifications that uh are needed is a qualified dentist with at least three years experience. And very important here is the structure. It's very important that you already have a dental accountant to talk to you about these uh the structure itself, but it can be put under a limited company, a sole trader partnership. If we're talking about NHS contracts, usually it's put under the sole trader name as well. If you want to put it into a limited company, the um pretty much uh CQC is more open to it, or sorry, is it NHS is more open to it? Uh, but that might take a lot longer. So sometimes it's just better to stick it under sole trader for the time being to pretty much smooth things along.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so going back to qualifications, you highlighted as a dentist. Okay, now we get inquiries from therapists or hygienists. Do any lenders lend to those types of unfortunately not to this time?
SPEAKER_00:You know, it's uh it's a difficult one, especially for therapists because there's uh potential in that, but at the moment it's the bank's policies that dictate who they can lend to, and unfortunately, at the moment it's just qualified dentists.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, all right, fair enough. It's what it is, as they say.
SPEAKER_00:Uh reality, yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and then what are the terms?
SPEAKER_00:Uh for your first yeah, for your first practice, we're talking usually between 90 to 100 percent.
SPEAKER_01:There are some banks or so when you say 90, so what is LTV? Maybe you just explain what LTV is.
SPEAKER_00:Loan to value. So essentially it means how much the bank will uh borrow to you. Lend you, lend you, yes. Lent uh so 90. So 90, that means that if you're buying a million pounds, the bank will lend you 900,000 pounds. So your deposit is only 10, they get 100,000 pounds in this case. But we're seeing one bank that's kind of raising the uh the how can I say the LTV, and they might be able to offer a hundred percent, but I wouldn't count your chickens before they hatch.
SPEAKER_01:First, you I would rather say very English phrase you said from a Slovenian.
SPEAKER_00:So I would rather say 90% is guaranteed 100% if the serviceability will say it's okay, but always say 90%. For your second practice, the LTVs drop a little bit, but sometimes they can remain a 90%. And then we have interest rates. On average, we're talking between 2 to 2.75 above base rate, so it's very competitive. I don't think a lot of other industries can actually touch this. Uh, term length, like we said before, is 15 years minimum, and they will lend to that length as well. And then the only thing to touch upon with this is the financial projections. They all they are only needed in this case if the business is making a loss. The only time you do need financial projections, 100% is when you're doing a startup.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay, cool. And this is yeah, this is just an example. Yeah, not much to say. I think I said it before. Yeah, 900 grand borrowing. It's it's 90. You've got about 100 grand of your own in plus the fees, and then the repayments based on 6.5 percent. So that's what 2.25 or two to 2.75 above that?
SPEAKER_00:We have to uh do it a little bit higher, so that's uh above your average, but we just do it because the banks like to see worst-case scenarios well. So I want to prepare you for the worst case scenario in this case, but we're talking about 5.75 to 6% on average at the moment.
SPEAKER_01:And is is that the loan as well, capital as well as interest repayment? The 90%. Yes, yes, that's everything in the first year. Okay, and so okay, all right, cool. All right, so that's typical example. That's so you need to be generating sufficient cash flow to be able to repay that back um in the business. So, and that's when me talking like a chartered accountant now is you will need to have cash flow forecast to understand what your cash flow situation is because otherwise you could be in a bit of a pickle, otherwise. Okay, okay. Um, some key notes here you've written here. What's this?
SPEAKER_00:Like I said before, the structure is extremely important. I'm no expert at this, and this is where it's very important to involve dental accountants, they can guide you to their whole process. Yeah, that's it. That's me.
SPEAKER_01:I'm I'm a dental accountant, dare I say, and I have been for way too long. Um, but I have a great team as well, and we can advise on all that type of structure, tax, and all these types of things. Okay, so please reach out. Carry on, you're sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Uh owner replacement, it's very important how you can replace the current owner. If it's owner-led, if it's associate-led, it's a completely different story. But you always need to put yourself in the position of the principal leaving. Um, then we'll have to touch upon the sales information, aka the brochures. They're always inflated. So it's very important for you to get an independent valuation of the actual practice and don't trust them. You know, in in the business of a seller, they will always try to sell high. It's simple as that.
