Every region · Licence 4963575
Business broker, Queensland
Queensland is nine different selling problems, not one. This page is the map, and each region below carries its own business counts, its own industrial precincts and its own council rules.
Every figure on this page is sourced and dated. Last updated 15 September 2026.
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Check it yourself
How do I find a business broker in Queensland?
Search the Queensland Office of Fair Trading licensing register, which shows the holder, the licence class and the current status. Queensland issues no separate business broker licence, so broking is carried out under a licence granted under the Property Occupations Act 2014. Tony Pope holds licence 4963575 and is a member of the Australian Institute of Business Brokers.
- Tony Pope is a licensed business broker covering all of Queensland, holding Queensland Office of Fair Trading licence 4963575 and membership of the Australian Institute of Business Brokers.
- A market appraisal is free, confidential and carries no obligation to list or sell. It is a licensed broker’s opinion of likely selling price, not a formal valuation by a registered valuer.
- Businesses of every type are sold, in every industry. Eleven South East Queensland districts are serviced in person as a matter of course, and enquiries from anywhere else in the state are welcome.
- Buyers are approached nationally rather than waited for locally, which matters most for regional businesses where the local buyer pool is thin.
Queensland at a glance
Six lines, each of them sourced. The table below breaks the state into the nine regions a buyer actually behaves differently in.
At a glance
There were 509,275 actively trading businesses in Queensland at 30 June 2024, from ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, released 26 August 2025. The nine regions on this page account for all of them.
The south east corner holds the bulk of the count. Brisbane alone had 145,916 actively trading businesses at 30 June 2025, and the Gold Coast 83,266, which is 15.9 per cent of the state.
Construction is the largest single division across Queensland at 17.1 per cent of the business base. Agriculture dominates west of the range, transport dominates Logan and Ipswich.
Business broking in Queensland is carried out under a licence issued by the Office of Fair Trading under the Property Occupations Act 2014. There is no separate business broker licence. Licence 4963575 is publicly searchable.
Six to nine months from appraisal to settlement is a reasonable planning range. Distance from the buyer pool, landlord consent and any licence or accreditation transfer are what push it longer.
Adjusted earnings, and how much of them survive you leaving. Location changes the buyer pool and the depth of comparable evidence. It does not change the arithmetic.
Selling a business in Queensland
Queensland is not one market. Selling a civil contracting business in Ipswich, a mining services operation out of Mackay, a freight business on the Trade Coast and a tourism operator in Cairns are four different jobs with four different buyer pools. What does not change is the process, and what does not change is the set of things a buyer will pull apart before they put a number on the table.
What also does not change is the licensing. Business broking is a licensed occupation in Queensland under the Property Occupations Act, and anyone acting as an agent in the sale of your business should hold a current licence issued by the Office of Fair Trading. You can search that yourself in under a minute, and you should, for me and for anyone else you speak to.
What moves the price, anywhere in the state
Price is normally a multiple of normalised earnings. The multiple is decided by how much of the business survives your departure, and the same factors apply in Toowoomba as in Townsville.
Owner dependence. If you price every job, hold every relationship and answer every call, a buyer is applying for a job rather than acquiring an asset. This is the heaviest single factor and the slowest one to change.
Customer concentration. One client at sixty per cent of turnover is the first risk a buyer prices and the first question their financier asks. In regional Queensland this is the most common problem I see, because a large local employer or a single mine can quietly become most of the revenue.
Recurring or contracted revenue. Work already on the calendar is worth materially more than work that has to be won again each month.
Transferable systems. Whether the process lives in a system or in someone’s head.
Plant condition and finance position. For anyone carrying gear, honest market values and real payout figures. Book values are routinely wrong in both directions.
Clean records. Three tidy years that reconcile to the bank without a story attached. Messy books do not just lower the price, they lengthen due diligence, and long due diligence is where deals die. Read more on how a business is actually priced.
The regional buyer problem, and how it gets solved
The reason I see most often for a regional Queensland business selling below what it is worth is that the campaign only ever reached the district. There might be four credible buyers within a hundred kilometres of a Gladstone industrial services business. There are considerably more across Queensland and interstate, and the one who pays the most is usually a trade acquirer or consolidator who wants the geography, the licences or the contracts and who you have never heard of.
Reaching them is work rather than advertising. It means identifying who would want the business and why, approaching them directly and discreetly, and qualifying them properly before anything identifying is released. That is the same method used for a Brisbane business. The difference in regional Queensland is that it matters more, because waiting for the local market to produce a buyer is how good businesses get underpriced.
Industries I know from the inside
Businesses in every industry are sold, using the same process and the same buyer research. There are six sectors where I have run, worked in or spent years alongside the operation, which means I can talk to a buyer in their own language from the first meeting. That is an advantage, not a restriction.
E-commerce and retail. Transport and logistics. Earthmoving, plant and civil. Construction and building, including the QBCC licence structure that decides whether a deal can complete at all. Mining services and supply. Window furnishings, blinds, curtains, shutters and interiors. There are also published guides for toy, gift and hobby retail, turf farms and OH&S consultancy and training. Read the seller guides, or see how sectors outside that list are handled.
Serviced in person, and everywhere else
South East Queensland and the Darling Downs are covered face to face as a matter of course. Everywhere else in the state, appraisals begin by phone and video with a site visit arranged where the business warrants it, which for anything of scale it usually does. If I am not the right person to help, I will say so and point you to someone who is.
