How long does it take to buy a business?

Buyers often want one number, and no honest number exists. A purchase is not a single task. It is a set of separate processes, run by different people on different clocks, and the total is set by whichever finishes last. Some are in your hands. Others belong to a lender, a landlord, a regulator or the seller.

Stages you largely control

The search, the offer and your own preparation are mostly yours to pace. BDC says it can review a financing request once you have identified a business and negotiated the main terms of the purchase, so lender timing starts late, not at the beginning. How long the first stage takes is covered in how long to expect a search to take.

Stages other people control

Financing, diligence and approvals move at other people’s speed. BDC lists what it wants before it can review a request: a clear transaction structure, an agreed price and how it was set, a letter of intent with an expected closing date, your notices of assessment and the business’s financial statements or tax returns. A missing item stalls the file. Where a lease or licence needs someone’s consent, that approval also sits on the critical path.

Steps that apply only to some deals

A transaction that meets the financial thresholds and other criteria in the Competition Act, and is not covered by one of its exceptions, must be notified to the Competition Bureau before closing, and the parties may not complete it during the initial waiting period without a waiver. A non-Canadian buyer acquiring control of an existing Canadian business must submit a notification or an application for review under the Investment Canada Act, unless an exemption applies. Whether either touches your deal is a question for a lawyer, best asked early because it affects when you may close.

Deadlines that start at closing

Some clocks start when the deal closes. For the GST/HST election described by the CRA, the purchaser has to file the form no later than the due date of its next GST/HST return in which tax would have been payable without the election. Treat closing day as the start of a short stretch of paperwork, not the end.