Buying a Business in Southeast Asia – Advice & Resources?

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by a searcher from HEC Montréal
in Toronto, ON, Canada

1yr ago

Buying a Business in Southeast Asia – Advice & Resources?

I’m looking into ETA in Southeast Asia and wanted to see if anyone here has experience buying businesses in the following countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, or Bangladesh.

I’m particularly interested in understanding: • Success (or horror) stories from those who have gone through the process.
• The best resources for finding businesses for sale in these countries (marketplaces, brokers, networks, etc.).

If you’ve bought a business in any of these countries or have insights to share, I’d love to hear from you! Any tips, recommended reading, or contacts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

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reply by a searcher 1yr ago
from University of London in Halifax, NS, Canada

I sold a business in Myanmar after operating it there for a number of years. This was a more frontier market than the ones you seem to have in mind, but there are many commonalities across the region.

The best general advice I can offer is that your diligence will need to be next-level: conduct it as though the business is 5-10 times larger than the one you’re buying, in terms of revenue.

Depending on the business, much of its revenue may be paid by cash rather than bank transfers. This makes diligencing revenue and QoE challenging. Many of its payments may also be in cash and not well documented, so you will need to extert yourself to truly understand overhead, gross margins and tax liabilities.

If you are not a national of the country your target operates in, be very aware of regulatory operating restrictions impacting foreign owners, which are common in the region. If you are buying from a local national, you may also find that some of the business’ practices rely on regulatory “short cuts” that locals can get away with through relationship management that a foreigner cannot.

Skilled, motivated talent trades at a premium in the region, and developing a sense of personal relationship with “key men” will need to be a focus in the ownership transition. The emphasis on maintaining respect and “face” for employees is very different than in the west. If the bond of trust is not very strong, they will be disinclined to complain or to bring you bad news. If you are not attentive to this, you may find that some key employees you thought were happy simply disappear without notice.

Just a few thoughts. It’s a complex place to operate, but rewarding and lovely in many ways.

reply by a searcher 1yr ago
from HEC Montréal in Toronto, ON, Canada

Thanks Geoffrey, had you started the business or bought it? ETA is still relatively new in this part of the world, and there’s less established benchmarks for multiples a business would sell for, wondering how you navigated that issue?

If you’re up for it, let’s connect over DM to chat further.