A phone call from out of the blue marked an unexpected entry into the world of dentistry for this week’s guest.

Dental mergers and acquisitions specialist Max Bazzucchini tells us how he became one of the profession’s most trusted valuation advisors.

He shares his thoughts on the UK market and dispenses some insider tips and wisdom for both buyers and sellers.

“If you are in the moment – in the present moment – and you work very hard, you can have it all.” – Max Bazzucchini

In This Episode

00.48 – Backstory
10.03 – Love at first sight
15.54 – An offer you can’t refuse
20.49 – A kid in a candy store
26.08 – Growing value
30.17 – The valuation process and EBITDAR
36.41 – Lending and purchasing
42.23 – The art of the deal
50.54 – The COVID effect
55.08 – On flipping
59.08 – Buying and selling mistakes
01.01.16 – Thinking of Italy
01.09.09 – Last day and legacy

About Max Bazzucchini

Max Bazzucchini gained business studies qualifications in Perugia, Italy, and completed physiotherapy studies at St Mary’s University, Twickenham.

Following the purchase and sale of a gym in Italy, Max became a certified business valuer in the dental sector. 

In 2008, he joined ADP Group as head of mergers and acquisitions, supporting the purchase of 132 practices.

Max is currently a director and partner of Pluto Partners – a specialist healthcare valuation and advisory business based in Kent.

 

 

Max: And a good deal is always on a win-win basis. You want to maximise the price on the sellers and you want to make sure that the buyers are paying the right price, which is sometimes over the asking price, more often than not it is over the asking price, but not crazily as an independent specialist and independent buyer, which you will never recover the money that you would pay. So the biggest mistake for buyers [inaudible 00:00:25].

Speaker 2: This is dental leaders. The podcast where you get to go one-on-one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts, Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav: Max, welcome to the Dental Leaders Podcast, we’ve had numerous conversations regarding just the marketplace of buying and selling dental practises, you’ve educated me a lot during our conversations, and I’d like you to not only share that knowledge with our community but also tell us a little bit about yourself as well. So welcome to the podcast, Max, and just kick off by telling us a little bit about your backstory; where you grew up and your upbringing.

Max: Thank you, Prav, thank you Pay, absolute pleasure talking to you on this podcast. Yes, I’m a 43 years old kid, Italian, I was born in a very small village in the centre of Italy, on the border with Tuscan and Umbria, and I was lucky enough that my family were a strong family altogether, growing up in the same house that my dad actually built. So he’s a very skillful and charming man, skillful builder.

Max: I’m the third, number three of three boys, and there’s a fairly big gap in between me and my brothers, which is justified by the fact that my dad was offered a life changing job opportunity. So he went from being a builder and earning enough on every month to have enough food and enough comfortable life, to as you know in Italy there are lots of mountains, so there is a need, a necessity for tunnels and roads. So he actually was offered a job to be with his friend, an engineer from our village, to be his assistant director. He started building roads and tunnels.

Max: Then in this gap, in between having my brothers in myself, he made enough money and then I was born. So I would say I was born in a completely different situation from my brothers and never really experienced what they had to go through before, but having said that my dad never really gave me anything for free. He made me work for absolutely everything. He gave me, provided for me for private educations and so on and so forth, a comfortable life, but he made me work for absolute everything, even holidays, first motorbike, first car. Which is great, I appreciate that because he gave me an understanding of working towards something and the value of some things.

Max: I guess when he was building roads, one of them was near to our house, the advantage of that is that I was learning to drive when I was very young. So when I did my driving test exam, I passed within two or three lessons because I was driving better than the examiner really.

Max: So I then went to university in Perugia at the age of 18, nearly 19, I left my house. I went to study sports physiotherapist, which it was kind of an evolution from playing basketball, I liked the anatomy and physiology of the human body, so I went to study that. I used to live in the centre of the city, Perugia, beautiful mediaeval town.

Max: Then I used to go to a gym near to my flat, near to my apartment, and I became a very good friend with the owner, a guy called Angelo. I went the first month, I paid the membership, the second month I paid the membership, and I remember the third month going to the gym and saying to Angelo, “I’m not going to pay you this month but I’m going to make you an offer, I want to buy half of your gym.”

Max: The reason why I said this to him is because I noticed that the gym was never really full to its potential. There was a lot of people living in the area but not many people were going there, so I spotted an opportunity. So we had it valued. I guess there was my first experience in valuation of a business, really, on a business I wanted to buy.

Prav: How old were you then?

Max: I’m 19.

Prav: Wow.

Payman Langroud…: Did you buy half of this gym at 19?

Max: I did, yes. We had it valued and it was valued 200 million liras, which in today’s money would have been just over €100,000. So I went to my dad and he lent me the money, he gave me just over €50,000, I bought half of the gym, I renamed it, I called it Magic Body, the love of English language kind of was born in there already.

Max: The first few months I did nothing because I think business grow through evolution. You don’t want to go and make changes straight away. So the first two or three months I wanted to understand completely how the business was run. Whilst I was studying, my sport physiotherapy qualification, then we started to implement changes and some of the changes were for example, I contacted my good friend Alejandro, a Cuban world class dancer, and then he started doing Latin American classes. Then my friend Dmitri in doing martial arts, my friend Lenny from Greece who was doing some modelling, she was studying international law and she went to do yoga.

Max: So the business went from we basically quadrupled the number of members when we started to implement these changes with minimum investment costs. My advice was to invest in marketing and expand the level of services. Well, we provided this service for free providing that you were a member of the gym. So we kind of quadrupled the number of members.

Max: So my dad when he gave me the money, he said, “I want the money back within four years, interest rate.” Two years and a half later we had the gym valued again and it was worth over double of what it was valued, and I got very much involved in that process of valuations of the business and that’s kind of where I started to love business valuations and growing some sort of business, and I thought this is a way to have fun and make money, rather than working every day on my sports physiotherapy. So I had to do a lot of treatments to make the same money I just made by buying and growing a business.

Max: So I got the money back, I give it to my dad, I’ve got enough money then to buy an apartment, which is still today in today’s rented out, after 14 years. I lived in the apartment for a while and then after I sold the gym I decided I’ve been working very hard… I was also going out partying because I think, I feel, you can have it all. It’s not like if you study you can’t do this. I think you can have it all. The same you can have a career and you can have a family. If you are in the moment, in present moment, and you work very hard, you can have it all. That’s my mentality anyway.

