The Pharmacy Planet Podcast: Pharmacy Valuations & Sales: The Expert Opinion with Nitin Koria and Sheelpa Koria

Who are Healthcare Plus? 

Nitin Koria:  So, healthcare Plus, uh, me and Sheelpa were directors and owners. Yeah. And we started out seven years ago. Uh, you're pretty new to the market, right. Yeah. So, um, you know, yeah, pretty new, but I've been around the block a few years. You sure you miss is not about that one. Oh, don't, she's here.

You realize she's here. So, uh, so no, we started out seven years ago after I left the corporate world. Yeah. Um, and we focused primarily on pharmacy, sales and regulatory. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. I mean, um, you guys got a bit of a, a bit of a. Um, not unusual, but a very uque story in terms of starting so, so most people, they, the, the businesses, especially in pharmacy, they're quite established, especially pharmacy sales.

They're mm-hmm. Established businesses. Now, you guys came left field out of nowhere I had never heard of. I don't think Healthcare Plus, or the name was even around then, but I had never heard of Nitin. Sorry, Nitin I'd never heard of you. But anyhow, I'd never heard of, it's very disappointed. I'd never heard of  Nitin.

And then all of a sudden pharmacies are becoming for sale and a lot of them are through, you've gotta contact Nitin or Nitin is selling them. And so yours is a bit of a unique journey, right? So how did you end up in pharmacy sales? 

Nitin Koria: Probably take you right back to how I ended up in pharmacy. So I got qualified in pharmacy.

32 years ago, dude, I didn't even know you were a pharmacist. You're a pharmacist. Wow. You mean after all that I'm a pharmacist. Time. You've been working with you. I'm a pharmacist. Still, still on the register. No way. So I've done my CPD end of October. Yeah. So yeah. Qualified as a pharmacist, um, 32 years ago.

Right. Okay. Did the traditional pharmacy roots worked in community pharmacy? Managed. Various Lloyd's pharmacy stores. Yeah. Um, near to home. And then, um, at some point Sheelpa gave me some feedback and said, I need to earn some more money. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Right, okay. Which is not on your typ. Typical ce husband wife feedback there.

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, we need to 

Nitin Koria: bring kids up and Yeah. We need more money. Yeah. So you ain't getting that working in a branch, so what you can do.  So, uh, now I thought actually I was quite entrepreneurial and, um, business minded. Okay. So I thought, right. Okay. What else can I do? So I applied for an area manager job in Lloyd's.

Actually ran Warsaw, black country, certain Coalfield, 

Boo Dhaliwal: all the lovely areas. Yeah, all the sunny, sunny climbs. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The best areas. Beautiful. And actually 

Nitin Koria: really enjoyed it. Had a, uh, really good time, really good, uh, teams in all the stores, and actually we did really well. And, you know, we grew the businesses really well.

And then, and then I thought, right, okay, I've got out the day-to-day, um, pharmacy now, so I wanna move to head office, because obviously we live in Coventry. Yeah. And Lloyd's, um, head office was in Coventry, so I thought, okay, what jobs are going there? Then, uh, luckily somebody was going on materty leave in the property department and, uh, they said, do you wanna come in for six months and cover the materty leave on doing the NHS contract side?

Okay. So we did that and really enjoyed it, and I thought it got a taste for this. You know, on the property side, then started learng about deals. Yeah. Um, pharmacy acquisitions,  divestments, relocations, all that great stuff. And, you know, really enjoyed it. 

Boo Dhaliwal: This was on behalf of Lloyd's Pharmacy at the time, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And so you were employed by Lloyd's Pharmacy, you were working on that side of it at its pharmacy and then I suppose it was probably the big bang, right? The divestment that with, with Lloyd's. Yeah. And I think that probably changed the game. So 

Nitin Koria: at Lloyd's I was heading up property and development.

Okay. So people think, oh, Nitin was just doing divestments. Yeah. Okay. So when I was at Lloyd's, you know, we were accountable for, um, moving pharmacies, refit pharmacies, um, uh, maintenance. Yeah. Okay. In the pharmacies and even I was even in charge of the staff canteen. 

Boo Dhaliwal: So if the food wasn't good either they'd come back to you 

Nitin Koria: and I, and I'll tell you what, with the head office of a thousand people, guess most people had an opinion on the staff canteen. Yeah, right. They, they wanted to know that, and then Divestments was part of that. So a lot of people got to, um, know me then.

 Um, because as with all corporates, they do a lot of churn on divestments, you know, um, each year, every couple of years, get rid of the bottom end Okay. Of the pharmacies. Then obviously the pharmacy cuts were. Kicking in. Yeah. And the funding model was becoming less viable? Yeah. For them. So there was more and more divestments.

GROUP DIALOGUE: Okay. 

Nitin Koria: And um, and then eventually at Lloyd's, I was heading up transformation as well. So they said, hang on, Nitins. All right. At this stuff. Yeah. So let's give 'em more responsibility. So I was looking at the UK transformation program, reporting straight into the board and, you know, got involved in hr, it.

