Looking to purchase a company, what questions to ask?

[melobyrro1]

Hi guys, ive done a lot of research on coffee for the last few months, my background is in vending.

 

Ive been talking to a broker and next week I have a meeting with the owner of ocs company for sale.

 

I was wondering what questions i should be asking about the business in the meeting, what do you suggest?

[yuras]

hi to everybody,

Sorry for making my post here but it might be valuable for others as well (Canadians)))

I'm trying to buy few Saeco coffee vending machines in Canada (Calgary) and can't find any contacts of the vending branch in Canada. I post a new topic on that but it might not be approved. So my question is whether it possible to buy new model of Saeco Coffee Vending machine like Atlante of at least Diamante in Canada. May be there is a possibility to order one from US?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[AZVendor]

Since you're dealing with a broker you won't be able to get financials from them until you put some earnest money down.  You can still ask for a list of locations without names and addresses. You need them to include the equipment models at each location, gross annual sales or average monthly sales by location, pricing of products so you can determine margins, their annual sales and their receivables balance broken down in 30 day increments.  From the location information you should be able to see whose equipment they primarily use, if they are automatics or pourovers, single cup, decanters or airpots, etc.  You also need to know who their primary coffee supplier is and who they get their ancillary products from.  Hopefully they will share this with you as they won't have to divulge location specific names and addresses.