ACL 390611 | MFAA Member | Established 2005
Business Acquisition Finance.Stress Tested Before You Sign.
A lender is buying the same business you are, and it does its own arithmetic. It rebuilds the earnings, tests whether they survive the owner leaving, and lends against what it could recover rather than against the multiple. Knowing that before you make an offer changes the offer.
15 minutes with a commercial specialist. Bring the information memorandum or just the asking price and what the business does. We’d rather see it before you sign than after. We charge you nothing at any stage. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement and we disclose it in writing before any work begins.
Intellect Finance – Acquisition Finance Specialists
Independent since 2005 | ACL 390611What Is Business Acquisition Finance?
Business acquisition finance funds the purchase of an existing business, a partner buy-out, a management buy-in or a succession handover. It is assessed on the earnings the target actually produces, the assets available as security, and whether those earnings will survive the change of owner.
It is the least standardised lending in commercial finance. Two businesses with identical asking prices can attract completely different funding, because what a lender responds to is not the price but what the price is made of. Tangible assets and property support borrowing readily. Goodwill supports very little on its own.
Which is why the useful conversation happens before an offer is made rather than after a contract is signed. Almost everything that determines whether an acquisition funds is decided in how the deal is put together, and by the time there is a signed contract with a finance clause, most of it is already fixed.
Common Situations
Why People Come to Us for Acquisition Finance
Six situations. They look similar and they fund very differently.
Buying a business outright
A trade buyer or a first-time owner acquiring an operating business. The composition of the price decides almost everything, and the balance between assets and goodwill is the first thing we look at.
Buying out a business partner
Often the cleanest of these, because the buyer already knows the business intimately and the earnings history is genuinely theirs. Lenders read continuity favourably.
A management buy-in or buy-out
The team running the business acquires it. Strong on knowledge transfer and weaker on security, since a management team usually has less to pledge than a trade buyer does.
Succession within a family
The next generation buying out the current one. Structure and timing matter enormously here, and the tax and estate consequences need your accountant and solicitor before anything is agreed.
A bolt-on to a business you already own
Acquiring a competitor or an adjacent operator. Usually the strongest case, because your existing trading supports the debt while the target is integrated.
Buying the business and its premises
Where freehold is included, this is a different deal entirely and usually a cheaper one. See commercial property loans and read the comparison below before assuming otherwise.
Social Proof
120+ Five-Star Google Reviews
Business owners, investors and developers alongside home buyers. Pulled live from Google.
Joseph Sukkar
Principal Broker · ACL 390611
Who You’re Dealing With
Built on 25 Years in Australian Finance
Joseph Sukkar started in finance in 2000 and founded Intellect Finance in Penrith in 2005. Since then the team has arranged more than 6,500 loans for clients across Australia, from first homes to complex commercial and asset finance.
Acquisition work sits with Charbel, our Commercial & Complex Lending Specialist, and it is the file where almost all of the useful work happens before an offer is made rather than after a contract is signed. The earnings get rebuilt the way a credit team will rebuild them, with a market salary in and the add-backs tested, so you know what the deal actually supports rather than what the sale document says it supports. Far fewer lenders write acquisition finance than write commercial property, and those that do have firm views by industry and by deal shape. Where the rebuilt numbers will not carry the debt we say so plainly.
Part of Our 100+ Lender Panel
The names most people recognise are residential lenders. Much of what we arrange runs through funders that do not advertise to the public. Accreditation with a lender is not an endorsement by it, and which lender suits you is decided by your file rather than by who is on this list.
Looking at a Business Right Now?
Talk to us before the offer, not after the contract.What Actually Decides It
What the Seller Calls Profit Is Not What a Lender Will Fund
Every information memorandum presents an earnings figure. A lender does not accept it. It rebuilds the number from the statutory accounts, then asks whether that rebuilt figure will still exist once the current owner has gone. Six things decide the answer.
The earnings get rebuilt
Add-backs are tested rather than accepted. A market rate salary goes in for whoever will actually run the business. Related-party rent gets adjusted to a commercial figure, one-off items are examined, and personal expenses run through the accounts come out. The result is frequently well below the adjusted figure in the sale document.