Which is really dangerous as well as the divestments. Um, and then, then there was a change. And as all things went, there's a change in corporates. It's time to review what I'm doing. And I thought, right now's my time probably to leave the corporate career. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Mm-hmm. 

Nitin Koria: Had a great time, you know, 20 plus years in the corporate world, you know, made loads of really good friends actually.

And, uh Right. Okay, let's go. What should we do now? So I left 

Boo Dhaliwal: Okay. 

Nitin Koria: In 2019, and I thought, what should we do? I dunno.  So month one was just drinking lots of coffee. 

Boo Dhaliwal: I thought you meant drinking lots of alcohol. Oh, no coffee, right there was that as well. 

Nitin Koria: So, so daytime was definitely coffee and just meeting a lot of the contacts because by now it'd built up a, you know.

Yeah. Huge network and people start to recognise who we were. So I thought, right, what should we do? So I thought, right, let's do. Let's set up a consultancy and pretty much my expertise was pharmacy, sales and regulatory. So new contracts, relocations, all that sort of stuff. Let's up a consultancy that deals with that.

Um, so we set healthcare up and actually that's where the Plus came in as well. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Right, 

Nitin Koria: okay. Because I had some other skills in procurement and maintenance and, yeah. Setting up canteens. Yeah. And so, so I thought, let's call it healthcare. So the objective was predominantly healthcare. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: But I thought the plus bit, I thought actually I can help other businesses around strategy and stuff as well, which we still do bits of, but it's not, um, the core business.

Boo Dhaliwal: Okay. 

Nitin Koria: And then we set up so that it was just me working out the  bedroom. And then suddenly some of these corporates, um, example, Lloyd's decided they wanted to sell lots of stores. And then I realized I can't do this on my own. I, I was drowng and to Sheelpa, right? And I said, Sheelpa, you're not doing anything, are you 

Boo Dhaliwal: okay?

The good, the good old question with the miss. Exactly. You should talk to my Mrs. She does nothing too. Yeah. Yeah. Go. 

Sheelpa Koria: Yeah. So my background, boo. So is I used to be in recruitment. Okay. I had my own recruitment company. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Oh, blimey! 

Sheelpa Koria: Yeah. So it was quite a, quite a sizable company. Wow. Then I exited in 2017. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Oh, so you've had a full working career before this?

 

Sheelpa Koria: I was in the corporate world before and then eight years I had my own company. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Oh my God. And all that time you had to carry Nitin 

Sheelpa Koria: Well, no, then I, then I exited and then I went into other property investments. Okay. So I was, I had a really good work life balance, actually. Okay. Okay. And then  comes along and he goes, right, do you wanna get involved in  this?

And I said. Alright, let's do it. And it's been, it's been good fun. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Sheelpa Koria: But it's, it can be challenging as well, working with your husband. Living with your husband. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Well, I can imagine. I mean, I couldn't even dream of working with wildlife. That would be difficult. That would be, it is difficult when you are all day and at home as well.

It is, it is hard work. Yeah. But, um, I think when, when the Lloyds. Divestments or when a lot of of these corporate divestments happened, it was almost like explosive, the number of, the number of pharmacies that hit the market all at the same time. Right? Yeah. That was explosive. So I'm always, I'm always a bit of a business fan and I love the way businesses grow.

I just love it when they grow and why they grow. And sometimes it's just. She, whether it's luck or whether it's circumstance or you just never know is right time, right place. Absolutely. The fact, yeah, that actually you had been in that market, you'd been working a corporate, you'd known everything,  but you had no idea that there was gonna be this whole massive churn of, of pharmacies, right?

Yeah. So this whole thing, I, I find it, I find it fascinating the way businesses can just explode from, from nothing. But as it exploded, you couldn't handle the workload. And enter the misses to come save, save the day, right. Sheelpa? Yeah. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: And, and, and then obviously, um, uh, Sheelpa joined the ranks. Yeah.

And with a recruitment background was a natural talking to customers. Yeah. Yeah. It's pharmacy sales is about talking to customers. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. It's about making the connections. Right. Network. It, 

Nitin Koria: it's the connections. And then we thought, hang on, we're still busy here. Yeah. Um, there's not enough family in the business yet.

Yeah. There's only the two of us. And then, um, my youngest son was taking, um, youngest son Noman was taking a year out. Before he started uversity. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: And he said, what you doing? And he goes, well, I don't travel around the world. I said, I don't think you are. You're going to be, you're going to be helping us, um, with these pharmacy sales.

So suddenly he, he joined the business. And then  at this point, um, ckel, who now heads up our regulatory side. Yeah. Is the other son. Other son? Yeah. My eldest son, he was doing, uh, he'd done a, uh, mathematics degree and got into tax accounting and he, he was in his tax job. And then we said, look, we still can't, the three of us can't cope there.