Max: So then I sold the gym, I bought myself a nice little car as well, which used to belong to a football player [inaudible 00:08:15], nearby from Forenza.

Payman Langroud…: What car was it?

Max: Oh, beautiful black fiat coupe.

Payman Langroud…: Okay, cool.

Max: Loved it, absolutely loved it. I was about 22, 21, 22. And going with this, my long hair, fiat coupe, and I paid, I remember, €10,000 for a six months old car, brand new, with a cost 24. So I thought that’s a bargain so I don’t really want to buy a brand new car.

Max: But then I decided, after that, I wanted to travel because I really loved travel and I didn’t have the opportunity to do it in the times I was in Perugia. I made a lot of friends, which was the benefit of being there, which still have lots of good friends in there but I didn’t have the chance to travel. So I wanted to work and travel so I decided then to go, which this is something that me and former Italian prime minister [inaudible] have in common, which is not the party or anything that you might think of, but we both started working on a cruise ship. It was a pianist on a cruise ship and I decided to be a spa manager.

Max: So I travelled for a year and a half, two contracts. The first contract was in Europe, south Europe, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, and then we went to the north of Europe, the Nordic Sea, St Petersburg, Norway, absolutely stunning places. Then the second contract was in the Caribbean in central America, Guatemala, Honduras, so I travelled a lot and also while I was working.

Prav: So Max, what was your plan at this stage because you’d done your physiotherapy, you’d got your qualifications I’m assuming, learnt your craft. You’d bought and sold a business. Was there a master plan here or did you just think, you know what, I’m just going to take a few years out, go and travel the world and enjoy myself, earn a bit of money to keep myself alive while I’m doing this and then roll out the master plan? What was going on in your head at this time?

Max: I didn’t actually have a plan. I just wanted to… Luckily I graduated, I finished my university and I didn’t have… I was debt free, so I had enough money and I had an apartment, which when I was travelling did make some sort of income, which was not many of my friends were in my situation really in where I was. So I was quite comfortable, so I didn’t have a plan.

Max: When I went working on a cruise ship, trust me the last thing you’re thinking is about getting married. So you are 24, you go working on a cruise ship, you just want to go and enjoy life. Literally I remember I embarked in May, beginning of May, and at the end of May we were having an absolutely fantastic night in the middle of the sea having a crew party under the stars, beautiful, beautiful time, and I was sitting and drinking something with my friend the fitness instructor Johann [inaudible] from Romania.

Max: And I see this girl and I’m thinking wow, she is absolutely beautiful. I know it sounds a bit cliché but I still remember today what she was wearing and how she was walking, all of those things. So I turned around to my friend and I say, “Johann, I like this girl, you know what? I think I’m going to marry her.” He was like, “Yeah right, that’s crazy.”

Max: Then I started to get to know this girl, she was a dancer on the ship, and we started to get together a bit more, then we went together on my second contract in the Caribbean. I then decided actually, I do want to marry her because as crazy as it sounds I think she’s the love of my life, I think I found her. Slowly she got there as well, I got there straight away, she eventually got there as well. I wanted to buy a ring and I had a ring made in someone Puerto Rico but a ring maker in the back of his garage, platinum ring. I bought the diamond in Key West, I had the diamond made, I had the right made, and then in Antigua we were in sandals on a day that we were having a day in Antigua from the ship. We went in the sea, I had my ring, and I proposed to her and she said yes.

Max: So after that we came back to Europe and back then we didn’t have the mobile phone or anything, communications with family was quite scarce. So we get to Tenerife after crossing the Atlantic and we are in a queue waiting to make a call back to family. So I said to her, “You go first.” And she called her parents, mum and dad, and I called mine after. I said, “We’re coming back. By the way, we’re getting married.” They said, “Who are you getting married to?”

Max: So my parents, [inaudible] now I’ve got kids, I think is absolutely crazy, but my parents were like, “Well if you’re sure, if you love her, go for it.” And it’s the same, my parents-in-law, they did the same thing and we’re still married together, we’ve got a beautiful family, two kids, 15 years later. So I’m a bit like that. If I think something is right, I go for it.

Payman Langroud…: This is how you ended up in England because she used to be-

Max: This is how we ended up in England. We got married in England in a beautiful village in the south of England in Kent, and then we had also a small party in Italy, about 400 people turn up as you do, probably you do the same with Indian weddings. And we’d been in Italy for a while, for about a year. My wife at the time was a professional dancer and she was predominantly working in England and most of our work was in England in the West End. She did one contract in Rome but even for that contract she had to go and audition in London [inaudible 00:14:34].

Max: She was spending most of the time in England, and in that year I spend a lot of time doing business studies, the equivalent of an ECCA valuation courses and learning valuations and the methodology of the valuations of businesses. So I decided I don’t really want to spend time apart. If you are together you want to be physically together. So we decided okay, let’s go to England, let’s give it a go, and see how it is.

Max: So I then rented out my apartment, and I went from like many Italians moving to England, moved to London, and I went from… the first few days it was quite hard, it was quite challenging. There wasn’t one hard thing, it was kind of a combination of several factors, but obviously I had my focus that no matter what I wanted to make a success of staying in England and most of all I wanted to make a success of my relationship and build a family. So this was my, at the plan, my main plan. I want to have a family, I want to be with my wife, and something good will come out of this, and eventually it did. So we moved to Putney, I believe not far from where you are Payman, beautiful place.

Prav: So Max, I’ll kick you off. From there your plan was you move to the UK and your number one plan was you wanted to make a go of your relationship. What about your career plan, Max? Did you have an idea, you talked about you started doing these qualifications about valuing businesses, et cetera, et cetera, right? What was the career plan at that point and then fast forwarding, how did you get into dentistry or was there a transition? Did you do something else before you went into dentistry?

Max: Yes, I did, and I did it whilst I was studying English. So the first thing I wanted to do was improve my English, which was not very good at the time, so I went to study English whilst I was applying for several jobs and I wanted to work for, still in the business of buying and selling valuations, so apply for working with some private equity. My English wasn’t great, so that’s what… it kind of was my weakness at the time.

Max: So I needed to focus on improving my English, which I did, and the work I was doing at the time, I was working as a medical sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. You had the basic salary, and it was a limited commission level, so I really went for it. I was making good money, consistently one of the top three in the country for my company, a company called Nutricia, part of the Danone group. I did it again whilst I was studying English, which I studied in [inaudible 00:17:32], I was going there in a college and then working for this company, very early, meeting GPs and going to work in hospitals and then studying during the day and working in the evenings. So long day, long hours, but that’s what you’ve got to do when you’ve got a couple of things to do at the same time, really.

