Melbourne, VIC
Financial due diligence in Melbourne, referred out.
Melbourne generates more hospitality and franchise acquisitions than anywhere else in Australia, and they are exactly the deals where the vendor's paperwork needs the hardest look. We do not do that work any more. We will tell you which specialists it needs and introduce you.
The Melbourne acquisition market
Melbourne's acquisition market runs on venues and brands: cafes and restaurants trading on tight margins, franchise territories changing hands, and retail businesses where the lease is worth more than the fit-out. Our client list includes Melbourne franchise and hospitality brands, and the numbers in this market have a consistent shape.
Two things dominate Melbourne findings, and both are worth naming when you brief a specialist. First, wage understatement: hospitality rosters carry penalty rates and casual loadings that vendor add-back schedules quietly ignore, and the gap lands on the buyer. Second, occupancy cost: a Chapel Street or CBD lease stepping up 4% a year can consume the entire margin the price was built on. Both are checkable before you sign, not after.
What this means for Melbourne buyers
The conversation about what your deal needs runs by video. A Melbourne franchise purchase usually needs two introductions rather than one, because the disclosure document and the financial records are different questions for different people. We will say which, and make both.
The disciplines, what each one covers and how an introduction runs are on the financial due diligence page.
Melbourne questions
On a franchise or licensed-brand purchase, yes. It is really two transactions: the business itself, and the agreement with the franchisor. The Franchising Code is its own body of law, and a general commercial practice may not act in it often. We will introduce you to both.
Wage understatement and occupancy cost. Rosters carrying penalty rates and casual loadings that the vendor add-back schedule ignores, and a lease stepping up 4% a year against a margin that cannot absorb it. On a franchise deal add royalties, marketing levies and territory terms, all of which belong in the earnings picture.
The financial and legal parts, yes. They run on documents. The physical ones do not: a building, pest or equipment inspection should be done by someone local who will put their name to the condition of the thing they inspected.
Buying in Melbourne?
Tell us about the business and where you are up to. We will tell you which disciplines the deal needs, which it does not, and make the introduction. No charge and nothing to sign.