So, um, can you, can you leave for six months? And, um, just join and just join us and help us out. Yeah. Um, so he came across as well. Yeah. And that ended up being permanent. Yeah. Um, but itially it was the four of us and, um, Joe, who works for me, who used to work for. With me at Lloyd's. Okay. Um, you know, absolutely brilliant.

And so we started growing. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: And suddenly we had a team. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Okay. I'm gonna get into some tty gritty 'cause you guys are here and you guys are experts in pharmacy sales. Yeah. So I'm gonna just get into some pharmacy sales. tty gritty. Right? So ies, how much are the birth? How do you value a pharmacy? How does it work?

God, 

Nitin Koria: right? How long is a piece of string, right? So I'm, so I'm gonna give you the politician answer there. Give,  give me 

Boo Dhaliwal: like, I, I come in, I might have, let's say a million pounds worth of sales. Yeah. I think it's worth 1.2 million. Yeah. Yeah. I've come to Nitin saying, actually it's worth 1.2, but I want you to sell it for 1.4.

So what, what, what would you say is worth, so this, yeah. You know, there's many factors whether you use ebitda, whether you use location, whether you use the value of sales. So how do you guys sit there and value it, and how do you know it's on market? 

Nitin Koria: Yeah, so, so look, um. The usual, you're a numbers guy, but look, but the main numbers E EBITDA wise, that'd be great just to value a business on ebitda.

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah, 

Nitin Koria: right. That's got steady EBITDA for a number of years. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: But guess what? That's not always the real world. Yeah. Because businesses don't always have a steady ebitda, obviously with the funding challenges in pharmacy cost rising, um, and other factors and the smaller businesses. Yeah. Um. Being honest have zero ebitda.

So, so, so let's let, I have to say 

Boo Dhaliwal: that even the smaller business have,  um, um, what you mean is they're losing money. That's what you're trying to say? Yeah. Yeah. The smaller business losing money. 

Nitin Koria: So let's do an EBITDA multiple of nothing. That doesn't work. So that's where the terminology started coming in the sector where we're using, um, percentage of turnover.

Yeah. Hence in a pound. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: So not. Big fan of it. Yeah. Because of PE in a pound. So you could have a million turnover pharmacy. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: And somebody say, yeah, the market's 70 PE in a pound. Yeah, yeah. But, um, the renting one might be 5,000. Yeah. And another pharmacy might be 50,000. Yeah. So it's not factoring that in.

So you've gotta factor all those things, but it's good to use that as a ratio, as a sense check. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Okay. And 

Nitin Koria: then the number one factor. The number one secret. Yeah. If you like, that drives valuation of the business is location, location, location. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Okay. Okay. That's it. So what happens is we get a lot of pharmacies come our way to turn around and say, do you want to buy these pharmacies?

Mm-hmm. Now, obviously when it comes to what the market price is, the market price is the market price, but what it's worth to us is what it's worth to us. Absolutely. Yeah. We don't really care what the market price is. Yeah.  If someone wants to pay more than what we want to pay for it. Yeah. But it's not, yeah.

It's not. And I've got a secret, secret valuation method that I've never, ever told anyone before. A secret one. And no one uses right drum roll now? Yeah. No one uses my secret valuation method. And what is 

Sheelpa Koria: it, boo? 

Boo Dhaliwal: It's one single figure. I use one figure and it values the whole pharmacy for me. Shocking, isn't it?

Yeah. So what's the figure? No, get to 

GROUP DIALOGUE: it. Come on. Gimme a break. I'm gonna build up to it, right? 

Boo Dhaliwal: Okay. I'm gonna give you some history. Lemme give you some background of where this one figure has managed to tell me and everything will guide me through my whole buying process for the last 20 years. Yeah.

Yeah. So. What happens is, right when it comes to, when it comes to pharmacies, obviously you have all the standard costs that you have as standard. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Whether it's rent rates, you've gotta look at everything. Generally, you look at it in the round. Yeah. But I think there's one figure that I find that if it's not correct, I cannot work with that pharmacy personally.

Yeah. It's  almost like my gateway figure and that generally that one figure, and it varies from. Uh, person to person, but I've got a way of figuring out what it would be to me, which is gross margin. Yeah. So the gross margin is once you've obviously, yeah. You, once you've read this for the, it's not for you.

I know you people. I mean, God. Explain gross. Taking notes now. Gross margin. Why am I traing? 

Nitin Koria: I have my proper traing. Do what I mean. Gone. Do you wanna explain what gross margin is? Yeah, look, yeah. You're taking your total sales, whether it's from prescriptions, services, um, over the counter and whatever else you've got in there.

Yeah. Less the cost of doing those sales. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Less the cost, which is based The price of drugs. Yeah, the price of drugs. Now, what happens is the gross margin can vary from 35% to 25%, 35% gross margin is a good pharmacy. Yeah. 25% is a bad pharmacy. You tend to find, if it's a low gross margin, it's very difficult to make this up in.

