Business Sales - Acquisition and Sale of Fee Blocks and Practices

In brief, we are finding in the market:

Overall low volume/supply.
High demand, especially for fee blocks to bulk up existing practices.
Quality has been at average to lower end of market.
Prices asked are overvalued relative to quality and profitability in our experience.
Split Market - Practice sales and Fee Block sales have different characteristics and should have different pricing.

Sale of a list of clients.
Typically fee paid is retention based unless on death/health event of vendor.
Purely buying a future income stream potential.
No business goodwill or other assets.
Tend to be smaller blocks of excess fees, or on the retirement of an ageing practitioner.
Usually low-quality fees:

Sought after as a bite-sized and easy to add onto an existing fee base or practice, and often enough to start out a new practitioner needing more fees to get started
Tend to suit younger generations who don't like partnerships and structures.
Note non-deductible for both cost of purchase and of any WIP purchased

Can be profit, cost or equal profit-sharing practice. Need to understand how it works.
Buy into an existing structure, overheads and facilities
Turn-key
A very good option for someone starting out as a practitioner as provides mentoring and support
Need to determine:

How are Practice Sales and Purchases transacted?
How does this differ from the Equity Value of Practices?
What is happening in the market place for ‘retention sums’ and payment of consideration structures?
Much harder to find buyers
An internal succession of staff or other partners is the norm
Often better alternative is to merge whole practice into/with another
Many practitioners do not have a high enough fee base to be able to generate decent profits, even if efficiently run
Quality of practice, systems and profits often a problem

You need to stage the sale to get a better price