Online psychology and counselling service business

Operating only in Australia, but fully nationwide and predominantly focusing on one-on-one peer-to-peer counselling.

Business has been in the industry for 6 years, with focus of being able to deliver its services anywhere around Australia, thus the business being 100% online.

Founded by a group of people who had other healthcare businesses wanting to add psychology counselling services.

Internal Purpose: Bring some other shareholders on, and they were moving some shares between each other.

Secondary purpose: Understand what their business is worth because they've grown and done really well but have never put an actual measurable value.

Business niche; focus on Australian Arm Forces veterans (Army, Navy, Air Force and supplementary forces).

Revenue Mix (Corporate Client makes up 50% of their revenue).

Agreement with corporate client ends in 2 years and is unlikely to continue.

Poor service and customer retention of the major corporate client.

Risk factor of being associated with the corporate client delivering poor quality service.

Decline in interest from key people of the corporate client.

Understanding the business. During valuation, the team looked at 4 main sections, (1) business specific background (operations) i.e., the people, the processes, intellectual properties (IP), structure, (2) financial assessment i.e., revenue, earnings, assets, balance sheet (3) market value of what a business goes for in this industry of this size range, and (4) assessment of where the value of the business sits in the market.

Current value is at 21.5M and projected value if issues and gaps are addressed is at 32M.

Identify the gaps, risks and issues that are causing the business to be worth less than it could be.

50% of the business is reliant on one corporate client.

Narrow niche (only catering to Australian Army veterans).

Look at the opportunity and the areas that can be improved to increase valuation.

Work on the strategy based on the first three steps undertaken; understanding the business, identifying gaps and opportunities for this business.

Change marketing strategy and position in the market.

Improve the performance of the corporate client's business by coaching and mentoring the corporate client on how to deliver successful service to their councillors.

Change of partnership between two companies; from being a corporate client to a mergers and acquisition deal.

The valuation engagement took only 3-4 weeks and the entire acquisition process 2-3 months; client was very engaged and getting through the 10-step process of fact-finding interviews, information gathering and collecting the financial and non-financial information was seamless.

Our client's processes and our guidance implemented tot heir corporate client to improve customer service and resolve the risk.

Number of councilors increased from 70 to 120.

Streamlined operations and better service.

Diversity customer quicker outside the niche veterans.

Follow-up valuation and revaluation of the company.

Corporate client services improved because of the successful merger.

Minimised risk for our clients since services were improved.

Market repositioning proved successful due to a clear strategy targeting.

an existing non-niche (Australian Army veteran) market within the client's reach.

Understanding and optimising valuation