Any other form, you can do a lot of services, but to make that up is  hard work. Yeah. You can't actually get there easily. And even then, if you bought the pharmacy that was doing 35% gross margin, you wouldn't have to do that much work. It's a fraction of the amount of work. Yeah. The problem is gross margin is buying and everyone buys at different values, so it's very difficult to work out what your gross margin would be on a shop, on a pharmacy.

But there's one figure in those PPDs that I always look at, and this is my gateway one. And that's average item value. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And the reason why I look at average item value is mainly because if it's a high average item value, I know that they don't have as many category M products. Yeah. In there, it's a lot more brands and my margin's gonna be reduced.

So as well as that, if there's two or three monthly prescribing by the gps, the average item goes up. So if the average item is about eight pound. Great gateway criteria met. If the average item is 1112 pound, I don't really want to know this pharmacy. Yeah, so this pharmacy could be turng up at 1.5 million turnover, and it has a low average, it has a high average item value.

Sometimes  I'll turn around and say, I didn't wanna buy it, and people don't understand why do you know? You know, this is going only for 60 P in the pound. It's like, I can't work with it. I can't do anything with this and they don't get it. That I cannot, I cannot overcome that lack of margin because that is.

It can be done. Yeah. So an owner manager can buy it. Yeah, they can work. Do it with gps, you can change prescribing, you can do a lot of stuff. And you can do a lot of extra services on the side to try and do it's hard work. Yeah. And that is my, that gateway criteria I use. And that affects a lot of the pharmac.

Although every pharmacy might be, let's say, a million turnover and every, they all sell for roughly similar prices. They, I value them completely different just 'cause of that. But anyway, that's my secret formula. That's really good. Yeah, I've been, been, now everyone knows. So basically my little, my little, my little advantage that I've had for the last 20 years is that I've blown up with my face.

Do you know what I mean? When it comes to, when it comes to pharmacies, um, I always  say that there's no such thing really there is from us personally, but there's no such thing as a good or bad pharmacy. I think there's good or bad operators. So what happens is. There's a pharmacy and someone will say, yeah, that's a really good pharmacy.

And it's like, look, if five people ran that pharmacy in five years time or 10 years time, you're gonna have five completely different outcomes. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So if you think about it, so sometimes I'll turn around and say, look, it's okay, but it's not the business. It's you. Have you got what it takes to wanna make this a success?

Because the business can only do so much, just make sure it's not a complete lemon. Make sure it's not a complete lemon that's gonna drag you down. Mm-hmm. Other than that, it's all about you, because like what you make of this, there's no point in me saying it's a bad pharmacy because you might come in and make it stellar.

Yeah. Whereas someone else can take a stellar pharmacy and make it. Pants. Right? Yeah. Yeah. No, and 

Nitin Koria: and we've seen it with the pharmacies we've sold. Okay. People positive way, let, let use  examples. You've been selling lemons again. Yeah. They're making the lemons into profitable, I should say lemonade. Yeah.

You've seen some businesses where people, two years ago, that required doing 4,000 items. They're working in the pharmacy, they're now doing 16,000, 15, 16,000 items. Wow. And you're going, how's that possible? That person's gonna be knackered though. Yeah. They're gonna have lost their hair. Yeah. They're gonna be exhausted.

I mean, the wife's gonna be in the business. The kids are gonna be in the business. They, and, and, uh, I was chatting to a, um, I was chatting to a buyer yesterday and I said I was trying to sell this business. It's a seven day a week business. Yeah. And I said, it's a really good business. Really profitable.

Fits your profile of what your group's after. And then in the end, he said, oh, listen, the only problem is it's like Saturday and Sunday. Long hours. Yeah. And I said, what's the problem with that? Yeah. And he goes, I don't think my wife will let me, uh, operate another one over 

Boo Dhaliwal: the weekends. Sort of. Uh, the other thing I want to come to is a lot of first time buyers will always turn around and say, I don't get it.

The people will all not sell to me. They'll end up selling to a group operator. Now, me being a group  operator, I can fully understand why no one would want to sell to a first time buyer quickly. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Your hard work. Your hard work. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But do you wanna just tell us from your point of view, um, you don't want to put 'em off it because it might be your customers, but you wanna tell us from your point of view, the kind of challenges first time buyers might have as opposed to people who've been doing it for years and why someone who's selling would rather probably sell to a, a group of rep.

I 

Sheelpa Koria: think it's credibility. Um, you know, and also finance, it's, it's first time buyers understanding the finance, what's involved because the focus just seems to be on, right? I need to get. X amount of deposit. Mm-hmm. It's not just that, it's the cash flow you'll need when you, the doors open, you go in. Yeah.

You've got staff to pay, you've got rent to pay. Um, the money coming back from the NHS is probably gonna be three months. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yep. 

Sheelpa Koria: If you're lucky. And it's the whole process of, of getting all your systems in place. Et But we, you know, we do hold their hand. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. 

Sheelpa Koria: Um, you know, we do, um, on the  finance side, we, we, you know, steer them to credible finance.