Payman Langroud…: Max, what was the first time when you got into something to do with dental? What was the first time you saw something to do with dental?

Max: It was the summer of 2008 and I am in a carpark in St Georges [inaudible] Hospital, I just finished a meeting with dieticians there, closed a good contract on the stuff we were selling them, and I have a call from this guy talking to me with a very low, deep voice in American accent. He sounded a bit like Corleone from The Godfather.

Max: So I imagine, low voice, right? So we’re having this really low, deep voice conversation. This guy says, “I’m calling from a private equity called [inaudible 00:18:33], we’re just to cover a group of dental practises called ADP Dental after the Icelandic bank [inaudible] collapse in 2008. We are looking for someone who can help us to grow through acquisitions of dental practises.” At the time I didn’t even know you could buy and sell dental practises.

Max: So I went to the interview and I remember going to this office in Reigate. It was full of all of these seniors, let’s call it senior people with the suit and tie in their offices, and there was me going to the meeting with my pink trousers and my blue jacket and sunglasses on my head. They probably thought the pizza delivery guy turned up. I had this interview and I remember talking to this really call guy and he’s talking to me with so much passion about what they’re doing and their vision and what they want to do, which I bought into his passion without actually fully knowing what they wanted me to do.

Max: His name was Nick Rolph, which then became my business godfather, my mentor, my friend, and now my partner in Pluto Partners. So that was back in 2008. I spent the first-

Payman Langroud…: So what was the situation? What was the situation with ADP at that point? How many practises did they have, how many were they looking to buy?

Max: They had about 50 practises, and I spent about five, six months of my first time there learning about the business of dentistry, I didn’t know what UDAs was or anything like that, so they told me everything. I have to say I-

Payman Langroud…: What was their plan? Did they say to you, “We want to expand to 100,” or what were they saying?

Max: Yeah, they wanted to grow to at least 100, but having organic, consistent growth through positions of quality practises, not just the quantity, not just getting anything. At the time they wanted to grow through acquisitions of single sides, maybe small little groups, and not much tendering because the tendering was only providing low UDA value, which from a group perspective was not really profitable. You needed about 25, 26 UDA value in order to make it profitable.

Payman Langroud…: In that situation does it feel like you’re like a kid in a candy store in a way because these private equity, it almost feels like you’re spending other people’s money isn’t it? Was there loads of money, was money not a problem?

Max: Money was not a problem but there were very strict, prominent criteria for the type of practises that I needed to buy. So I needed to make good deals and my role was I was kind of the conduit between the practise sellers and the investors, so I was the middle man trying to do a good deal for everybody, it wasn’t about buying cheap because otherwise they wouldn’t sell to the group. But equally I could then waste someone else’s money. Even it wasn’t my money, I never really throw money away anyway so I always value that, nice to [inaudible] at the right price because you make money when you buy, you don’t make money when you sell, you have to buy, right, in order then to sell at an enhanced multiple.

Max: So then we grew to 132 practises through a combination of single size acquisitions and groups. I remember my very first deal, and as many brokers will tell you, or a positions manager or former acquisitions manager will tell you, you remember your first deal and you remember your last deal. My first deal was a group of practises in [inaudible] with a bank account in the Cayman Islands. And I’m thinking, that’s great, I’m going to go back. The lawyers say, “No, you’re not, that’s not how it works.” But I was a bit naïve anyway at the time, and that was a good deal, very good deal for everyone.

Max: As I said, I remember now my last deal as advisor as opposed to buyer, which was done just before Christmas. So going back anyway to ADP, then we then sold or shall I say our investors [inaudible] got together with Carlyle, the biggest investors owning IDH Group, to put together this super group which was the biggest dental group in Europe at the time, and that happened in February 2011. So I went through learning and understanding. Nick Rolph was more instrumental in this deal but I was kind of shadowing him and learning and understanding an exit strategy at high level.

Max: So we then work for IDH for a period of time, about a year and a half, continuing buying practises for them and grow, network owner of IDH, David Hadley, exited the company a couple of years later, and he decided to invest in another project, a consolidation of GP practises, and then he asked me to go and work for him, which I did for a couple of years. So I have some experience in another healthcare sector, which is now helping me to understand and bring something else, something different to the table in the business of dentistry.

Payman Langroud…: What happened with that business? What happened with David Hadley?

Max: So as you know, GPs don’t know they have sellable commodities because you can’t really sell a GP practise but you can do it through [inaudible] partnerships anyway. So it’s not that you are calling a dentist and they know they can sell a dental practise, which is relatively easier as opposed to a GP practise.

Max: So it deals on a one-to-one basis, we’re kind of taking a longer time than the dental deal so you’re looking at about 12 months end-to-end for a deal completion. So we decided to approach a group and we brought a group of about 45 GP practises for the morning health and at the time I’m thinking the buying and selling is what I like to do, I don’t really like the integration into the group.

Max: But me and Nick Rolph, since selling ADP, we always wanted to set up an advisory firm in advising groups and large practises on their exit plan and maximising on the value, but when he was ready I wasn’t ready and vice versa. So when I was ready he was working with Sherry Blair on a big fan project, then he went working with Dentex as a chief operating officer. Then he was ready and I was ready and then we are back in 2018 now, so we start putting together the plan to set up Pluto Partners, and one of the things I wanted to make us different I guess from anyone else out there, I wanted to have a dentist as a clinical partner and clinical advisor because we are advising dentists on how to maximise on the value and nobody better than a dentist can understand how to run and help on the exit transition. So we have a practising dentist with experience also in buying his own practises, advising us on every deal that we take on the table.

Payman Langroud…: So if someone wants to sell their practise, how long before they sell their practise should they start growing the turnover or reducing the costs, how long should that process take?

Max: I think it’s difficult to say a specific time, but the longer process it takes the better, the more timing advance you start planning the better it is. I would say if you are thinking about selling in five years’ time then start now. I think it also depend on the type of practises that you have. If you have a fully associate practise and you’re running it, you could sell tomorrow really if you are ready. There are always things that you can maximise, I don’t know, for example reducing lab costs and making sure that the income is equally spread amongst associate, perhaps, rather all on one associate, but if you are the main performer in the practise then we advise try to make yourself less indispensable, because it’s not that you can’t sell, you can still sell, but if it’s a group buying your practise, if it’s a corporate buying your practise, they’ll probably ask you to stay for a period of time to minimise the risk on the investment, and if you want to sell and exit, then you need to try to make yourself less indispensable. I would say try to plan in advance two or three years before, really.