Share sale or asset sale changes the security
Buying shares means acquiring the company with its history and its liabilities, including ones nobody has found yet. Buying assets means choosing what you take, but contracts, leases and licences have to be transferred. Lenders generally prefer asset sales because the security is cleaner, and that preference can shift pricing.
Whether the earnings belong to the owner
If the relationships, the technical skill or the licence sit with the person leaving, the profit may leave with them. Lenders test this directly, and it is the question most sale documents avoid. A business that runs without its owner is worth materially more debt than one that does not.
Concentration inside the target
One customer at a large share of revenue is read as a risk rather than as a strength, and the same applies to a single supplier or one expiring contract carrying the year. Concentration in the target does more to limit an acquisition facility than the buyer’s own position usually does.
Working capital and entitlements at completion
The business often arrives without its cash, so wages, stock and creditors need funding from day one while debtors are still being collected. Employee entitlements are part of that picture too, and how they transfer depends on the structure and on what the parties agree. Budget both separately from the purchase price.
The handover is a credit term rather than a courtesy
How long the vendor stays, what they are contracted to do during that period, and what restraint applies afterwards all feed directly into the credit assessment. Negotiating a proper transition into the contract does more for fundability than negotiating the price down usually does.
Checked August 2026. Employee entitlement information is sourced from the Fair Work Ombudsman. Best Interests Duty scope is sourced from ASIC Regulatory Guide 273. Everything else on this page is described in the important information at the foot of the page.
We don’t publish rates, and we’d be cautious of anyone in commercial who does. What we can do is rebuild the earnings the way a credit team will, tell you what that supports, and show you where the deal needs restructuring before it goes anywhere. Ask us to run the numbers.
The Honest Comparison
Is This a Business Purchase or a Property Purchase With a Business Attached?
If freehold is included in the sale, this may not be an acquisition finance deal at all. It is worth establishing that before anyone structures it as one.
Freehold included in the sale
- Funded primarily as a commercial property purchase, which prices better
- Longer terms, because the security is real property rather than goodwill
- A far wider lender panel, since most lenders write commercial property
- The goodwill component sits on top rather than carrying the whole deal
- Needs the price properly apportioned between property and business, with advice
Goodwill and assets with leased premises
- Lower entry cost, since you are not buying the building as well
- Capital stays available for working capital and for growing the business
- Goodwill supports very little borrowing, so more of the price comes from you
- Shorter terms and a narrower lender panel
- The lease becomes a risk of its own, especially if its remaining term is short
Tell us early if property is in the deal. Buyers regularly come to us describing an acquisition when the transaction is more than half real estate, and the funding available is dramatically better once it is structured that way. The apportionment between property and business has tax and duty consequences, so it is a conversation for your accountant and solicitor as well as for us, and it needs to happen before the contract is drafted rather than after. If the premises are leased rather than owned, the remaining lease term becomes part of the credit assessment, and a short tail on the lease can constrain an acquisition facility as much as thin earnings would.
Tell Us If Property Is in the Deal
Say whether freehold is included and how long the lease has to run. The funding available changes once it is structured that way. Fifteen minutes. No obligation.The Difference
Most of the Value Is Delivered Before the Contract
By the time there is a signed contract with a finance clause, the structure is fixed and the timetable belongs to somebody else. Almost everything that decides fundability was settled earlier.
We Normalise the Earnings First
Before anything goes to a lender we rebuild the profit the way a credit team will, with a market salary in and the add-backs tested. You then know what the deal actually supports, which is usually the difference between a considered offer and an optimistic one.
100+ Lenders and Acquisition Appetite Is Narrow
Far fewer lenders write acquisition finance than write commercial property, and those that do have firm views by industry and by deal shape. A decline from a bank you already use says almost nothing about the deal itself.
Always in Writing
Acquiring a business is a business purpose, so Best Interests Duty does not apply. ASIC Regulatory Guide 273 limits that duty to credit regulated under the National Credit Act. We disclose in writing how we are paid before you proceed regardless of whether the law requires it.
