Newsletter #89: How Is The Market?

Mac
14 hours ago
3 min read

Hi,

How are you?

In the last 6 months, I noticed this phenomenon happening among SMEs in Singapore. For many B2C companies, they have been experiencing a slow down in consumer demand for the last 2 years. This has been happening across many sectors: F&B, Retail, Consumer Services and etc. This creates a double whammy as revenue drops and expenses increases, causing a significant headwind for many B2C SMEs owners in Singapore.

Whereas for B2B businesses, the demand continues or even increases. Yet the net profit margin drops on the back of increasing operational expenses. The minority that are doing well now are those in the niche market or tapping on overseas market for growth. If you are one of the SME owners facing such headwinds, what would be your game plan moving forward?

Very often, I spend time reflecting on what makes an entrepreneur exceptional. Surely, it's not those who is a one hit wonder, or happens to be at the right place at the right time doing something that happens to be right, or those who came from an illustrious career. I suspect that there is a science to it, since the quality of a business has direct correlation to the quality of an entrepreneur daily decisions made over an extended period of time.

I think that there are few ways to determine an entrepreneur capability:

The long term performance of their business over a period of 10 - 20 years. (You can be lucky once, but you can't be lucky forever. Moreover the evolving business landscape will constantly test the entrepreneur.)
A set of quantitative metrics for each respective trade. (This is very relevant if you are aware of the industry benchmark or tapping on listed companies public information as a comparison.)
The scale of the business and the profit generated YoY (This is another way to have a sense of your entrepreneurial capability. However certain sectors in Singapore are inherently small or have a tremendous tailwind in the last 5 years.) What do you think?

A collaboration with ASME on 26th May, 6pm at Lifelong Learning Institute-

How to have a successful exit for your business Workshop

There are approximately 27 participants and majority are SME owners asking relevant questions. 93% stayed through the 3 hours workshop.

ASME Workshop!

Last month, we introduced a framework for buyers who are keen to work with us on our deals. There is positive receptivity towards it after we share with the buyers on why we did it and the context behind it.

We might be introducing another set of operational framework for sellers too. While this might seem unusual to some people, I feel that Fey Day is at a stage where we should be experimenting out new ideas.

In one of our recent deals, we encountered a situation where the seller doesn't allow the buyer to conduct an operational due diligence as per the norm. While we are thankful for the opportunity to work with the business owner. After some deep contemplation, I decided that it's best for the seller to work with other M&A advisor(s) for the sale of the business. I wish him success in his endeavour.

For Fey Day, it's important for us to facilitate a M&A transaction in a manner that is equitable and transparent for both parties. (Buyer and Seller) This is crucial for the long term success of Fey Day.

I am thinking of organising a private networking event in Oct / Nov 2026 for business owners who are running a marketplace business. If you are keen to participate, please let me know directly. Whether it get organised or not, depends on the interest level of the participants. If you know of any marketplace business owners, please share this with them.

If you know of any business owners in Singapore or Malaysia thinking of exiting their business, kindly refer them to me. Thank you! :)