Payman Langroud…: And how much do you think… I mean what kind of percentage change can you make… I’ve got a friend, he’s thinking of selling his practise, and it’s a nice practise, it’s a nice practise. I think it probably turns over, I don’t know, a million pounds. He says he’s not going to do any of that, he’s just going to sell his practise. What percentage change do you reckon you could make to the selling price if he spends a couple of years cutting cost and trying to push up revenue and all the little tricks that… I mean, I guess it’s not a trick, it’s just the way it is, right?

Max: Yeah, of course.

Payman Langroud…: What percentage difference could you make by focusing?

Max: Well, the key part is in making the changes in advance and not doing last minute changes. I mean for example, what we noticed recently, not just in dentistry but everywhere, is how digital technology has become a lifeline for so many over the last few months. What I see that the practises, they are implementing digital dentistry for example. They are becoming more profitable as they are instantly reducing their lab costs.

Max: Typically our clients, if they have an 8% lab cost, after their investment if they invest maybe on a [inaudible] machine for example, they can reduce their cost by 2% in the first year. On a million pound revenue practise as you mention, 2%, that’s £20,000. This can possibly affect the profit margin and instantly can improve the valuation by, if we say on average seven times multiple on EBITDAR, then it’s £150,000 added value to your business. So obviously there are certain things that you can save.

Payman Langroud…: So each pound you save is worth £7 on the sale if it’s a seven times EBITDAR obviously.

Max: Yes, every pound you save is going to be a £7 added value to your business, providing that it’s a sustainable change. If you make a change and you go below the average, so if you go around it… let’s say for example support staff cost average for practises, you’re looking about 17% right now, and if you reduce that massively because you want to sell to a 10% or an 8%, that is not going to be sustainable from a new buyer’s perspective. So obviously you have to make changes that are going to be sustainable going forward. And the lab [inaudible] cost, for example, is one of them, as well as of course improving the… reducing, for example, the [inaudible] time you can reduce or certain other improvements that you can make with implementing digital transformation.

Prav: Max, would you mind just in real simple terms summarising for us how a practise is valued, and I know there’s numerous ways of doing this, but on the whole how a practise is valued. But also, what are the deals that present themselves on the table that practise owners may or may not be aware of, and the things I’m thinking about is retention period, how long they’re required to stay on, what does that deal look like for them, what are the consequences for them if they don’t hit certain targets? What are the usual pitfalls they need to look out for when looking at a deal of how a practise is valued and on the face value they may think okay, they’re going to get X for their practise, but in reality they’re getting 60% or 40% deferred over five years, and hitting that deferral target may be more challenging than they anticipate. Would you mind just summarising those few points?

Max: Yes, so okay, let’s talk about the defer first and then we talk about how we value practises. So in terms of the defer consideration, that is the part of the deal price that is paid over a period of time, provided that certain targets are met. Different groups… Usually this is done by corporate purchases, not much from independent buyers. So certain groups will apply different types of criteria and KPI and key performance. We, as valuers and advisors, we always advise to our clients to make sure that the targets are achievable, but in reality Prav, what you get is the payment on completion; the rest, I consider it a bonus.

Max: So the higher the payment on completion the better it is, so we always try to negotiate on behalf of our clients, but equally buyers want to make sure that the risk on their investment is minimised anyway. So certain groups have the target of EBITDAR growth, which to me is difficult really, because giving a value to a business based on growth is a difficult concept for a seller, and as in EBITDAR as the target, also can potentially create some arguments. So I would say having revenue instead as the target I think is an easier black and white, much simple concept for [crosstalk] consideration.

Prav: Just explain to me very quickly, what is EBITDAR? Just in very simple terms to a practise owner. I’ve spoke to loads who don’t even know what that means, and why should they, right? If they’re not in the process of selling or buying practises.

Max: Yeah, the EBITDAR, the actual meaning of EBITDAR is an acronym which is made out from other different words and it’s the earning before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. In simple terms, it’s the true operating profit of the practise, after all costs, essentially. If you are a practise owner and we have an associate level valuation model, corporate level valuation model, then obviously they need to include the costs of your clinical income added back to the valuations and then you will have usually 15-18% of the profit margin on a million pound [inaudible] practise would be EBITDAR.

Max: The multiple that are applied at the moment is around seven times on average, so obviously the higher the EBITDAR level the higher would be the multiple, and we think just-

Payman Langroud…: Max, sorry to interrupt Max, how does that compare with other industries? I mean, let’s look at other professions, I don’t know, lawyers, architects and accountants, or just real companies, software companies or whatever. You’re in the valuations world. Are dentists in an over… are we in a bubble or have we got further to go as far as EBITDAR multiple?

Max: Yeah, it’s funny you mention bubble because this is a word that’s been mentioned many, many times, and the bubble never really burst. There was kind of people were expecting this to reduce, the EBITDAR multiple. Compared to other industries, the EBITDAR applied to dentistry is really high. Compare even, and we see this, we do this exercise quite a lot, compared to the same industry in other countries, it’s also very higher. In England the average is, at the moment, on transactional EBITDAR level 6.7 across all type of practises on associate led model. In Italy you’re looking about four times, in USA you’re looking at 2.5 times EBITDAR. So England is a very higher EBITDAR multiple. Pharmacies also have a much less EBITDAR, you’re looking at four, five.

Max: So dentistries are a very profitable business from… you’ve got a high multiple in dentistry in the UK. I guess it’s driven also by the NHS revenue and the fact that you’ve got guaranteed income on a monthly basis and investors really like this, and no one else in Italy, 96% of business is private and you do get high quality treatments, you also get very low quality because of the lack of regulations and standardisation, and there is no government income given to practises on a monthly basis, like in England on the NHS… I guess one of the point is that, and we’ve seen it now during the pandemic and during last year, prices really…

Max: And we did say this, me and Nick back in March and April last year, we were expecting prices not to change and in fact prices didn’t really change, the multiples remained the same. Obviously what is changing and what has changed is the multipliers. What we are multiplying might be changed but the multiple applying to the EBITDAR, that has not changed, and banks are still providing valuations based on a pre-COVID level, and that’s what we do. So to answer to your question, Prav, how we value-

Payman Langroud…: So are the banks lending?

Max: Lending is happening. There are 14; 13, 14 major banks still lending. The criteria has changed so you would need a higher amount of deposit, but the confidence in the sector is still there. The demand is there and the confidence is still there.

