How do you find a leasing company for sale?
This is a question I often get asked, so thought it’s time to write a blog about it.
I typed into Google, “leasing companies for sale” and up popped 43 million results in under a second. My search brought up several adverts, one leasing funder and a van leasing company.
The first website – via an organic search – was “Businessesforsale.com.” I typed in “leasing company” only to find two lease companies for sale. The first was a vehicle leasing contract hire company, turnover under £50,000 and asking price £49,950.00. (We will discuss wild valuations in another article.)
The second was a Motor Vehicle Hire Company. Frustrated, I changed the search term to “equipment lease” and again, the first company was an “Equipment Food Production for Sale…Leasehold.”
Finally, I typed in “Asset Finance Company” which resulted in one company.
There were other websites such as Gumtree, but even the briefest of searches proved all to be a waste of time.
In summary, the chances are you will not find a leasing company for sale by looking on Google!
Contacts who may know of leasing companies for sale
For us, this has been the key to finding people that are selling their leasing company. Your Account Manager at the funder is a good place to start, as they are often the last people to know. Leasing company Account Managers do visit lots of equipment leasing companies and some owners do disclose their longer-term plans. We often speak to the employees of leasing companies as well, they might drop into a conversation that the boss is looking to sell. For the employee, getting their company sold may protect their job or even give them promotion.
Corporate finance companies specialising in leasing
When we were selling Wyse Leasing, we employed the services of a Corporate Finance company, a specialist in buying and selling companies. My first observation was, “Wow, we spend 20 years growing a company and then these people pop up and take 3% of the proceeds.” How wrong was I. Without their services we could not have done the deal and using them made us more than the fees we spent.
These companies will research the market and write to/contact other potential companies that could buy you.
Business sale agents
Give them a call, they may have a few leasing companies on their books. Well-known companies in this space are Turner and Butler and Knightsbridge Business Sales.
List of leasing companies
This is the way we find leasing companies for sale. We build a list of leasing companies in the UK and then pick up the phone and call them. It’s no different to cold calling, the more lease companies you speak to, the higher the chance you will find a company for sale.
In all our years of searching for other lease companies to buy, it really does come down to the hard work of calling them.
If you are looking to either buy or sell a leasing company. Please call me, Jeremy Hall, CEO of WestWon on 01494 611 456.