We’ll Tell You the Deal Doesn’t Stack
Where the rebuilt earnings will not carry the debt, where the profit clearly leaves with the owner, or where the price is mostly goodwill with nothing behind it, we will say so plainly. We are paid by the lender on settlement, so telling you to walk costs us the transaction.
The Process
What Happens and What We’ll Need
The order is deliberately front-loaded. The work that matters happens before an offer, not after a contract.
-
15 minutes
The deal before the offer
What the business does, what is being sold, what the price is made of, and whether property is included. No documents. You will finish the call knowing roughly what is fundable, what your contribution needs to look like, and what to negotiate into the contract.
-
We rebuild
Normalised earnings and the security picture
We reconstruct the profit the way a credit team will, then map it against the tangible assets, any property and whatever support exists outside the deal. That produces the number the transaction actually has to work within, which is often not the number in the sale document.
-
You gather
Target and buyer documents
The heaviest information requirement of any commercial facility, because two businesses are being assessed at once.
- Three years of the target’s financials
- The target’s tax returns and ATO position
- Information memorandum or sale contract
- Asset register and customer concentration detail
- Lease, or contract of sale where freehold is included
- Your own financials and position statement
- Your industry experience or business plan
- ID for each director, trustee or guarantor
-
We manage
Submission through to completion
Lender selection, the credit narrative that explains why these earnings survive the handover, then valuations, conditions and settlement alongside your solicitor and accountant. We also make sure the finance clause in the contract reflects how long acquisition assessment genuinely takes.
Track Record
Commercial Is Not a Sideline For Us
Acquisition is the hardest commercial file to write and the one most brokerages refer away. We have run a commercial desk alongside residential since 2005.
Related Options
The Facilities That Sit Around an Acquisition
Very few acquisitions are funded by one facility. These are the ones that usually sit alongside it.
Commercial property loan
Where freehold is included, this is usually the main facility rather than a side one.
Cashflow and working capital
For the day one funding gap that the purchase price does not cover.
Equipment finance
Plant in the target can often be financed separately, which frees the acquisition facility.
Invoice finance
Where the target has a strong debtor book, it can fund part of the transition.
Corporate finance
Larger transactions with leverage, covenants and a structured security package.
Every commercial facility we arrange
Back up to the full commercial finance range if none of these is it.
Send Us the Information Memorandum.
We’ll rebuild the earnings and tell you what they support.Questions Answered
Business Acquisition Finance FAQs
The questions buyers ask us most often before making an offer.
What is business acquisition finance?
Business acquisition finance funds the purchase of an existing business, a partner buy-out, a management buy-in or a succession handover. It is assessed on the earnings the target actually produces, the assets available as security, and whether those earnings will survive the change of owner. Structure matters more here than pricing does.
Will a lender accept the seller’s profit figure?
Not as presented. Lenders rebuild the earnings, removing one-off items, adjusting for a market rate salary for whoever runs the business, and testing related-party rent and expenses that may not continue. The figure they work to is often materially lower than the adjusted profit in a sale memorandum, and that gap decides how much can be borrowed.
Is it better to buy the shares or the assets?
They are different transactions with different consequences, and lenders usually prefer an asset sale because the security is cleaner. Buying shares means acquiring the company with its history and its liabilities, known and unknown. Buying assets means selecting what you take, but contracts, leases and licences generally need to be transferred or renegotiated. Get legal and tax advice before choosing.
What is key person risk in an acquisition?
The risk that the earnings belong to the departing owner rather than to the business. Where the relationships, the technical skill or the licence sit with one person who is leaving, a lender has to ask whether the profit will still be there in twelve months. A structured handover, a restraint and sometimes deferred consideration are how that risk gets managed.
Do I need working capital as well as the purchase price?
Almost always, and it is the most commonly missed number. A business frequently arrives without its cash, and you must fund wages, stock and creditors from day one while debtors are still being collected. Budget for it separately rather than expecting it to come out of the acquisition facility.