Payman Langroud…: So what kind of percentage are we looking at, deposit wise?

Max: You’d be looking at 20% as opposed to 5-10% pre-COVID at the moment.

Payman Langroud…: 20.

Max: I’m pretty sure. Yeah, 15-20 on an unsecure level.

Payman Langroud…: So then when you look at the market now compared to… I’m not even going to go pre-COVID, I’m going to go six months ago, what are the differences? We had Andy Ecton on from Frank Taylor, and he said there was a bunch of associates who wanted to buy their own practise now because of the nightmare of being an associate during this pandemic period. If they were thinking of buying a practise, that’s kind of accelerated them wanting to buy a practise. Have you seen that too?

Max: We did see this, yes. We experienced a 17% increase in the number of associates registering with us to want to buy their own dental practise. So we now have about just under 5000 registered buyers, probably active 25% of them. There are 750 practises coming to market on a yearly basis. Probably a little bit more now.

Max: Associate… That’s the biggest change, really, that we see during the last six months of last year. Prices have not changed, what has changed in the market is the change has affected the associates most of all in two ways, I would say. The first way is that principals are working more in their practise, therefore they’re reducing the level of income to the associate. And also, the associate, they are asked to work. Most of the time they are to accept a reduction in the pay. So their percentage went down from 40, 45, to 35 for example. So they had a reduced level of income.

Max: So that [inaudible] triggered them obviously to buy into a security of a job for the future, so buying their own dental practise. But the other thing I notice is I don’t know how you would define it because it’s something quite new, but there are new associate that instead of buying that practise, they are building and developing their own brand within the existing practise.

Payman Langroud…: Yeah. Super associate.

Max: Probably I call it [crosstalk 00:39:31].

Payman Langroud…: We call them super associates on this show.

Max: Yeah. Super associate might means they are better than other associate. I’d probably say brand associate, but yeah. So what they’re doing, they are building their own brand within an existing practise. I think it’s great in the short-term for a practise owner, in the long-term and added value to the business, I don’t know. It’s questionable. There will have to be a strong relationship and a strong contract in place. For example, if you are a practise owner and you have two or three different brand associate or as you call it super associate over the course of three years then you can justify to a buyer that you had three different type of these associates. So they can have the same. But if you have one of them, and they maybe are responsible for 40% of your income, they can leave the day after you sell your practise. So buyers are not naïve.

Max: I guess from a practise value perspective, it’s difficult to give a value to that, but in the short-term certainly can improve revenues. So that is the biggest change, really.

Payman Langroud…: Max, do you ever work on behalf of the buyer or are you always on behalf of the seller?

Max: We do. We work for the deal and we work for the good deal, and we either work on behalf of the buyer or on behalf of the seller. We never get paid from buyers and sellers, so we are very transparent in our front. When we work on behalf of a buyer, usually we worked with large groups and we advise them on several deals. A couple of years ago we actually advised one of the largest group, [inaudible 00:41:24], on the acquisitions of a group on Nottingham in south Wales, which was, at the time, the biggest deal that we brokered, and I guess the biggest deal done in 2019 with the value and the number of practises.

Max: So we advise buyers in terms of large groups as advisory firm but we predominantly work with sellers. It’s one or the other. You can’t work on behalf of both. So we either get paid from one or the other.

Payman Langroud…: But as an individual, do you ever get an individual coming to you and saying, “Look, I want to buy a practise and I want to pay you to find me the right practise.” Is that a thing?

Max: We give a lot of advice, we don’t go in searching for a practise specifically from an individual, but we advise and we educate what to look for, and we sometimes help them on a negotiation process but we don’t specifically go out and find them a practise.

Prav: Max, I want to sell my practise and I could go directly to one of the corporate acquisition department for example, deal directly with them, hire a good lawyer, and do the deal myself. Why should I pay somebody like you to take a cut of that deal if I can just keep the full slice of the cake of the deal and then-

Payman Langroud…: Is it to save the 1%… How much is it, Max? Is it 1%, 1.5%? What is it?

Max: Yeah, we charge 1.5%.

Payman Langroud…: Oh, man. The way I would think of it is he’s going to get me 2% more.

Prav: Yeah, of course. Because I’ve not finished asking my question yet.

Payman Langroud…: Sorry.

Prav: With that in mind, can you illustrate any deals where you’ve actually acted on behalf of somebody selling it and to what extent you’ve increased the sale deal.

Max: Yeah. I like to say I have a good relationship with most of the groups and the acquisitions team and the M&A guys and ladies working in the groups. When they see my involvement, they instantly become aware there’s going to be tough negotiation and it’s not always the case if you go and approach them direct. Most of the time, a practise owner will do this once in a lifetime, they will sell their practise and they will have only had one opportunity. They again offer and they maybe think this is the best and final. And maybe they don’t… they might be great clinicians but they’re not great at negotiating, they don’t know what buttons to push.

Max: Now my experience and my background obviously is buying practises so I know what buttons to push in order to increase the value, we know what can improve the valuations and the negotiation, we know what we can achieve. So sometimes we see an initial offer and it’s not just about the price but it’s also about the terms and the amount that you get on the defer basis.

Max: In terms of example, I can give you an example which is quite exceptional, really, there was a practise in Buckinghamshire who came to us with an offer on the table for 1.8 million.

Prav: They came to you and said, “I want 1.8 million for my practise.”

Max: No, they said, “We have an offer for 1.8 and I think it’s good.” And he was from one of the groups. So I analysed the figures and then of course we can talk about how we value and prices and a minute. Then I thought it’s a good offer but I think we can improve on that offer of 1.8. The way that you can improve it is by creating a nice competitive tension, not just with that group, but introduce either two or three potential buyers that you think they’re a good match, and we did so.

Max: So consequently, we started to get offers, and the same group who offer 1.8 and it was the best and final, a couple of months later they offer 2.4. So obviously it wasn’t the best and final. But then eventually the deal closed at 2.7, which I was very surprised, but I think I’m pleased with what we did there and the clients were pleased. So he ultimately ended up selling to another group, not to the same group.

Max: So your 1.5% save I would say is more than justified by involved someone like us that can introduce and bring to the table different groups, and sometimes also trying to maximise on the current offer that you might have from the same group.

Prav: So even if you’re mid-deal with a corporate or a buyer, it’s still not too late to engage a professional like yourself.

