Selling Your Pharmacy

At PRS we pride ourselves on being a different kind of Pharmacy brokerage service.  We are the only brokerage firm endorsed by NCPA.  We cover everything from buying, selling, transferring, opening a start-up and opening an International Pharmacy. We have programs for every situation and we are owned and operated by Pharmacists so we understand what it takes to succeed and the challenges most owners or potential owners are facing in today’s competitive market.

We PROMISE 100% confidentiality and will never share your information with anyone.  You can view our signed Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) here.

Absolutely. The first step in the selling process is accurately determining the value of the Pharmacy. Additionally, Pharmacy valuations assist with estate planning, discovering where you can improve profitability and justifying the selling price to a buyer. A Pharmacy Valuation takes the Purchase Price from a level of personal opinion to rational analysis.

Wholesalers are interested in keeping the wholesale business, period. Getting you the best price for your Pharmacy is not a priority for them. The wholesaler Pharmacy appraisals we have seen are usually on the low side so the Pharmacy sells faster. Wholesalers typically only present to the seller potential buyers that currently have an account with that particular wholesaler eliminating about 75% of the potential buyers for their Pharmacy.

It can take more than six months to sell a Pharmacy. Planning to sell your Pharmacy in less than 6 months is not realistic and is just dreaming and wishing. The most time-consuming items are acquiring the financing, especially an SBA loan, and the speed at which the attorneys and accountants prepare, review and send vital documents such as purchase agreements and financial records. If your financial records are not up to par, you should begin working on them immediately. You will need to continue to prepare updated statements throughout the process as the bank will keep requesting the latest financials as they do their due diligence in the lending process.

Here is a quick look at the selling timeline to show why it takes more time:

• Pharmacy Valuation Process: 2-4 weeks
• Gather documents and prepare initial buyer marketing plan: 2-4 weeks
• Begin soliciting and screening buyers: 2-8 weeks
• Schedule store visits for qualified buyers: 2-4 weeks
• Ask for and review Letters of Intent from interested buyers: 2-4 weeks
• Accept a buyer offer and they begin the due diligence process: 6-8 weeks
• Once an offer is validated by the buyer, prepare and negotiate Purchase Agreement: 2-6 weeks
• Sign purchase agreement and begin final stages of acquiring funding: 4-12 weeks
• Loan approved, schedule and conduct closing: 4 weeks
• Sale complete

As you can see, three months is not realistic and certainly that timeline came from an inexperienced broker. Don’t get stranded with the wrong broker, call PRS.

Most Pharmacy purchase loans are via the SBA, which requires buyers to come up with 10% of the purchase price with at least 5% in funds coming directly from them. The other 5% can be provided by the buyer, financed by the seller, or financed elsewhere.  Even though there are buyers with lots of cash, realistically most buyers do not want to put down more than 5% so you can expect a request to owner finance a portion. Most sellers we work with agree to the financing of 5% and we rarely recommend going higher. That said, owner financing is not a requirement to selling your Pharmacy and it is ultimately your sole decision.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that a Pharmacy buyer does not have to address licensing and third party contracting during a stock purchase.  Each state Board of Pharmacy determines the definition of “Change of Ownership” differently. “Change of Ownership” notifications may need to be filed with appropriate government licensing boards and PBM’s.  The complicated rules and laws involving buying, selling, owning, or transferring a Pharmacy are why you should always hire a reputable Pharmacy brokerage company with the experienced Pharmacists to guide you through the selling process.  PRS has extensive experience with Pharmacy ownership transfers and is the exclusive NCPA endorsed Pharmacy broker.

PRS is the ONLY Pharmacy broker endorsed by the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA), the Federation of Pharmacy Networks (FPN) and over twenty-five Buying Groups, representing more than 15,000 independent Pharmacies. Why? Unlike some companies that claim to be brokerage experts who only began selling Pharmacies recently, we have spent the last 30+ years buying, selling, opening and transferring Pharmacies besides being Pharmacists and Pharmacy owners ourselves. To date, PRS has sold, transferred, or opened over 500 independent Pharmacies and has worked in all 50 states. We are fully insured, licensed and accredited. We invite you to compare us to our competition and see for yourself why we are a different kind of broker.

PRS will assign one of our licensed retail Pharmacists as your Project Manager. Each of our experts has at least 20 years of experience selling and opening retail Pharmacies.  If you are talking to a broker who claims to be an expert in Pharmacy brokerage and valuations and he/she has never worked in or owned a Pharmacy and does not have Pharmacists doing the valuations and brokerage…get a second opinion.  There are too many things that make Pharmacy brokerage unique and too many opportunities to make costly mistakes.