According to Leigh Nissim, CEO of website BusinessesForSale.com, small and medium-enterprise owners are actively seeking “opportunities in the marketplace to grow their businesses by buying others”.

His conclusion follows a recent seminar where around 95 business owners were questioned about their growth and expansion intentions.

Of those who attended, 71% were looking to buy a business having never bought one before. 45% of those looking to buy a business intended to spend £100,000 to £500,000, while 10% were contemplating spending up to £1 million.

Interestingly, 42% of those looking to buy have the resources to put down a deposit of between £50,000 and 250,000, whilst 9% will deposit between £250,000 and £500,000. A well-heeled 5% say they will put down a deposit of over £500,000 and 45% of people looking to buy a business are existing business owners or are self-employed.

These results demonstrate that the route to growth by acquisition is not the preserve of big business alone. Owners of SME businesses see opportunities in the marketplace to grow their business by buying other businesses, says Nissim.

See also: Acquisitions – The perfect union. According to Chris Ingram, buying a business is the easy bit – it’s what you do after that counts.