One point of coordination across six simultaneous transactions.

 

Which advisers do I need to sell a pharmacy?

Usually a solicitor, an accountant and, where the premises are leased, a property specialist. An asset sale also pulls in the NHS side, because the contract does not move with the business on its own, and payroll and employment advice where staff transfer under TUPE. RSB keeps a network of twelve disciplines, each of them someone who works in pharmacy rather than a generalist, and points you at the ones the matter actually calls for. Most sales do not need all of them.

 

Do I need a pharmacy specialist solicitor, or will any commercial solicitor do?

It can be done by a general commercial solicitor, but the pharmacy-specific parts are where sales stall. In England, the NHS contract, the change of ownership application, the notifications about directors and the superintendent pharmacist, and the lease all have an order they have to happen in, and a solicitor meeting that for the first time learns it on your timetable. Rajkamal Singh Bhatti was Superintendent Pharmacist of a national group of 120 branches and took it through insolvency and sale, and has advised on over 120 pharmacies, 50 of them independents.

 

What happens when RSB Consulting introduces me to an adviser?

You are put in touch with one named specialist who already knows why you are calling. RSB passes on the background beforehand, so the conversation starts with the problem rather than with your history. It stays an introduction and not a handover: you instruct them directly and the relationship is yours. If RSB stands to gain commercially from an introduction, you are told that before it is made, not once you are already dealing with them.

 

Can I use my own solicitor and accountant?

Yes, and usually you should. An introduction is only suggested where there is a gap, and an adviser who already knows your business and the sector is worth keeping. RSB works alongside people you have instructed yourself in the same way it works with the network. The question is whether the person in the seat can handle the pharmacy-specific part, not who found them. Giving an owner a full set of new advisers at the start rarely helps anybody.

 

Why do pharmacy sales take longer than expected?

Because the separate workstreams depend on each other and rarely run in the right order. In England, transferring the NHS contract on an asset sale needs a change of ownership application from the buyer, and NHS England normally has thirty days to decide once it holds everything it asked for, so the clock only starts when the file is complete. Meanwhile the lease assignment holds up the funding, and the accounts cannot be finalised until someone counts the stock. Keeping one person across the order of events is what stops every party waiting on the others.

 

Does RSB Consulting give legal or tax advice?

No. Rajkamal Singh Bhatti is a practising pharmacist, GPhC registration 2230365, and the founder of RSB Consulting. He holds none of those qualifications: not law, not accountancy, not insolvency, not regulated financial advice, and nothing on this page is advice of any of those kinds. Opinions on law, tax and insolvency come from people regulated to give them, which is what the network is there for. RSB's part is practical: what each adviser needs to be asked, when they need it, and who is really holding the deal up.