SPEAKER_01:Sure, sure. So let me let me kind of put a really important point here. I've been working in this game for 20 odd years, okay? And the selling seller is always being usually supported by a seller's agent, and the seller's agent's obligation is to work on the seller's behalf to get them the best deal. So you always got to go in as a buyer with a real sketch, be skeptical, okay? Don't believe anything they're saying. Now they may be telling you the truth, but they may well not be telling the truth as well. So that's when you engage people like ourselves. And I know we're going to talk about this a little bit later, but you need to engage people who have got the experience and the eye to look at the numbers, look at the in information, and say, is it actually worth this? And this is the first step you may want to consider. You get a sales brochure, and then you may engage someone like us to work out is it actually worth that price, or is it near that worth that price, or is it just being silly? And that's what we we would initially do a kind of an initial assessment of the practice to say this is what we think is actually worth. Okay, so that's the first step. Um, and I guess you want to make have sure make sure that you're not trusting the selling agent. That's a really important point because they have a is a z there's a massive conflict of interest if you're kind of the agent is selling and then they're trying to advise you to buy it. No big no no doesn't happen in big business, and it certainly shouldn't happen in in this in this instance as well, when a lot of money is at stake for everybody.
SPEAKER_00:And they will always they will always say as well there's like 50 other people trying to buy, so keep that in mind. Yeah, correct, correct.
SPEAKER_01:So key concepts here freehold and goodwill. What is it?
SPEAKER_00:So this means you're buying the property as well. So the major difference is you don't pay rent, which uh also adds security and long-time stability. You own the property after you actually pay it off, which is great. Um, again, qualifications are the same as before. Uh, goodwill structure remains the same as before. And then the freehold structure, usually we see it being formed under a limited company or a partnership, but more or less of the time, it's limited company. But here it's very important when we're already talking about two limited companies, one for the goodwill, one for the freehold, is then to form another uh company called the holding company that holds these two companies underneath. And as far as I know, it's very good for capital gains tax long term. So, what I've seen from the banks, it might be a little bit more expensive to actually set up at first, you know, and more work from the solicitor side, but long term it might be a very good gain.
SPEAKER_01:Get yourself a good accountant, basically. They should be advising on how holding structures work. Um, and that's what we do quite often for people buying practices, buying the property in one entity, buying the business in another entity. We form a holding company at the top. In the future, you may decide to sell the practice, but you might want to retain the property. And if you sell the practice and the and you're selling the shares in the practice company and the shares are owned by the hold co, um, no capital gains tax will be paid under um certain under certain criteria. Um the only challenge there is you're then you're going to take that money out of the holding company, but that's another situation for another day. Um, the property company, again, you can hold that property, that's charging rent. So that could be a long-term kind of um retirement plan as well. So just factor that in. So lots of things to think about here on the freeholds, goodwill, um, and structuring this type of um purchase. So, again, similar to the last one, isn't it? It's over 20 years here, though, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Similar, but for freeholds, the bank will borrow 100% on average. Uh, rarely I see 90%, it's usually almost 100%, which means no deposit from your side. But one key thing to remember here, these are two loans, essentially. One is for the goodwill, one is for the freehold, which means twice the amount of fees. Uh, for the valuation itself, uh, they will just increase the price a little bit because they're there already, so they can just look at the property. But solicitors will increase the fees, and also the arrangement fee is doubled essentially. So you have to pay arrangement fee for the goodwill and for the freehold. Uh, interest rates are quite similar, uh, but when we're talking about buying both at the same time, they might drop a little bit, and the term length is usually around 20 years or higher. So it gives You have a little bit more time to pay off, which also drops the amount of um the repayments you have to make on a monthly and yearly basis. And one thing to point out as well, which is now written here, early repayment charges. A lot of people ask about those in dentistry, they're not really done anymore because banks understand the dentists kind of make a little bit more on average. So as soon as you have the ability to pay back, you can. There's no early repayment charges. And like I said before as well, financial projections only in the case of the businesses making a loss.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So another example here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, uh pretty much similar example as before, but here we're adding another 1 million pound worth of freehold. So usual situation is 90% LTV on the goodwill, 100% LTV on the freehold. So essentially another 100,000 pounds plus fees times two, and the lower payments on average 175,000 in this kind of situation with a 6.5 interest rate, of course, a little bit higher than your average one.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Okay, very good. So this is some of the stuff you mentioned mentioned already.