Um, brokers who can help them. Um, but, but that is the biggest thing is the finance. 

Boo Dhaliwal: You think that's where they fall down a lot of the time? I think there's, generally there's a lot more jitteriness obviously, because they're a first time buyer, so it might require a lot more handholding from a Defitely.

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. So in terms of, in terms of, from a, your perspective. It's obviously gonna be a lot more handholding if somebody's never done something before. Right. And that's our process. But you guys are there to help them, right? 

Sheelpa Koria: Yeah, that's our process. So we just don't sell the pharmacy. We, every week we have a call with the buyer, with the seller, and we talk them through change of ownership.

Have you, you know, speaking to, spoken to the landlord, whatever needs doing. You know, we are there for them and until the door's open, and it might be, look, I need, um, advice on PMR suppliers or what have you. So with with our contacts, you know, we, we pull 'em in and we, we help them. But the, the great thing is that some of these first time  buyers and, and what I really find satisfying about my, the job I do, and what I think we both do, don't we, is, is we've seen these people blossom.

Yeah. So the ones who get it right, they've bought their first one 18 months, they're buying their second, they're refinancing. Mm-hmm. Because they've, they've built the equity. Yeah. And, and they're, you know, and we've got one chap that we are working with. He's on his 14th or 15th one in a space of three years.

Boo Dhaliwal: Blind me. Yeah. 

Sheelpa Koria: You know, and, and seeing his journey and how he's developed as a person. 

Nitin Koria: Yeah. 

Sheelpa Koria: Is is so satisfying. 

Nitin Koria: Yeah. And, and it's also, I mean, these first time they've got great stories and it's like how we're changing their lives. Yeah. It's not that just, it's not just another pharmacy they're buying.

Yeah. Yeah. And suddenly you've seen them. It's, it's important. This is special. You know what I mean? Is like, this is still special. You know, we told a first time buyer, um, last week that their offer had been accepted on the pharmacy. Yeah. They're absolutely delighted. You know, they're really excited. Wait till he starts working.

Yeah, exactly. That go. It's the  honeymoon period. Generally if I tell, if I tell a regional multiple they a pharmacy. Exactly. It's like, oh, alright. Okay. How we gonna, how we gonna operate it? Right. You know? You know, we've gotta operate it. But also, you know, you go back to sort of like corporates, like we're doing a lot of corporate sales.

They prefer selling to the regional multiples. Yeah. Why? Because less handholding. Yeah. Massive. And that could be, um. From a finance perspective. Yeah. A lot of these guys, they'll get cash deals. Yeah. They'll take risk around property. Mm-hmm. Uh, and uh, everything else. Whereas first timers, they want every box ticked.

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. So, you know, like it, it. It's, it's, it's good that you mentioned the cost of pharmacies and how it starts hitting you straight away. The cost base of a pharmacy. Yeah. Yeah. And 'cause there's, there's been, you know, in the news recently there's a group, uh, jus pharmacy that have gone into admistration.

They've been taken over by Allied now. Jus have been having a lot of issues. That dues, again, I think it's a, it's a trading name, so it's within a certain amount.  Unlimited compaes have gone into admistration now. I know that they've been sold, but I was looking at that particular, I was looking at the, a lot of the pharmacies, not, not for sale, but just looking at them because they'd been closed.

A lot of them, they actually have not been open. Now, to take something like that on, you gotta have some kahunas. So I know this allied group has taken 'em on, but you gotta have some serious. Guts. Yeah. Because that is, is, I think the problem is, I mean, from my perspective, the problem is when something's been closed and you open it up, the cost hits you straight away.

Absolutely. So you've got your staffing cost straight away, your rent rate, God knows how many, even the landlords, how many deposits are they gonna want? How many? It's phenomenal. And then you've gotta stock it up as well. You could be hundreds of thousands in per pharmacy. Yeah. And you've got multiple pharmacies.

Wow. Yeah. That is, that is, that is, that is something else. I, I dunno how anyone's got the like, Ooh.  It's just, 

Sheelpa Koria: but I think it's a huge gamble. I'm actually worried for them. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: But respect to, you know, we about risk profile. Yeah. Right. So some operators. I keep talking about risk profile, entrepreneurial mindset.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. If you've got those two, no risk, no reward, right? Absolutely. Yeah. No risk. So it's, um, high risk, high reward. Yeah. I, and 

Boo Dhaliwal: that's, I think people don't realize that when, if things pan out and there is reward at the end, people don't realize the amount of risks you've taken at the start of your any business journey.

Yes. And the risks are high, whether it's. Buying the, buying that group, or even just leaving leaving ah, h for 20 years or whatever. Yeah. The risks 

Sheelpa Koria: are high. 

Boo Dhaliwal: The risk are high. It's not only 

Sheelpa Koria: financial, but it's emotional risk and an emotional, you know, and, and the emotional sacrifices you make. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yep. 

Sheelpa Koria: To, to buy that first pharmacy to set up a business.

