Asking price: £575,000

Sales revenue: £385,000

Net profit: Undisclosed

Fixtures value: Undisclosed

Stock value: Undisclosed

Business description
New and used sales, service, maintenance
and repair of domestic and light commercial garden machinery

Originally run from home – moving to its current site nearly twenty years ago, this business, family run in the early days, has grown to become the best garden machinery specialist in the Hampshire area offering a wide range of new and used machines for sale as well as a full servicing, repair and maintenance service.

Ideally located, on a large site shared with a garden centre and an aquatics retailer – with all the businesses combining to generate significant shared footfall, this business deals in the full range of garden machinery. For a rotavator, scarifier, ride-on mower, lawn mower, garden blow vac, shredder, hedge cutter, strimmer or chain saw as well as a quad bike, buggy and even tractor accessories, with all the major manufacturers represented including Mountfield, Lawnflight, John Deere, Hayter, Honda and Stihl – new or used, for any kind of domestic or light commercial machinery for use in the garden, this is the only place to visit.

The service, maintenance and repair facilities this business offers are equally impressive. Efficient, skilled and highly experienced technicians are on hand, with a good supply of spares available in the well equipped workshop to carry out annual services, routine maintenance and repairs and provide full back up for the equipment purchased from the outlet. Turnover is split almost equally between service, repair and maintenance and sales with the vast majority of customers private individuals augmented with some commercial work from professional gardeners in the private sector as well as organizations like the National Trust and public sector bodies including local schools, colleges and hospitals.

The cornerstone to the success of this business is the high levels of customer service this business offers. Staff are very knowledgeable with many years of experience between them and more than capable of independently advising customers as to the best machine to suit both their individual requirements and their budgets.

This is a very well established business with an excellent reputation for high levels of customer service and a range of garden machinery and tools for the more discerning gardener who appreciates quality and value for money. With turnover for the financial period ending October 2008 of approximately £385,000 generating gross margins in excess of £135,000 and pre-tax net operating profits of approximately £60,000 this represents an excellent acquisition opportunity for an existing operator within the sector to expand their penetration in the marketplace or a new entrant to establish a firm foothold within the sector.

Key Strengths:

This is a very established business with almost twenty five years of successful trading. It is ideally located on a very substantial rural site shared with other synergistic retailers – an outlet from a well known, major branded garden centre chain and an aquatics business. The site is ideally located in an affluent catchment area situated amongst a high volume of households with gardens well suited to the range of products this business offers and as such enjoys good levels of awareness, passing traffic and footfall.

This business enjoys a balanced level of business activity from a combination of sales and service and repair broadly equally contributing to total turnover. With sales mainly concentrated through the spring and summer months with workshop activity mainly concentrated in winter and early spring, the business enjoys fairly consistent business activity throughout the financial year.

This business has developed an excellent reputation for high levels of customer service throughout all areas of its business. It has a very good range of machines on display – much more extensive than many of its competitors and has a very experienced and highly expert team of technicians on hand to deal with all service, repair and maintenance issues.

Key Opportunities:

Operating consistently in its local marketplace over the past few years, there is an outstanding opportunity to build on the existing business levels and customer base of this company. With a strong demand for the products and services offered by this business, a new owner contributing fresh ideas, enthusiasm and motivation together with a little investment will have every advantage of building on an excellent platform.

This business operates on a significant site – its premises are approximately 6,000 square feet in all. There is an additional area of approximately two acres also available, subject to negotiation, for extending the services and product range this business currently offers. The additional space could be utilised to extend the business into the hire of garden machinery, sales of farmyard, tractor and agricultural machinery whilst the existing premises could accommodate the introduction of ranges not competing with the garden centre such as inflatable pools, spas, chemicals and even a wider range of bikes, carts, buggies and quad bikes.

Financial Information:

The business is offered for sale as a going concern. All financial discussions will take place directly between the vendor and all interested parties under the auspices of Turner Butler.

Turnover for the financial year ending October 2008 was approximately £385,000 generating gross profits in excess of £135,000 and a pre-tax net operating profit of almost £60,000.

The Asking Price of £575,000 is for a sale of the assets and goodwill in the business to include the long leasehold on the premises recently conservatively valued at £295,000, stock of £80,000, workshop plant and equipment valued at approximately £25,000 and vans and trailers valued at approximately £5,000.

Employees: The owners are responsible for the day-to-day running of the business supported by a part-time bookkeeper and two mechanics.

Property: Leasehold

Lease terms
The site was acquired on a 125 year lease approximately seven years ago and was recently conservatively valued in the region of £295,000. Ground rent is currently £650 per annum with annual Rates of approximately £10,800 per annum.

Location
This business operates from very well suited premises on an extensive site with ample car parking, shared with a well known garden centre and aquatics business.

The premises are slightly less than 6,000 feet overall including the retail area and workshop facilities with an additional mezzanine floor used for storage of spares.

The site was acquired on a 125 year lease approximately seven years ago and was recently conservatively valued in the region of £295,000. Ground rent is currently £650 per annum with annual Rates of approximately £10,800 per annum.

An area of approximately two acres to the rear of the premises is available for expansion, subject to negotiation, term and rent to be agreed.

Competition / Market
Established for almost twenty five years – and on its current site for the past fifteen years, this business has little need of heavy investment in marketing and advertising. What advertising the business undertakes is limited to entries in the local edition of the Yellow Pages and display advertising in local community press including local village and parish magazines. The business also has a very well designed, informative and easy to navigate website which performs very well in all the major search engines for all appropriate search terms. By far the most effective form of marketing for the business however is the strong word of mouth recommendation the business enjoys testimony to the high levels of customer service, its range of product and the high quality of service and repair the business offers. The business offers 0% finance on certain machinery purchases subject to status with instant decisions available over the phone. The business also operates an informal ‘never knowingly undersold’ pricing policy.

Support & training
The current Owners will provide full business familiarisation, training and handover, covering all aspects of the business, to ensure a smooth transfer to new Owners.

Reasons for selling
The current Owners believe the time is right to pass the business on to new Owners to build on the excellent foundations already laid.