Buying A Small Business

[Drew Aitch]

Hi,

I have seen a number of small and supposedly, 'Cash Positive' businesses for sale in Thailand for a few hundred thousand Baht. However, if these businesses are doing so well, then why sell? If the current owner is too busy or too sick to run it, then Worse Case Scenario - why not put a Thai manager in to take over the overall running of the company!

You'd still get a return even if somewhat reduced from employing someone to run the show, but a regular income nonetheless for very little involvement.

Thailand has more than it's fair share of scams and scammers and I'm sure many books get cooked to exaggerate or blatantly lie about business performance.

We hear of so many disaster stories in Thailand, so does anyone have any success stories for a change on the topic of - 'I Bought a Small Businesses and I'm glad I did'

Thanks in advance

Aitch

[Sunbelt Asia]

"'Cash Positive' businesses for sale in Thailand for a few hundred thousand Baht."

Can't be too positive to be for sale for "Few hundred thousand Baht"

Must be around 6,000 Baht income per month or 72,000 Baht per year.

What type of mgr can you hire for that?

As for good businesses, that have absentee owners, why are they for sale? Various reasons...retirement, relocation, divorce, partnership dispute, new challenge.

For instance we have one company who has PAID audited corp tax the last 5 years of 25 million Baht+ . Been in business the last 16 years. The Owner talks to the mgr three or four times a year. He gets 350,000 Baht per month as a salary. His mgr gets 400,000 Baht salary per month. It has retained earnings of over 40 million Baht which is sitting in a corporate savings account. Why sell? He'll make much less income by getting just interest in a bank.

The owner is now 60 and knows he has to start divesting his holdings. It it is the correct move at this point in his life.

Passion is the big difference between a manager and owner unless the manager gets well paid on a % of profits. Still it takes time to find a good mgr!

www.sunbeltasia.com

[wcr]

I bought a small business 18 months ago, and yes it has been successful. I am infact looking to re-sell it. Why? Because I am now working full time in a new business sector and wish to use the capital from my present business to get into property opportunities that I am now being exposed to.

[Drew Aitch]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I thought the response to the question may have been somewhat greater than it was. As my post was looking for success stories I guess this has kind of answered my question.

People trip over themselves to report tales of rip-offs, scams, how they were unfortunate etc, so either the guys that have had some success in buying and running a small business in Thailand are keeping their cards very close to their chest, or there aren't many.

Cheers

Aitch

I bought a small business 18 months ago, and yes it has been successful. I am infact looking to re-sell it. Why? Because I am now working full time in a new business sector and wish to use the capital from my present business to get into property opportunities that I am now being exposed to.

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[Sunbelt Asia]

Aitch,

Think it’s more that people that have acquired a business don't read this site. I only know of one such person… Simon who is a poster here from time to time. He acquired a restaurant for his Gf. Other than that, of the hundreds of businesses acquired with Sunbelt's help, did anyone mention thaivisa.com or I have seen their posts.

We have had 224 business transfers in the last two years in Thailand...208 of those businesses are still up and going strong. Not taking credit for the ratio of success because the buyers were the ones who are the manager/owners and work hard, just stating a fact on the stats that I know. Experience of many years, has clearly shown me, acquiring has had much better odds of achievement than folks starting up on their own. Year in and year out, logic dictates it should be higher and it is.

Show me 10 people gather around a table with a business plan. All think their idea will work and make money in a year or so. Come back two years later, with that same group. What a huge advantage to see which projects really did work and after due diligence to bet on those. Of course, no guarantee that winning business will continue to win but the odds are certainly much higher you will be successful. It is all about probabilities in business.

www.sunbeltasia.com

[yuyi]

I thought the response to the question may have been somewhat greater than it was. As my post was looking for success stories I guess this has kind of answered my question.

People trip over themselves to report tales of rip-offs, scams, how they were unfortunate etc, so either the guys that have had some success in buying and running a small business in Thailand are keeping their cards very close to their chest, or there aren't many.

I bought a small business 18 months ago, and yes it has been successful. I am infact looking to re-sell it. Why? Because I am now working full time in a new business sector and wish to use the capital from my present business to get into property opportunities that I am now being exposed to.

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Successful business owners are usually busy running their business, and not lurking around here. That's why their business is successful in the first place, isn't it

Sunbelt surely cannot sell losers, so there must be a lot of winners, if they sold > 200 in 2 years.

[brownmjy2k]

If you are not victim of a scam there is no reason why you can not have a good business in Thailand.

Most of people I know that bough a business are relatively happy and basically have achieved what they wanted in the first place….to live in Thailand.

Just beware that scams will tell you about the success of their business (see http://www.pattayascam.com for a good example).

If you are advised by professionals such as Sunbelt Asia, you have done the first step right. After that is juts hard work....as in any other country.

[Ignorami]

Oi! Someone or something is really on to Peter Franz! To read through that site and give what you read a thought will take hours! For me anyway. Come to think of it, hmm, it would be nice to have a small business, like a bar, somewhere in Thailand. A small bar. Maybe a few rooms up for rent. A couple of employees I could boss around with. Or it would probably be the other way around, hehe.

But I believe that to own/run a business means a lot more than just paying up. In Thailand and anywhere for that matter. All sorts of permits are needed I guess. And also some in depth understanding about how to operate a business in Thailand could be useful.

Nah, not for me. Or perhaps I will contact Sunbelt within short.

I

[Sulaphat]

I think that start-ups often fail for one or both of the following reasons:

1) Poor business plan.

2) Inadequate capital for the start-up period or to weather unforseen problems in the early going.

Buying into a going concern helps reduce the risk of both the above.