Max: No, it’s not. Obviously you need to try to find the balance in not to upset the buyer but it’s in your best interest, you need to maximise, it’s your chance, it’s your opportunity, and it’s probably once in a lifetime opportunity and it’s an exciting time to sell your business and you want to make sure that you… Especially if you ended up working with a group, there is not a sentiment in the value that you got, so you need to make sure that you get the right value before you sell, not realising it after by talking to your friends and say actually I could have sold for more or my conditions could have been better. So you have to explore all avenues and make sure you get a good deal in terms of value and in terms of terms.

Prav: What’s the right… one of the conversations I have with a lot of practise owners is well, when is the right time to sell? Can you time the market when a corporate is about to exit so you can get a higher multiple value at that point? Is there a right time to sell? Are we at a point where the EBITDAR multiple is at such a peak at the moment, now is a good time to be having these conversations, and if we left it a few years that may drop? Is there any insight you can give us on that?

Max: The right time is always when it’s right for you as a seller. And it’s always about approaching a buyer at the right stage of the cycle. You will have groups, if you’re talking about corporates right now, you will have groups that we go through different cycles in their acquisition strategy. So at the beginning of their acquisition strategy after the initial investment, they want to go in a very aggressive way, so their multiple there might be quite competitive compared to other groups.

Max: Equally, towards the end of the cycle when they have an offer from a private equity or a different groups or a bigger group perhaps, then they will be thinking if they buy a practise or they buy 100 grand of EBITDAR at seven times, for example, immediately this will add 10 times value to their existing group.

Max: So the end of the cycle and the beginning of the cycle for a group is always when you want to approach them. Sometimes, like we did in one of our biggest deal, is also for groups they are potentially kind of a midlife in the cycle, but they are behind on their acquisition strategy, so they really want to push up their acquisitions by making one group purchase or buying several practises and just boost the pipeline and it’s just about always being in touch with groups and understanding where they are at the moment, so there’s no point approaching someone for example now, like Bupa for example they exited the market.

Max: And I have to say, nobody never ever exit the market. If the right opportunity comes to the table they might consider it but they’re not actively as they were two years ago or a year and a half ago. So you always have to try to approach everyone with a specific emphasis on who is more active and where they are in their cycle.

Prav: Do you have insight into where various corporates are in their… Like, as a practise owner, I’d have no idea where a corporate is in its cycle, so to speak. How did you find this information out? Is that something you’ve got insight to for any of the corporates, or…

Max: Yeah, we do have. My partners are incredibly experienced in the world of private equity and they have lots of connections so they know what’s happening and they can refer back to me. So we at Pluto Partners, this is for partners, essentially. I’m representing 25% of the partnership and I’m kind of the face of the business and I’m also going out and about, but we’ve got obviously as I mentioned the dentist, who’s the clinical advisor. The other two partners, they’ve got incredible experience and transactional knowledge so they know exactly what’s going on in the private equity world. So we do know there’s going to be some changes in groups coming very, very soon in this year, and there are talks about what’s happening also in 2022, which are groups that are preparing to serve, therefore they would boost their acquisitions campaign in order to prepare for a 2022 exit, providing no big changes are taking place.

Max: If you look at COVID, most groups will discount this as exceptional, so almost not even considering, like nothing ever happened really, because in the life cycle of a group or a private equity, six months or a year is nothing compared to 10 or 15 years kind of disruption. So this is what is happening, and again it’s what is driving valuations at the moment.

Max: So we see figures up to February, March 2020, and then we work backwards and I ask you also for the last three years of the account. Of course, we want to see what’s happening since the reopening. The situation is creating winners and losers. Typically there are now businesses who are picking up new patients from other businesses in dentistry and in other businesses, they are potentially partially opened.

Max: We see most of our clients in private practises especially, the revenue’s increased since reopening back in June and July and most of them, actually. And I feel that the new patients potentially will stay with the new practise, because they’re going to show a degree of loyalty that perhaps it wasn’t shown by their existing practise. Not to their fault, because they might not be able to operate in full so they are partially open. So this is what we see happening.

Payman Langroud…: COVID seems to have accelerated a few things, online shopping or whatever, but definitely that one. There was a bunch of people who were on the brink of becoming private patients or had enough money to be private patients, but were still being seen at their NHS place. Then when they couldn’t be seen there anymore, looks like that’s helped the private sector quite a lot. What are your predictions going forward? What do you think will happen with prices, maybe we’ll get you back in a year’s time and see if your predictions come true. What’s your prediction on prices, on multiples, on corporates, give me some of your… if you had to make a bet, what would you say?

Max: I think prices will stay the same and slightly improve, depending on a couple of groups exit multiple they will achieve. So what we saw in 2015, when Oasis Bupa deal happened, really boost prices for private practises, which at the time the multiple was about 1-1.5 below NHS prices, and after the Oasis Bupa deal private practises were selling on the same level of NHS practises, and this has kind of stabilised that.

Max: If we see large groups selling for multiples below 10, then of course that could potentially negatively impact valuations of single size, because as a single site, how can you ask a higher multiple than a group? Potentially there would be an argument from the buyers. I don’t think it’s going to be the case anyway, I think the groups will always sell for double digit and more in terms of multiple, I think we will see a couple of deals happening this year. I think one is going to be… it’s not too far from happening. I think we’re a few weeks away, which is going to change slightly the way the practises will be purchased and the multiple paid. I feel prices will stay the same and slightly increase during this year.

Payman Langroud…: Can you expand on that one or not? You’re not in a position to delve into that?

Max: The point I would like to make perhaps there is that another factor driving prices is demand. Demand is still there, and then of course if there is demand, which is still outstripping supply, it’s another factor that can also drive prices.

Payman Langroud…: Yeah no, but this deal you were talking about, can you talk anymore about that deal or no?

Max: We can talk about it next year. I don’t want to get in trouble.

Payman Langroud…: No, fair enough.

Max: I think it’s very confidential.

Payman Langroud…: Your business is all about confidentiality, there’s no problem with that at all.

Max: Absolutely.

Payman Langroud…: So the thing that we’ve been talking a lot about is on the selling side, but it’s interesting, your business, you’ve got these two totally different types of people that you talk to, right? You’ve got the young guy who’s just getting in and then you’ve got potentially the older guy who’s just getting out. But what I’m quite interested in is you know cats who are different to that model, people who I don’t know, you must have stories, people who buy a practise, sell it two years later at a profit or a loss, have you got any of those stories?

Max: I do, I have plenty of stories.