SPEAKER_00:Of course, it's a lower petition, that's in my business.
SPEAKER_01:But business structures we said, company or holding company, these things need to be discussed early on. So get in touch with ourselves, myself or Natasha or Charles, or whoever we can help you with that. Um, owner replacement. Think about how the business operates if you take owner over um what will happen to the current owner, are they going to stay there or not? These things need to be considered. Um, you may not have enough security to support an application. The bank might say at some point, oh, or not have enough cash, but they might take additional security instead if you have a flat or house or something. Again, these things need to be flagged up to ourselves early on whilst we're putting a pack together for uh any lender. As we've Euros highlighted here, sales brochures are usually very inflated. Um, so always question everything. And then here, and and this is where perhaps people get a little bit confused. You have two kinds of valuations going on. One is a valuation, you might approach us to say, You're my buyers, you're gonna advise me on the buying side. How much is this practice worth? And we would value that practice. Fine, we will do that and we'll give you our opinion. However, let's let's say you get finance from the bank, the bank's willing to lend you the money, they will then say they they need to appoint a separate valuer, which is an Rural Institute of Chartered Surveyor, who will underwrite the the kind of value that they think the business is worth, and the bank will relend on that basis. They won't lend on what we think it's worth or what the buyer wants to pay or what the seller wants to say pay, they'll base it on what the the valuation agent, the RICS agent, will tell them what it's worth. Okay, so just factor that in. Um but remember the onus is always on you, okay. You are buying the practice, caveat them to a buyer beware. Um, you're spending a lot of money, okay. Um, therefore, you need to do your DD, do your due diligence properly, get the legal due diligence, clinical diligence, financial due diligence. Get all that done if you're buying a practice. Do not skimp on it because it will only come back to buy you if you miss something out. Okay, so be very careful. So, what about banks? Which practices do they love or hate? Euros, what are they?
SPEAKER_00:They're not picky, yeah, they're not picky whatsoever. As long as the practice is making you healthy, but they don't not care about the rest. It's all about you and who you are as a person and how you can go in there and replace the current principal. I do you have a healthy financial background, or do you like to spend your money in the casino or uh a monthly trip to the Maldives? And can you manage running a dental practice? Because it's quite complex, as Aaron mentioned before. It's not as straightforward. Even CQC can be a nightmare at times. So it's all about you. And usually you already have these conversations beforehand with people like myself or Aaron. Can you effectively replace the person that's running the uh dental practice at the moment? Because let's say if the current principal is an implantologist and you do not have possess that skill, it's not really good for you to go there and replace them, you know, because at the same time we're talking about another associate who can do that work, uh, and that's another loss to the Ibitha. So you need to be ready. No, you need to find a perfect dental practice for yourself.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay, cool, very good.
