A generational wave of business exits, and what the SMSF ban leaves open

More than a million business owners will look for an exit this decade

The AFR reported in May that more than 1.4 million Australian business owners are expected to retire by 2036, on PwC research, and that around a third of them have no succession plan in place. That is a generational transfer of ownership, and it is already showing up in our conversations with buyers, brokers and accountants. My business partner Gabriel wrote about what that wave means for acquisition finance.

For buyers, the practical question is not whether opportunities will come up. It is whether your funding is ready when the right one does. Business credit is still growing, lenders have appetite for well-positioned acquisitions, and the buyers who move quickly are the ones who understood their borrowing position before they found the deal.

If you want a starting point before we speak, our business acquisition calculator will give you an indicative borrowing range in a couple of minutes. The precise number always comes down to the business, the structure and the lender, and it is a useful place to begin.

---

How acquisition funding actually works, in four parts

The questions we hear most from buyers tend to be the same ones. Will a bank fund this, how much debt can the deal carry, and what do the structural choices mean for my finance? We have written the series that answers them, drawn from sitting on both sides of a credit team.

• How banks fund business acquisitions, the fork that decides the shape of the yes.
• How much debt can an acquisition carry? The two ways lenders size it, and the gap between them.
• Share sale vs asset sale, why lenders read them completely differently.
• Vendor finance vs deferred payments, the wording that decides if a deal gets funded.

And if the business you are looking at lost money last year, we covered when a bank will still fund it.

---

Commercial is where the momentum has quietly moved

While residential eases in the southern capitals, commercial has held up. Vacancy has risen through 2026, though that is a supply story rather than a demand one. A wave of new warehouses was built and delivered this year, and much less is under construction for 2027, so CBRE reads vacancy as close to its cyclical peak. Meanwhile industrial investment has already passed the total for all of last calendar year, which tells you what buyers expect next.

If you are buying rather than leasing out, having room to negotiate now while future competition for tenants thins is a reasonable place to be standing.

Source: CBRE Figures, Industrial & Logistics, Q2 2026.

Policy is adding to it. From 10 August, self-managed super funds can no longer enter new borrowing arrangements for residential property, and commercial property and business premises are untouched. If you have ever wondered whether your fund could borrow to buy the premises your business trades from, that path is still open, and against residential it has quietly become more attractive. We wrote up what changed, what did not, and what it means if you are weighing a purchase inside super.

---

Client story: the work that happens before the bank sees the file

We recently helped a client refinance the land under their new site and fund its construction, bringing both into one facility with a major bank. Before anything was formally lodged we had the ownership structure settled, the numbers presented the way a credit team needs to read them, and a clear view on which lender would take the position we needed.

• A settled $3.63 million facility, refinance and construction combined.
• Interest capitalised through the build, converting to principal and interest once complete.
• About five weeks from lodgement to settlement.

Having spent years inside banks, I generally know what a credit team is going to ask before they ask it, and I know who to call when something needs to move.

Commercial deals are won through solid preparation. The work that made this one settle quickly was done long before we engaged the banks. It is the part of a deal a client should never have to manage themselves.

Australia ETA Community

If you're exploring business acquisition in Australia, the Melbourne ETA community is a good place to start. Resources, upcoming events, and connections in one place. Visit the Australia ETA Community.