Payman Langroud…: Are any of those sellers flippers of dental practises? Do they exist? That that’s what they’re up to, they buy and sell.

Prav: Like houses?

Payman Langroud…: Like houses, whatever. Like shares.

Max: Yeah, there are, obviously. It takes time to improve on a business and I also have clients who buy a practise who think that just because they’re friends of a practise and maybe there is not that passion, and also it’s a profitable practise, completely change their life and pretty much ruined their relationship as well. So they come to me six months later saying, “I want to sell it, it’s a great practise, but I don’t want a divorce from my wife or my husband.” So you have to sell it sometimes to save your relationship.

Payman Langroud…: Wow. What about groups, like how fast have you seen people grow their groups? What kind of stories have you got there? I mean, I remember a guy in Nottingham, I don’t know if you guys have come across him, Dr. Sheikh. Do you ever come across this guy?

Max: Yeah.

Payman Langroud…: Fantastic guy. He had one practise, Prav, I don’t know, have you come across him, Prav? He had one practise, it was the size of Sainsbury’s, it was a gigantic place. Everyone in Nottingham will know this place. Is he still around? Has he sold his group? What’s he done? Do you know him? Are there others like him?

Max: I lost contact, but a couple of years ago I remember he was still around.

Payman Langroud…: So other groups, tell me about other groups, people who have grown groups and sold them to corporates. What kind of deals have you seen?

Max: I think what I see in the successful groups are the groups that put an emphasis, never on the profit, they’re groups that actually put an emphasis on the dentist first, then the patients, then the profit come after. We saw that when we were with ADP and I thought we were obviously buying for profit, but they were always treating the dentist fairly because there is nothing worse than going to a group, to a practise of a corporate, and then you’re always seen by a different dentist. You want some more consistency. Ultimately we also create underperformance.

Max: So the group that are more successful are the one that treat the dentist well and they don’t put a focus and an emphasis on just the profit and the cost savings, because automatically you will have no dentist to perform your business and your profit and practises will just go down.

Max: And as I said before, you make your money when you buy, not when you sell. So there is no point buying for vanity 20 practises and paying a 10 times multiple if you don’t have your exit multiple in mind, and if your exit in mind is only going to be 10, you essentially make less money with the 20 practises in your group than if you just own one practise and you’re running well. So it’s about doing it right. They used to say turnover is vanity and profitability’s sanity. So you’ve got to focus on the profit and you’ve got to focus on where you pay when you buy your practise, in terms of the group, and buy at the right price, really. Because then you will happy to exit and make some money.

Payman Langroud…: What are the most common mistakes people make when selling or when buying? What are the things you wish people knew? I mean that one that you just mentioned.

Max: The most common mistakes when selling is just accepting the first offer and just go for it without negotiating, without involving other groups and other buyers, because you might think you don’t want to upset this buyer because you might think it’s a good offer, but as I say you’ve got one chance, you want to make sure that you do it right. So you just involve… You can still do that confidentially, which we do sometimes, because we’ve got enough connections and buyers to bring to the table just to do an off the market conversation if that is the wish of our clients.

Max: But you need to involve six or seven good buyers because obviously you’ve got a price that is driven by your financial figures, and then you’ve got a price that is driven by what buyers are prepared to pay. And that you will never know that if you don’t involve more than one buyer. So that is the biggest mistake from a seller’s perspective.

Max: From the buyer’s perspective, it’s just buying on emotion and just overpaying for a business that you might end up working for free for the next seven to eight years, and then you just end up selling on a loss. So it’s about finding the right balance, really. And a good deal is always on a win-win basis. You want to maximise the price on the sellers and you want to make sure that the buyers are paying the right price, which is sometimes over the asking price, more often than not it is over the asking price, but not crazily especially as an independent buyer, which you will never recover the money that you would pay. So the biggest mistake for buyers is overpaying.

Payman Langroud…: You’ve been in the UK for the last, what, 14 years did you say?

Max: Yeah. I arrive on the 5th of November, 2005, sense the fireworks that you Brits are doing every year, thank you.

Payman Langroud…: What are the things you miss most about Italy when you’re here? I think I can guess, and what about the other way around, what do you miss about the UK when you’re there?

Max: That’s true, you know what, that is absolutely true. The thing I miss about Italy is something called [Italian 01:01:36], which is you go out for a walk and it doesn’t really matter about the destination, you just go for a walk and you meet someone and you say to them, “Let’s go for a [Italian 01:01:48],” which just means go for a walk and you just relax and you have a nice walk in the summer. That is what I miss because if I go out where I live, I’m likely to meet a fox or a deer but I don’t really see many people.

Payman Langroud…: Are you in Kent?

Max: Yeah, I’m in the countryside of Kent, but if you see someone outside university they come for a walk with me, they’re probably thinking this guy’s crazy. That is kind of what I miss. When I’m Italy, after a few days I miss the buzz and the things happening much faster and quicker than in Italy, in England. So I miss the things that they happen much quicker, which is why I love being here. I love being here because you can make a career if you are good at something. If you are good enough you don’t stay behind, you can make a career out of something.

Max: In Italy it’s more about who you know and it would take a long time and you might never get there. So I like the fact that in England, if you’re good and you work, you can be and do anything. So that’s what I love about it, that’s what I love about my adopted country.

Payman Langroud…: You’re saying it’s more of a meritocracy, it’s less about who you know and more about what you know.

Max: That’s correct.

Payman Langroud…: Yeah. I can see that happening in Italy as well. Coming from where I come from there’s a lot of that about, there’s a lot of that. Of course by the way, who you know is very important here too isn’t it? We mustn’t paper over that issue.

Max: Yeah. You can’t just rely on that, you have to work, and if you’re good you will succeed, ultimately. However, you’ve got to work for it. In Italy, you can see sometimes in positions of power not necessarily people who deserve to be there. That’s because it’s just about who you know, it can’t just be about that otherwise there’s never a progression into something good, really.

Payman Langroud…: How did you feel about Brexit when it was all going down? I know it all got superseded with COVID, but in that period how were you feeling about it?

Max: I never really got the point that people were talking about racism or anything like that. The only thing is that I hope that it won’t change for people like me who are able to come and have, I like to say, kind of a successful career and life and establish myself in England. I hope that people will have the same opportunities that I had in the future. So that’s the thing I really hope. In terms of [crosstalk]

Payman Langroud…: Italians won’t, will they? If I’m an Italian who wants to come to the UK now, I’ve got the same chance as someone from Nigeria who wants to come to the UK now. So that has changed, hasn’t it?