SPEAKER_00:How long do approvals? Yeah, yeah. Indicative terms, yeah, very very quickly. Usually I get them within a day or two, um, but allow us a few working days from receiving all the documentation that our I will need. Uh, credit backend offer is when the bank agrees in paper that it will borrow you the money, lend you the money. Uh so on average it's 10 working days after the documents are received or from their side. They might need some additional documentation, so I always keep in touch during that process. Uh completion. This is where a lot of people think it's gonna be much shorter or a couple of months, but the reality is it's between nine months to 12 months for uh NHS practices and mixed practices, and 69 months for private. Why? Because NHS is simple as that. CQC takes its time and everything takes its time. So as soon as you get the credit back and offer, you need to start calling all of these people to speed up the process. And uh, I think uh one of your how do you say again, uh quick call is going to be the solicitors as well. You need to keep pushing them to do it as effectively as quickly as possible.
SPEAKER_01:Sure, sure. And that's why when sometimes you can skimp on a solicitor or advisors and pay less, but then they won't return your calls, and that's a headache and time consuming. So it's worth paying the right price for the right people, trust me. Okay, someone who's been there, done that, pay, pay, pay the right fee for the right people. Um, they'll get the job done better, quicker, faster, more efficiently. So, what's all this about? The buyer's advisor. Who's what are we talking about here, yours?
SPEAKER_00:We're talking about us. Simple S. Uh, we're gonna be guiding you through the whole process. We're strictly on your side, you know. It's a lot of um times I talk to people, and it's where are they gonna be looking for dental practices? And that's dental elite, that's Frank Taylor, and people like that. And they offer finance as well. But you need to realize they're selling and they will be offering the finance. That's a little bit of a conflict of interest. And for us, we don't uh meddle with selling practices, so we're completely on your side, completely independent and focused on protecting your investment.
SPEAKER_01:And I think that's a really important point is that there is zero conflict of interest. You want someone who's acting on your behalf from the financial point of view, the borrowing point of view, the uh evaluating practice point of view. We do all of that, okay? Um, and it's focused on you as an individual, not the seller. We don't care about the seller. We want to make sure you're getting the right deal for yourself. And if it's not the right deal, we'll tell you it's not the right deal very clearly, and we'll say, Don't walk away, find something else. Really important to have that independent advice. So, what's what's all this about? What do we need to do here?
SPEAKER_00:So, where I can help you out with is the financial applications. Um, this is pretty much to do everything as a bank-approved form. Uh, we have that healthy relationship with all the healthcare sectors, with all the major banks. So, we can help you out, set up everything, the documents, I'll put the application in for you, and I will act on your behalf to get you the best possible deal. Unfortunately, um, if you're trying to reach them yourself, there's a high failure rate essentially. I think we had a boot camp uh a couple of months ago, and we had that uh conversation with uh a person attending, and they said that I they tried for a year trying to call up the certain bank and never were able to reach the same people we were able to reach with one phone call, you know. So it's very important uh for to have a broker in this case. And what we can help out as well is with the financial projections, but like I said before, it's only in the case if the business is making a loss or if you're doing a startup practice, which we're gonna touch up on a different webinar.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So yeah, let me uh talk about this bit aspect. So practice valuations and financial due diligence. So this is what I alluded to earlier. So practice valuations is what we would carry out. Assess what the practice is worth before you actually even make an offer. Um, that's so important. You don't want to waste your time and going down all the routes of spending lots of time and money when you realize it's not actually worth that. Now, one of the key tips I would always say is get the most recent sets of accounts from the vendors. If they haven't got the most recent sets of accounts or haven't got management accounts, the first question you should be asking is, what are they hiding? Okay. Um, that would be my point of view. Um, and if they're giving you accounts which are 18 months, two years out of date, boy oh boy, the business could be in a very different shape to what you're purchasing now as it was to 18 months ago. So be very careful. Assuming you make an offer, assuming an offer is accepted, then you can then go down the route of the financial due diligence, and that's