With 2012 nearly upon us I think it is an opportunity to look back and analyse the good and bad of 2011. Was it really as bad as the media have portrayed?
The obvious highlight for all Kiwis was the winning of the Rugby World Cup. Most people I know weren’t that excited about it, it was more a sense of national relief. Funny how quickly after the event that the country just moved on and it was almost accepted as something that was expected. Happy for Graeme Henry because the furore that followed our early exit at the previous World Cup was over the top and he can now slide easily into retirement maybe sliding a sly middle finger to those in the South Island that wanted to support Australia because Robbie was the coach.
The election result was certainly a good result for business owners. Numerous business people I talked to commented that they would sell up and head to the western isle should Goff succeed in bringing his socialist policies to our fair shores.
For Switch Business it was definitely an up and down year which is to be expected I suppose because of the recession and taking into account the two major events mentioned in first two paragraphs. There were more peaks than valleys though because we achieved our budget for the year before the end of September but things certainly slowed after that. We had sales of $8.1m, $5.8m and $3.5m in the first 6 months of the year.
Our biggest issue this year has been finding quality businesses to market. There has been no shortage of enquiry from owners wanting to sell distressed companies but in most cases they were looking for a sale price that they required to pay off debt rather than what they were worth. We happily wished them good luck and they listed with other brokers. Most are still on the market because an overpriced business is even harder to sell in a recession than normal times.
We moved into our new offices officially at the end of November. Our previous landlord wasn’t keen to sell us our previous premises so Paul had been looking for something for us to buy and we are now at Level 4, 12 O’Connell Street. This is directly opposite the top end of Vulcan Lane. The floor came with an operational gymnasium so we are gym owners as well now: Balance CBD. Anybody looking for a place to train in the city let us know.
The logical question is what will 2012 bring us? My gut reaction is that I expect February-March 2012 to be a lot more active because business owners sitting at their holiday homes over the break are going to reflect and ask where did the last quarter of 2011 go. World Cup and Election took people’s focus away. Maybe this is wishful thinking but you have to be an optimist in our game. Have a great Christmas and a happy new year!