Press coverage
Introducing IP-BID.com (brochure and Recovery magazine article below)
'Matchmaking' site to locate buyers
Britain’s first business “matchmaking” website has been set up by a Norfolk firm to help insolvency specialists find buyers for struggling companies.
IP-Bid.com allows insolvency practitioners to register the details online of companies that could be sold as a going concern-and entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and firms with acquisitions in mind to register what kind of businesses they are looking to buy.
Once the details of a company for sale are posted on the website, they are e-mailed to would-be buyers registered with IP-Bid.com.
Whilst registration is free, insolvency practitioners are charged a “posting fee” for each company they put on the site.
The new business behind the website operates from the Rackheath Industrial Estate with a small technical and administration team.
David Dalton, chief executive of IP-Bid.com explained: “There are a lot of insolvency practitioners out there who need to market businesses quickly and efficiently and there hasn’t been a facility for them to do that online.
“The usual route for the larger companies has been an advert in the Financial Times or for insolvency practitioners to turn to existing directors or direct competitors.
“Otherwise, they are often in the dark about reaching someone who might be interested. There might be someone on the other side of the county who is looking for just that kind of opportunity.
“This is a way of bringing people together-matchmaking”.
Mr Dalton said the idea for the website came from Andrew McTear, one of the founding partners of East Anglian insolvency practice McTear, Williams and Wood, which is backing the new website.
Mr McTear said: “Our idea was born out of frustration that there was no simple cost-effective way of quickly marketing smaller distressed businesses and getting the best value for creditors.
“All insolvency practitioners get letters from parties looking to buy businesses but the lists quickly get out of date. We would use a service like this ourselves and we guessed that other business-rescue and insolvency specialists around the UK would as well”.
Mr McTear added: “IP-Bid.com should make insolvency practitioners’ work much easier and may even create new markets where, say, a customer list and telephone number for a small printing business could be bought by a competitor many miles away who would otherwise not have known it was available”.
Click here for an IP-BID.com brochure.
Click here to read an article in R3's Recovery magazine.
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