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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Whether the pharmacy sits inside a medical centre in Dapto or on a strip in Fairy Meadow, it is measured against what similar pharmacies have sold for, with the ownership rules, PBS approval and lease treated as part of what the buyer receives.
Community pharmacies in the Illawarra are valued mainly on comparable pharmacy sales, because only eligible pharmacists may buy them and they change hands regularly. The multiple from those sales is applied to maintainable earnings after the owner-pharmacist is paid a market salary, then checked against script volume, the mix of PBS dispensing, front-of-shop and professional services income, and the lease.
The request almost always arrives when ownership is about to shift. A pharmacist in Shellharbour wants to bring an employed pharmacist into partnership. A member of a banner group in Albion Park Rail has an offer from a buyer who already owns several stores. Two partners in a Wollongong pharmacy cannot agree on a price for one of them to leave. A property settlement needs the business valued at a set date, or a restructure needs a figure the ATO will accept. Executors of a pharmacist's estate need a value as well, since only an eligible pharmacist can take the business over.
Each of these cases has the same imbalance. Buyers are pharmacists, often with a store or two already and familiar with the numbers of many more. An owner relying on a broker's rule of thumb is negotiating against someone who knows which measures to mark down. A valuation completed before the first offer levels that out.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Market Approach comes first. Ownership limits and federal approval requirements create a closed pool of well-informed buyers who trade pharmacies regularly, so completed sales are the most dependable guide to value.
Capitalised earnings is the main check and carries real weight where dispensing is steady. The one adjustment that most often moves the answer is replacing the owner's drawings with a market salary for the hours they actually spend as a pharmacist, because in many stores part of the reported profit is really a wage.
Under guideline transactions, comparable sales are first grouped by site type: medical centre, large shopping centre, strip shop or country town. Inside the right group they are matched on scripts, revenue mix, trading hours and lease, and the multiple that results is applied to maintainable earnings.
Before earnings are capitalised, the owner-pharmacist is charged a market professional salary. Where the owner stands behind the dispensary every weekday, that adjustment alone can strip out a large share of the apparent profit.
Stock is taken at what it would realise after short-dated, slow-moving and discontinued lines are written down, and fit-out, robots and equipment at market value. Stock is often among the largest figures in a deal and rarely worth its cost price.
Differences between valuers usually come from normalisation, so each adjustment is set out in the body of the report with its reason. For a pharmacy the regular ones are these.
A buyer of a pharmacy here is acquiring something shaped by two layers of regulation. State rules limit ownership of a pharmacy business largely to registered pharmacists, so the buyer must qualify before settlement. At the federal level, dispensing under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme needs approval as a PBS supplier (Source: Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, PBS approved suppliers). Together they narrow the pool of buyers and make it harder for a rival to open close by, and that protection supports value.
Site type splits the comparable set more sharply than suburb. A pharmacy inside a medical centre in Dapto, Unanderra or near Wollongong Hospital depends on prescriptions from the GPs under the same roof, and on that one tenancy. One in a large shopping centre in Shellharbour or the CBD pays a percentage rent and keeps the centre's hours. A strip pharmacy in Fairy Meadow, Helensburgh or Kiama serves a settled local catchment, with stronger front-of-shop sales and visitor trade in the holiday season. Scripts per hour, rent structure and risk differ for each. Most of these tenancies are retail leases under the Retail Leases Act 1994 (NSW), where the NSW Small Business Commissioner has a role in disputes, so the lease is read as carefully as the accounts.
The national business count shows the two markets a pharmacy straddles. Across 2025 to 2026, health care and social assistance businesses grew 6.7 per cent to 227,702, while retail trade businesses grew 0.1 per cent (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, June 2026, released 18 August 2026). A pharmacy earning mostly from dispensing and professional services follows the first trend, and one that leans on front-of-shop sales follows the second.
The report begins with the purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the documents relied on, and notes where those documents are incomplete. It then covers each approach considered and the method used, lists every earnings adjustment with its reason, and brings the results together in a range with the weighting explained plainly.
That reconciliation is what an opponent tests. A report that cannot say why comparable sales outweighed capitalised earnings, or why the multiple sits where it does, is exposed in the District Court at Wollongong, in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney, or in a property settlement before the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, where the Expert Witness Code of Conduct in the court rules applies to experts. Where partners in a pharmacy have no written exit terms, the Partnership Act 1892 (NSW) can affect what interest is being valued, and the report states the basis it uses. We prepare every report under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services, and a certified valuer signs it and stands behind it.
Ask how they treated stock and the owner-pharmacist's salary, and where an opposing expert would push first. A valuer who has not tested those points has left the hardest part undone.
An Indicative valuation suits an owner who wants a private figure before an approach from a buyer or a conversation with a partner. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits a sale, a partner buy-in or a bank application. A Detailed report is needed for a property settlement, a partner dispute, an estate matter or any case where another expert will review the work.
The likelier it is that a court, a lender, the ATO or an opposing valuer will examine the figure, the more complete the report should be.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.