Fewer salaried professionals are becoming businesspeople as fewer companies are going up for sale in a good economy and when they are, it is mostly investors who are buying them rather than white-collar executives seeking self-employment.
Hong Kong Business Intermediary, the city's largest small-business brokerage, saw transactions drop 10 per cent to 117 cases last year although the average transaction amount jumped by nearly a third.
The company's founder and chief executive, Edwin Lee Kan-hing, said this reflected an improved economy and job market as entrepreneurs were less likely to sell their businesses in a good market. 'More buyers nowadays are people who are looking for investment opportunities rather than sacked middle-aged executives who failed to find a job during the downturn in 2009,' he said.
While there are fewer businesses up for sale, average transaction amount for the 117 cases the company handled rose 30 per cent last year from 2009 to HK$340,000.
One reason is that investors - who made up more than 25 per cent of the firm's clients - have more cash than executives made redundant. Lee said he expected to handle even fewer cases this year, about 100, with the economy continuing to rebound.
'Because of the minimum wage law that will come into effect in May, those interested in starting businesses will adopt a wait-and-see attitude, possibly pushing the number of transactions to a new low around March and April, but we are optimistic that the trade will flourish again in summer when they realise that it hasn't had a big impact,' he said.
Lee said small businesses had already been paying high wages to draw talent and as they hired far fewer people than corporates, the impact of the new law on them should be limited.
