1,500 Businesses Get Acquired in Australia Every Year. Now We Know Who.

Around 1,500 Australian businesses change hands every year. Until this month, nobody had mapped what they look like.

A first-of-its-kind research paper from the Reserve Bank of Australia, the ACCC, and the Australian National University has built the country's most comprehensive merger and acquisition database, using 20 years of tax filings, corporate regulator records, and labour flow data. The paper fills a gap that existed because Australia had no formal requirement for merger parties to notify the regulator.

The acquisition sweet spot: $5M to $50M

Businesses with annual turnover between $10 million and $50 million are 1.4 times more likely to be acquired in any given year than firms turning over less than $1 million. The $5 million to $10 million bracket is the next most likely target.

By headcount, firms with 20 to 100 employees face the highest acquisition odds, followed by those with 101 to 500 staff. Very small businesses and large ones (500+ employees) are equally unlikely to be targeted.

Profitable but not productive

Here's the counterintuitive finding: acquirers consistently target businesses that are highly profitable but have low productivity. The researchers suggest buyers see these firms as candidates for reorganisation, where they can rationalise the workforce and capture efficiencies.

In practical terms, if your business makes good money but runs with some slack in the system, that combination makes you more attractive to a buyer, not less.

Patents raise your profile

Each additional patent a business holds increases its acquisition likelihood by 3%. On the other side of the table, it's large companies with significant trademark portfolios that are doing most of the acquiring.

The paper also found that serial and creeping acquisitions are common across several industries, with smaller acquirers responsible for a disproportionate share of deal activity.

What this means if you're building

If your business sits in the $5 million to $50 million range with 20 to 100 staff, this data puts you in the zone where acquisition interest is highest. That's not a warning. It's useful context whether you're open to an exit, actively building toward one, or determined to stay independent.

The practical move is to understand your business the way a buyer would read it. Revenue concentration: how much comes from your top three customers. Margin quality: are your profits driven by pricing power or by deferring investment. Operational efficiency: where's the slack a new owner would see as opportunity. And if you hold IP, know that it's visible to acquirers and adds a measurable premium to your profile.

None of this requires you to sell. But knowing your position means you negotiate from strength, whether the approach comes tomorrow or never.

This article is general information only and is not financial advice.