How selling a Queensland business runs
Confidential first conversation
Thirty minutes by phone or video, wherever you are in the state. Your business, your timing, your goals. Nothing is marketed and nobody is told.
Market appraisal against your numbers
Three years of financials, the customer mix, the plant and finance position, and how the business runs when you are not there. You get a view of likely selling price and what is holding it back. Free, and it commits you to nothing.
Preparation, if it is worth doing
If a period of work would deliver a materially better result, you will be told that rather than pushed to list. You are probably twelve months to three years out and use this stage properly.
A targeted, confidential campaign
The business is marketed blind. Trade buyers, operators and investors are approached directly and one at a time across Queensland and interstate, rather than advertised and left to luck.
Qualification and staged disclosure
Every enquiry signs a confidentiality agreement and evidences financial capacity before seeing anything identifying. Sensitive material is released last, with your approval at each stage.
Negotiation through to settlement
Offers, due diligence, contract and handover, managed through to settlement. You deal with me the whole way, not a junior and not a call centre.
See the full process in detail, or take the free two minute readiness check.
Confidentiality, from the first conversation
Nothing happens when you ask a question. An appraisal is a private review of your numbers. No advertisement exists, no buyer is contacted, nothing goes on a public system and nobody is told. If you take the appraisal and do nothing for three years, that is a normal outcome and it happens regularly.
If you do go to market, the business is advertised without being identifiable, every enquiry signs a confidentiality agreement and evidences financial capacity before receiving anything that identifies you, and your most sensitive information is released last rather than first. Nothing happens without your written approval. See how confidentiality actually works.
The 2032 pipeline, without the hype
Every broker in South East Queensland now mentions the Olympics, so here is the version with numbers attached. The state is delivering a $7.1 billion venue infrastructure program covering 17 new and upgraded venues from Cairns to Coolangatta, under the 2032 Delivery Plan released in March 2025 and procured through the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority.
What that actually does to business values is narrower than the talk suggests. It lifts buyer appetite for civil, earthmoving, transport, plant hire, trades and the services that feed them, particularly where a business can evidence forward work or a position on a panel. It does close to nothing for a retail business in Bundaberg or a professional services firm in Cairns, and it will not rescue a business with owner dependence, customer concentration or messy records.
If your business could tender for this work and does not, that is worth looking at well before you sell. Contracted forward work is one of the few things that reliably moves a multiple, and a buyer pays for revenue already on the calendar rather than revenue you hope to win.
Wherever you are in Queensland, the first conversation is free
Thirty minutes, phone or video, completely private. You find out what your business is worth, what a buyer would question, and whether now is your moment. Then you decide, and there is no pressure either way.
Queensland OFT licence 4963575. Member, Australian Institute of Business Brokers. Check it yourself.
E-commerce & retailRan a national online window furnishings retailer, and co-founded and sold a toy business built to several million a year.
Transport & logisticsTwenty years around trucks, trailers and fleets, and what a financier looks at before your profit.
Earthmoving, plant & civilIndustrial auction and remarketing. Machine hours, condition and the difference between the two.
Construction & buildingThe QBCC licence question comes before the price question, every single time.
Mining services & supplyPrequalification status and safety record price straight into the multiple in this sector.
Window furnishings & interiorsRan one. Custom manufacture, measure and install, and where the revenue ceiling actually sits.
Toy, gift & hobby retailCo-founded one with my wife, built it across store and online, and sold it. I have sat on your side of this.
Turf farmsMy father in law built a turf farm and sold it to his competitors. A sector few brokers have been near.
OH&S consultancy & trainingCertificate IV in Training and Assessment, and safety training systems built from scratch. Including RTO risk.Nine published seller guides. Every other industry gets the same process, the same buyer research and the same discipline. View all seller guides.
Questions people ask
3 of the 19 answered in full on the questions page for this topic.
Do you cover all of Queensland, or just Brisbane?
All of it. The nine regional pages on this site each carry their own ABS business counts, their own named industrial precincts and their own council rules, because a seller in Cairns and a seller in Capalaba are not solving the same problem.
Is a Queensland business worth less because it is regional?
Not automatically, and the reason it sometimes sells for less is worth understanding before you accept it. A regional business usually has a smaller local buyer pool and thinner comparable evidence, so a buyer has more room to argue.
Which region am I in?
The nine regions on this page are grouped by how buyers behave, not strictly by council boundary. Ipswich covers Ipswich City, Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim. Toowoomba covers Toowoomba, Western Downs, Southern Downs, Goondiwindi, Balonne and Maranoa.
Questions owners ask about selling in Queensland, all 18 of them.
Go deeper
The long form, where it belongs
The full detail is on the pages below, each on its own page.
Check it yourself12 primary sources
Primary sources, none of them affiliated with me and none of them endorsing this site. Where anything here differs from an official source, the official source is right.
Ask what it is worth
Free, in writing, and nobody finds out you asked. Tell me the trade and the suburb and I will do the rest.
Nobody finds out you are selling. This goes to me only, into my own database in Sydney. I will not contact your accountant, your landlord, your bank or your staff, ever, unless you ask me to.
If you would rather not put anything in writing yet, ring 0431 124 128. Prefer to pick a time yourself? Book a time in my diary.
Wherever you are in Queensland, the first conversation is free
Thirty minutes, on the phone or in person, at a time that suits you including evenings. You will get a straight read on where the business sits today and what would move the number. It costs nothing, there is no obligation, and nobody finds out you asked.