What happens to the employees when I buy a business?
Under Fair Work rules a new employer generally has to recognise a transferring employee’s service with the old employer for most entitlements, including sick and carer’s leave, parental leave and flexible working requests. Where the two employers are not associated entities, the new employer can choose not to recognise service for redundancy and annual leave, in which case the old employer pays the leave out. Get advice on this early, because it affects the price.
How much of the purchase price will a lender fund?
It depends far more on what the price is made up of than on the price itself. Tangible assets and any property in the deal support borrowing readily. Goodwill supports very little on its own. Two businesses selling for the same amount can therefore attract very different funding, which is why the composition of the price matters more than the multiple.
Does Best Interests Duty apply to acquisition finance?
No. ASIC Regulatory Guide 273 states that the best interests obligations apply only to credit products regulated under the National Credit Act, meaning credit provided to consumers for personal, domestic or household purposes or for the purchase or improvement of residential investment property. Acquiring a business is a business purpose. We disclose in writing how we are paid on every transaction regardless.
Visit Us
Penrith Based.Clients Australia-Wide.
Penrith is our head office and the one you can walk into without an appointment. We also meet clients at Parramatta and in the Sydney CBD by arrangement. Acquisition files run by phone, email and video alongside your accountant and solicitor, wherever they are.
Ready When You Are
Tell Us About the Business.
What it does, what is being sold and what the price is made of. Fifteen minutes and we’ll rebuild the earnings the way a credit team will, tell you what that supports, and show you what to negotiate into the contract before it is drafted. If the deal does not stack up, we’ll tell you that too. Penrith based, clients Australia-wide. Intellect Finance Pty Ltd, ACL 390611.
Business purpose lending sits outside the consumer credit framework, so Best Interests Duty does not apply to it. We disclose how we are paid before you proceed on every transaction. Nothing on this page is credit assistance, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice or an offer of credit, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member
Important information General information only. Not credit assistance or an offer of credit. We charge you no fee. Every caveat and source on this page is collected here. Tap to read.
General information only. The content on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. It is not credit assistance, financial advice, legal advice or tax advice, and it is not an offer of credit. You should consider whether it is appropriate for you and seek your own advice before acting on it.
Nothing here is a guarantee. Loan approval, borrowing capacity, interest rates, loan to value ratios, valuations, timeframes and eligibility are determined by individual lenders and by independent valuers, not by us. They differ between lenders and change over time. Any figure, range or timeframe on this page is indicative and is not a quote, an offer, or a prediction of your outcome. Requirements vary between lenders. How much can be borrowed, what security is required and what terms apply are set by individual lenders and vary with the target, the industry, the buyer and the structure of the transaction. Acquisition assessment is document-heavy and timeframes are not guaranteed.
Business purpose lending. Credit provided wholly or predominantly for business purposes is not regulated consumer credit, and the Best Interests Duty and responsible lending obligations under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 do not apply to it. We disclose how we are paid in writing before you proceed on every transaction regardless.
Tax and legal. GST, stamp duty, land tax and the tax treatment of any ownership structure depend on your circumstances and on how the contract is written. We are not tax agents, accountants, solicitors, lawyers or industrial relations advisers. Confirm the position with a registered tax agent, the Australian Taxation Office, your accountant or your solicitor before acting. Structure, duty, tax and employment consequences are matters for your accountant and solicitor, and should be settled before terms are agreed.
How we are paid. Intellect Finance does not charge borrowers a fee for arranging finance, and does not charge a clawback fee where a loan is discharged early. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement. The basis of that commission is disclosed to you in writing in our Credit Guide before any credit assistance is provided.
Third-party information. Where this page refers to government schemes, regulatory settings, tax treatment or lender policy, that information is sourced from the relevant authority and was correct to the best of our knowledge at the date shown on this page. Those rules change, sometimes without notice. Always confirm the current position with the issuing authority or with us before relying on it.
Found something wrong? If you believe anything on this page is inaccurate or out of date, tell us at joe@intellectfinance.com.au and we will review and correct it.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member