Team of dentists buy-out practice in Harrogate

A dental practice has been bought out for an undisclosed sum by a team who work there. .

The Raglan Suite practice in Harrogate has been bought out by Steve Byfield and a six-strong management team.

The dental and implant centre was acquired from Irish corporate Smiles Dental, following advice from Newcastle-based dental business advisers UNW.

UNW’s Alan Suggett advised the team on buying out the practice they were working in, as it no longer fitted into the portfolio of high street, private practice of its parent company Smiles Corporation.

The management team, who each focus on a different area of dentistry and have taken an equal shareholding, said they paid a “fair market price” for the referral practice.

The Raglan Street based practice takes patients from other dental practices and often carries out more complex work.

Its services include dental implants, facial aesthetics cosmetic and aesthetic dentistry, gum therapy, endodontics, anxiety and phobic care, advanced restorative dentistry and children’s phobia dentistry.

Steve bought the Raglan Suite along with six other partners Tim Doswell, Wendy Cole, Geoff Baggaley, Kim Taylor, Chris Eagan and Antony Bellaris.

He said: “We already agreed a deal to buy the practice and we asked Alan to come in and advise us on the management buyout.

“We had previously looked at a project together in Leeds for a squat practice, which had no patients and meant starting from scratch, but once Alan had done the sums it simply didn’t make commercial sense.

“In the end buying the practice we were already working in proved to be a better proposition.

“The seven of us are looking forward to working together using the most modern techniques to give patients high quality care.”

Alan Suggett, said: “What’s interesting about this multi disciplinary practice is that each of the dental professionals has their own field so they each concentrate on their own aspects of treatment.

“That means, in some cases, one patient could be seen by four or five different dentists.

“Pulling the deal together was a real challenge as many aspects, which are easy when one or two dentists buy a practice, were made more complicated due to seven different points of view needing to be harmonised

“We were also able to structure the investment under the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) scheme which required careful planning.”