where we get involved to basically pick holes in the business and look at the numbers and say, Well, they said their salaries were 100 grand a year, but the reality is their salaries 120 grand a year. Um, these things matter. Um, trust is important, and if you're picking, if you start to see holes or issues within the numbers, then you've got to start thinking, what else are they hiding? Where are the problems? Well, what else is lurking in the in the cupboard? Okay, so that's kind of what we would get involved in if we're gonna do the financial due diligence side of things, okay. Um, and again, it might come out after the offer's been made, after financial due diligence has been done, we might realize it's actually not worth what you've offered, it might be worth lower, and that's an important aspect then to go and argue that case against the um vendor as well. But one thing to kind of stress also is that we can get involved to help you negotiate the price with the vendor, and that's something we're getting increasingly asked to do because we want to get you the best price, the best deal. That means we would if they're providing a price and we do an analysis and do our workings and we think it's worth less, we we we will help you negotiate to get to a lower price. Um, that's worked quite well quite recently on a few cases for us. Um, and they've saved what 15-20 percent off the asking price. Um, but because and because we can substantiate why they should be paying less. Um, the way it works, we take a percentage of the savings you make. If you make those savings, we bet paid zero. Okay, if you make a saving, even if it's 10 quid, we'll take a percentage of that 10 quid. Okay, so um these things all add up, okay. So as Warren Buffet has always said, okay, always said, and you must have heard of Warren Buffet, great investor. You make your money when you buy, not when you sell. Okay, so it's so important to negotiate hard right at the outset, not right at the end. Okay, not after the after the deal, it's before you buy the practice, before you buy the business. Okay, so that's the challenge of the valuation side. Um, oh, the buying group Euros. We have that as well, don't we? What's that?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah, and this is after you actually bought your practice and are running, and now you want to start making some uh savings as well. So, not to complicate it too much, but it's essentially a buying group. We have about 200 members at the moment, and we get discount uh discounts from suppliers, such as rights. Rights is the most important one, in my uh opinion. I think that's uh what uh turns people heads. Um, but yeah, on average we get a bit between six to ten percent on consumables alone. So over time, that's a lot of money saved, and that only helps your EVSA. But it's very easy. You uh fill out the form on our website. I get in touch with the suppliers, they'll come back to you and you're signed up, and then you just purchase like you normally would and enjoy the savings.
SPEAKER_01:Cool, brilliant. Okay, so where are we going to? Almost there on, right? Oh, we've got also a boot camps coming in March, 6th of March, setting up a practice boot camp. It's a one-day event. Myself, Anita, Euros, Chris, others will be talking about how to set up a practice, but also for those buying a practice. So we cover that as well, okay. Um, it's kind of Smeeter's experience as a clinician, my experience as an accountant, yours' experience as finance, Chris's experience as a marketing expert. We'll be sharing it in a day. Um, it's at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in the City of London. Um, we have some speech seats available, it's a small group, um, 299 only for the day. Um, um, we'd love to see you there. Um, and it's a great first step if you're gonna get into that zone of buying or selling for practice. It's the first thing you should probably do on your journey, I would advise, because we've dealt with many, many people over the years and they started their journey by coming to this event. So just bear that in mind. Um, and then, well, that's kind of wraps it up then today. Um, we've talked for almost 34 minutes, um, thrown at you a lot of ideas about how to fund that first£1 million practice. Um, I'm sure this webinar has probably trumped prompted more questions rather than answers, which is absolutely fine. Um, you're more than welcome to book a call with us on our website, samera.co.uk, and with Euros for financing for me with me, with some other aspects. Um, we have Kalenly Diaries there. Um, by all means, book ahead. Euros. Please do, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No, I appreciate everybody's time. Don't sleep. That's all I'm gonna say. Take charge of your future today and just get it started. Honestly, there you're gonna regret it by not just spending the time and doing it as soon as possible.
SPEAKER_01:Great. There you go. Don't sleep. Okay. Um, that's the passing word from Euros. Work hard, keep um keep focused, and uh get some support, and we can definitely help you there. Thanks very much, everybody. All the best. All the best.