Max: It is, yeah. So hopefully it won’t deter people coming because there are many opportunities in this country that might not be in other countries, if you like this sort of lifestyle. So I hope in the future it won’t change too much. I know it’s changed a little bit. So we’d like to just wait and see, really. So that’s my only thing, really. And in terms of being your master of your own destiny and things like that and the £350 million on the NHS. They’re all promises. I don’t really want to go into politics too much, I just hope that people will have the same opportunity that I had in the future because we all deserve it really. If you want to go for it, I don’t see why we need to have an opportunity as you want to have.

Payman Langroud…: You think you’re going to carry on… I mean, I’m sure you are for the meantime you’re going to do this, but do you think you’re going to make a move back into corporate dentistry at any point? Are you going to be with a friendly Russian billionaire opening your own corporate chain? You’re perfectly positioned for that.

Max: Do you know over the last couple of years, I had several offers working and going back in those M&A acquisitions at director level or partners level. I have a massive degree of loyalty and respect and trust to my partners. I want Pluto Partner to succeed. I know we will, I know we are bringing competition into the marketplace, which is a great thing, because competition makes people less complacent, less lazy, and that’s what we like to do. I want, and I will, make Pluto Partners a success and that’s my only focus right now.

Payman Langroud…: Yeah. But will Pluto Partners itself change other than practise broking? Do you think going forward you guys are going to do other activities?

Max: Yeah, that is the plan, that is the long-term plan. So if you just think about Pluto, instead of being a planet or a rock, think about Pluto as the sun with other services orbiting around Pluto Partners. So we have in the pipeline in 2021 and 2022, kind of a subsidiary businesses coming at the back of Pluto Partners all linked and related to not just dentistry but healthcare. So we are in the process of expanding, so we grew year on year since we started two and a half years ago, we have our pipeline now is stronger than ever, and I’m very pleased and grateful for this, and we’re just growing by adding additional services to dentistry first, and then to healthcare after, because my experience again is not just dentistry but it’s also in a GP practises. Nick Rolph has experience in pharmacies and vet.

Max: So at the moment, we are taking our experience to provide a different service to dentistry but we then want to then expand and going back to other healthcare services, so that’s the plan going forward.

Payman Langroud…: Sounds great, man, sounds great. If I sell my-

Max: [crosstalk] that’s the main thing really.

Payman Langroud…: If I sell my practise and get £2 million for it, whatever, would you guys help me invest my money as well? Have you got that side of it? The well management side?

Max: We do, one of our partner, one of the four, [inaudible] company providing a wealth management service, he’s got lots of dentists in it, so that’s something that we provide, wealth management advising on freehold, commercial freeholds, [inaudible] disposal and accountancy part of it, tax services. Yeah, we do, we can help. Not me personally, but we’ve got experts that can help on how to best invest and spend the money.

Payman Langroud…: So I don’t know if you’ve listened to this podcast before but Prav likes to end it with his final question.

Prav: So Max, it’s been great speaking and I know from personally having conversations with you that business aside, family and health are incredibly important to you and I see that on your social posts as well as the conversations we’ve had. So I’ve got a final question I usually ask at the end of the podcast, a couple of questions, then I’ve got a new question for 2021 as well. So you’ll be the first one we’re testing this out on Max. So first question comes back to imagine it’s your last day on the planet and you’ve got your loved ones around you, and you need to leave them with three pieces of advice. What would those pieces of advice be? Secondly, the second question is how would you like to be remembered, and then the third question I’m going to let you know after you’ve answered those first two.

Max: Okay. Travel the world, live your life with passion, and eat good food in good company.

Prav: Beautiful. So all that revolves around enjoying your life. Me and Payman had a discussion about this yesterday, didn’t we? If someone was to summarise your legacy, how would you like to be remembered Max?

Max: Something like what would be written on… oh, he was something like… Max was, something like that

Prav: Max was, yeah, Max was… Finish the sentence.

Max: Max was only 100 years old.

Prav: Awesome. And then my final question-

Max: Okay, very important to me Prav, Max a good father. So that would be the best achievement, really.

Prav: Yeah. And listen, I kind of know that from the conversations we’ve had and the passion and everything, it all revolves around family. So my final, final question is this. You’ve got 12 months left on this planet, you know that, it’s a fact, yeah? How’s your life going to change over the next 12 months, what are you going to do?

Max: I actually continue to do what I’m doing because a couple of days ago it was my birthday and I started the day and I had a day and I absolutely did, it was a special day, but you know what? It was like the day before and the day after. So I had my kids come in and nagging me, I had my wife next to me, which I love and adore. I have everything I need and I’m doing something I really love doing, I found my passion and I kind of developed it. So I carry on doing what I’m doing.

Payman Langroud…: What if you only had 12 days left, would you go to work for those 12 days?

Max: Yeah. And I probably ran more than anything, maybe do more stuff with my family really. In terms of work, I don’t kind of-

Payman Langroud…: What about 12 hours, if I said to you you’ve got 12 hours left, would you go to work for nine of those?

Prav: I know what Payman would do. I’m going to take that secret to my grave.

Payman Langroud…: This is a new question, I like this new question, but go on, go on. I like what you said.

Max: As long as my kids are with me and we’re doing something together, then it doesn’t really matter. I’d probably go on a cruise ship, actually, I’d go on a cruise.

Payman Langroud…: Oh, that’s nice.

Prav: Nice, nice.

Payman Langroud…: That’s nice. I think we’ve got to work on this question, man, 12 months is a long time. It just feels like a long time. You’ll get that answer from a lot of people, man.

Prav: But I think, you know what, if you were to…

Payman Langroud…: One month, one month.

Max: Here is my answer then. I’d go one month, I take my family, my mum and dad, my kids, my wife, and we go on a world cruise.

Payman Langroud…: Lovely.

Prav: Beautiful.

Payman Langroud…: Lovely, lovely. Prav, we’ve got to close it but Max, this has been just really lovely having you on. Hearing your backstory has been wonderful and then diving heavily into what’s going on right now, you’ve been very open with it so it’s been an education. Thank you so much.

Max: My absolute pleasure. Thank you.

Prav: Thank you Max, thank you.

Speaker 2: This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one-on-one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav: Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far you must have listened to the whole thing, and just a huge thank you both from me and Pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we’ve had to say and what our guest has had to say because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

Payman Langroud…: If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing and if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too, thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

Prav: And don’t forget out six star rating.

 

 

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