Yep. You know, um, you know, our whole family is involved in the business. Yeah. We're all driven, but then that can have its challenges as well. And the same with pharmacy businesses as well. You know, we find that the,  the, um, most businesses are family owned regional multiples. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. 

Sheelpa Koria: Um, and they're into sort of second generation now and third generation leading those businesses.

Boo Dhaliwal: It was so easy to value pharmacy. Even us as, as a buyer, it was easy to value a pharmacy because a lot of it was based around the NHS contract with all these private services coming on. Yeah. Yeah. For us. Trying to value something now it's got so difficult because sometimes there's certain services that you think I can work with that I can make them even better.

Mm-hmm. There's certain services I'm thinking, man, I'm gonna make this go down the pan if I take this on. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, for example, something like a lot of pharmacies have started going into aesthetics and Botox and stuff like that. Yeah. Um, so when they do, when you, when you do go into something like aesthetics, the customer is.

Really, uh, they go in to see their professional and that person, they know the person who's admistering them. Yeah. It's almost like the person you get your like, I don't know. Haircut from or  something. They know they're going to see that person. It's not something that's interchangeable. So how do you guys value something that has, uh, a lot of private services that might be a bit more che, even though that's not really che, but you know what I mean?

Right. Yeah. 

Sheelpa Koria: A lot more risk attached. Yes. Yeah, yeah, 

Boo Dhaliwal: yeah. Because I can't give this a five, 10 year timeframe. No, I can't look at the EBITDA on net earngs of that and give it a multiple of 7, 8, 9, 10. I used to. When I used to see something that was a bit unusual, I used to give that element of it a multiple of about two to three.

That's what I used to give it. Max. Yeah. Yeah. When it was, and even then, that's if I'd want to take it on. So how, how do you guys approach something like that? 

Nitin Koria: I, I mean, it's a really good question because we've got a lot of businesses at the moment where the mix is changing. If you think traditionally, what we say NHS 90, uh, 90% services, OTC 10%.

Yeah. Um, but. That's increasing now with private services. So there's a nervousness. So the first question people are asking, um, buyers are asking where we're selling a pharmacy that's doing high  private services is right. Who's it driven by in the, in the team? Is it that? Pharmacy, the current owner, pharmacy owner, then you're, you're devaluing.

Yeah. Straight away. If the pharmacy owner says, yeah, I've been doing this for 10 years, and, you know, everybody knows me, and, and straight away, that's like alarm bells from a valuation perspective. So you start to de-risk and other times it's like actually the whole team's trained up, which goes back to the whole workforce.

Thing, um, that Oh, people come in and, you know, then it's not just reliant on that pharmacist. So that becomes a big factor. Who's delivering those private services? If you said to me it's the seller. Yeah. Solely that's a risk. Yeah. To that valuation. Then you're back in that. Okay, we're gonna devalue that.

The other thing I wanna 

Boo Dhaliwal: talk about is rent. Yeah. Especially health center rent. Yeah. Oh, we've had some stinkers and we have, we've had to de. We, we've sold a couple that had, uh, high rent, so moved, one that had sigficantly higher rent. We can't make them work. Yeah, yeah. Are the people making high rent?

 And when we say high rent, what, what would you call, Ugh. Maybe the mic there. Uh, what would you, what would you call high rent for, uh, for a NHS business in a health center? What, what do you call, because this is all perspective, right? 

Nitin Koria: Yeah. Yeah. So, and again, almost take back a step, right? Yeah. So, so why did these high, why do these high rents exist?

Yeah. Go. These leases were signed 20, 30 years ago. Remember when the government were building new health centers? Yep. Upgrading GP premises. It was all the rage and pharmacies were going in. Yeah. But what was the funding model then? Yeah, I think it's sigficantly higher than it is now. Mm-hmm. So even those rents were high, it didn't matter.

And also a lot of them are linked to inflation. Inflation was low. Mm-hmm. So, great. So there's reviews, people didn't really feel or 

Boo Dhaliwal: linked to patient as well, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Three pound a 

Nitin Koria: patient or whatever it is, and linked to patient, not so a, and again, there was no EPS. Yeah. When those leases were signed, there was no, or mimal, um, EPS.

And so that's electroc prescriptions, if  anyone's alone, electroc prescriptions. So a health center would probably capture 60, 70% of prescriptions then. Yeah. Now, so a health center pharmacy doing half that. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: Is is probably about right. So if you look at, you know, that's gone down. There's, and the rents continue to go.

So it's not, I guess it's not fit for purpose. Yeah. The rental model. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Are you seeing, uh, are you seeing, uh, landlords, uh, understanding this and them going, started going downwards? I found that they're still holding firm and just gotta move. Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: Yeah. Is it, it's mix, so mm-hmm. We act for landlords. Okay.

