NASDAL (National Association of Specialist Dental Accountants and Lawyers) has reported a buoyant market for the sale and purchase of dental practices in its latest goodwill survey for the quarter ending 31 July, with NHS contracts still a strong selling point.
Alan Suggett, a partner in specialist dental accountants UNW LLP and a member of the NASDAL technical committee, carries out the quarterly survey.
He explained that the average goodwill value secured for a practice with an NHS contract was 144% of gross fee income and for a mixed practice it was 116% of turnover.
Valuations prepared by professional valuers were on average more than 10% higher than the sale price, reflecting active negotiation.
Private practices were on average 86% of turnover so are still less attractive to purchasers than mixed or NHS practices.
Alan commented that there were a number of transactions that varied significantly from the averages, so the survey figures should solely be regarded as an average for benchmarking purposes.
