MANY pharmacy owners are holding off putting their store on the market until the details of the Seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement (7CPA) are announced, Attain Business Brokers Director, Natalie Sirianni, believes.
Speaking as part of the latest Sirianni Market Update, alongside Medici Capital Managing Director, Frank Sirianni, Natalie said that while sales of pharmacies which were listed prior to the COVID-19 outbreak were progressing, "a number of pharmacy owners are waiting for the 7CPA to be signed" before listing their business.
"What we anticipate is that as soon as the 7CPA gets signed we'll see an influx of businesses that come to market," she said.
"That's generally what we see when every CPA gets signed, so that's nothing unusual."
Although Sirianni said transactions were continuing to be completed during the COVID crisis, she noted that some locations were being more heavily impacted by the affects of the pandemic than others, prompting would-be buyers to take a deeper look at pharmacies prior to buying.
"What we're finding is a lot of transactions that are in play or were in play as COVID came on the scene are still progressing," she said.
"Some have had a few delays, but over the last couple of months we've settled on a number of pharmacies and they've all gone through very smoothly.
"A lot of buyers are doing a little bit more due diligence work, more investigation and a lot of them are relying on the Feb figures rather than the panic-buying month of Mar, but only time will tell how that all pans out.
"All-in-all the market's still quite strong, and the big thing on the horizon is once the 7CPA gets signed we'll hopefully see some more businesses come to market."
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