There's sometimes for health centers on the other side. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And um, and one of my big clients that owns a lot of health centers around the country mm-hmm. They said, listen, we just wanna be fair. With a pharmacy. So that's the first, yeah, it defitely was a 

Boo Dhaliwal: NHS property services, because I can tell you that because we've had to deal with NHS property services, and I sit there thinking, you know what, number one, they're not being fair.

And I think it's ridiculous the fact that actually the  NHS is the cause of all the. Difficulty in terms of funding and then they try and give, give you rent, which is ridiculous. Absolutely. But anyway, yeah. So, so that's a very friendly landlord property services that 

Nitin Koria: probably owns, um, a lot if your landlord of one of theirs.

Yeah. They'll look at it fairly. They want a tenant at the end of the day. Yeah. Providing services in their health center. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: Um, but some other landlords, maybe like the ones you mentioned, like NHS property services, so, um, trickier. So they're sticking, but why are they doing that? Because they outsource.

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: Um, for advice on rentals. People giving that advice. It's still using old methodology. Yeah. Which is 20 years out date now. Yeah. And that's changing, but it's not happeng quick enough. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. I mean they can only use the new leases signed and slowly, slowly. Yeah. They're all coming 

Nitin Koria: out. Coming out the washing.

Yeah. So a lot of people are talking and negotiating, but how many have come out the other end? There's not many. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: Okay. Okay. In 

Boo Dhaliwal: terms of now, um, loans, quickly borrowing, what's the rate? What are people getting? Pharmacy businesses, 

Sheelpa Koria:  2% above base. I think it seems to be the norm. I think that's good. 

Boo Dhaliwal: That's what it's settled down to.

Yeah. Yeah. Two, two and a half I'd say. 

Sheelpa Koria: But it depends what operator you are and what relationship you've got with a bank as well. If you're a first time buyer, you're not really known in the industry. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. You 

Sheelpa Koria: know, it can be a bit more difficult or you are more seen as a risk profile. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. 

Sheelpa Koria: Um, but you know, if it's somebody you know, maybe a touch would go when you know you've got more relationships with the bank.

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've 

Sheelpa Koria: got leverage. So, but 2% seems to be. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Seems to be around, seems to be the, around the norm, around the cir, around 2%. Okay. And in terms of what, what's the appetite like for lenders? Are they still keen on pharmacy or are they being a lot more tentative? 

Sheelpa Koria: I think, I think there still is appetite for pharmacy, um, with lenders.

I think, um, it's, it's capturing those lenders. At the, the right moment in time, you know, so, so, so, so, you know, after the 

Boo Dhaliwal: team has just won the game or something. Yeah, that's right. So, so there 

Sheelpa Koria: still, there still is,  there's still, um, I think, um, people need to shop around. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. 

Sheelpa Koria: Um, you know, but, but yeah, there's absolutely, there still is healthcare.

There still is appetite generally as a whole. And pharmacy. 

Nitin Koria: Yeah, I think lot. Um. High street banks are still lending, right? That's the headline. Yeah. You see it. But what we are seeing as agents is there's more hurdles the guys are gonna jump over. Okay. So they're absolutely still lending covenants and stuff like that.

Yeah. You mean like quite literally they're just making it? Yeah. It's just more and more information needed. Yeah. Off the bar. They're interested like the person as well, which is, isn't wrong actually. Yeah. You know, what's your business plan? How are you going to drive? They're trying to understand the person.

Um, so we actually recommend, rather than going direct to. Lenders go through brokers. Yeah. 

Boo Dhaliwal: What kind of, uh, so broker, we've never used a broker for pharmacy deals, but I'm assuming it's easier because then they can hit 2, 3, 4 lenders with just, and it's easier for them. They know what information the lenders 

GROUP DIALOGUE: need.

That's it. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. 

Nitin Koria: And, and, and then they can do your, because the important, remember, especially when you're buying poor performing  stores. Yeah. It's all about what you are gonna bring to the table 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: With that pharmacy. So they'll help you build that forecast. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Alright. Okay. 

Nitin Koria: That, that would be believable for the banks, um, to lend.

Boo Dhaliwal: Okay. Uh, the other side, I mean we've talked a lot about valuations 'cause it's interesting. Everyone wants to know about the money side of things. Regulatory side of things. Now, this is a boring side of things. I don't like it, but it has to be done right. And you guys specialize in regulatory side of things.

Now you're gonna have to keep the viewers engaged while explaing what I mean by regulatory. Do who wants to handle this one missing, can handle that. Who wants to handle, I'm sure, sure. Got a view on regulatory. What's the regulatory 

Nitin Koria: team doing? No. So, uh, so regulatory, when we talk about regulatory in, in our world, so otherwise known as market entry, so we're talking about.

Um, if you want to do anything with the pharmacy. Yeah. So whether that's changing an ownership Yeah. Whether that's, uh, moving it. Yeah. Whether that's move, uh, merging it or dare I say even new contract opportuties. Yep. Um, so any of that we help clients with.  It's highly regulated, so you've gotta deal with the NHS rules and regulations around that and statutory periods around that, and GPHC as well.

So we deal with the NHS side and the GPHC side for the customers, and that's the side ckel leads in the business. And he's got his team now that drive that forward. And the reason we've really grown that side as well. 'cause what we find for a client, it's like. In all walks of life, isn't it? We want to be a one stop shop.

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: So if you come to us for a pharmacy sale, we want you in the future to use us for regulatory, to move a pharmacy. And that's what happens. Quite a lot. Well, yeah. You build up your network, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, but the 

Sheelpa Koria: interesting thing about regulatory, we've got some regional operators that Nitin sort of is the safeguard 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah.

Sheelpa Koria: So to speak. So they'll be like, have you done this? Have you done that? And Nitins, you know, they're, they're openg the shop and what have you. Oh really? You know, and Nitin is like, have you done this? And they're like, oh no. Can you sort it out for me? Can you sort you? So we're like the sort of the, this is the SOS and we get phone calls that, yeah.

Sort of 10 o'clock at ght. I haven't  done this, I haven't done that. And it's like, don't worry, I'll get sorted. Well, I 

Boo Dhaliwal: think this is probably a USP as a, as a, as a as a company. Right? So the, in terms of, in terms of pharmacy sales and regulatory right? There's, there's actually not a lot of players in the market.

Yeah. In terms of the industry, there's not a massive amount. Yeah. Um, and I think, uh, generally, and they are all good. Yeah. They are all good, right? Yeah, absolutely. So everyone, everyone there, 'cause we've, I mean, especially when it comes to pharmacy sales, you use everyone, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, everyone and everyone's.

That's a good bunch. I've gotta say we've been quite blessed in the industry for the people we have, but in terms of uqueness, I don't think any one of them that I can think of off the top of my head, none of them are family business. Yeah. Strictly only a family business. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Whereas you guys are, yeah, and I think that probably means a bit more, a bit more personal touch.

Mobile phone. I can call you anytime, right? Yeah, yeah, you can. I just, I've just resigned. 

Nitin Koria: Designed to now. Yeah. Might be used to it might. And, and that is, look, um, we are, um, you, everybody's accessible, but.  Family members in particular. Yeah. So we weekends and um, every weekend we'll have calls. Yeah. Uh, evengs we'll have calls that we'll be on WhatsApp seems to be the, it 

Boo Dhaliwal: must be fun family dinner.

Right. Uh, that must be fun times when you've got literally the whole family 

involved in 

Sheelpa Koria: the same, you know, we try and have, so I try and have, so like an hour we are not gonna talk about work. We did work maximum 15 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. And it just comes back. But you know what, it's so ce in, when I take a step back and I look at everybody flourishing, you know, the boys are flourishing.

Yeah. And, and we do have heated debates as well. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. You 

Sheelpa Koria: know, but at the end of the day, um, everybody has the same motive to drive the business forward. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And, and give a good service. I think. I think now we are working with Nitin and, and, mm-hmm. Coming from an outside pharmacy. Yeah.

You know, I think, and I'm not just being soft here, but I think, look, pharmacy are a great bunch of entrepreneurs. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

Sheelpa Koria: I really do. I think so. I think so. I think there are a great bunch of entrepreneurs, you know, we've built up some really good  relationships with customers who are now friends.

Yeah. They come in, they'll ring me and say, oh, we're around the corner. We're coming, put the samos on. I'm like, oh, okay. We get the samosas done. You know, you're welcome. And you know, and I think, I think that's, that's what we've built. Okay. You know, and we wanna continue building that. 

Boo Dhaliwal: I think this podcast has gone really well, but Nitin walked in today and he ruined it right from the start, right?

So I don't know whether the viewers know, but we have a, we have a pool table downstairs, and every now and again someone comes in and says they want to game a pool. Now, I dunno whether you know Nitin, but it's like ce to not beat the person who's actual it is. And I thought Nitin, he might come in and he might be okay, but.

He's a phenomenal player. That, and then afterwards he, he didn't tell me, but he wanted to be a professional snooker player. Right. Yeah. So it's like, it's the sort of thing you wanna mention to someone before you have a game of pool with him. Do you know what I mean? He just came and anhilated me. I sat there thinking, I think I'm gonna have all seven balls on the table.

And I wasn't expecting it. 'cause he turns up in his, he turns up in his suit.  He's been in healthcare. Oh, I was thinking, right. Yeah. He wants to play. We'll have a game of pool, it'd be all right. And then he just went different mode. Yeah. Like it is like something 

Nitin Koria: else. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. What happened? Nitin, you could have been a professional SN player.

What happened? 

Nitin Koria: I mean, that, that, that, that's a story, right? So, um, I mean I went into a really, um, I studied at really stuff, a really rough inner city Yeah. School in Coventry, right? Okay. That's the only defition. Everybody will know the name of that school just by that. Just by that defition. Yeah. So if you turned up to lessons, that was frowned upon.

Right. Okay. So the objections and Yeah. Everybody now talks about private education. I had private education back then. Our class sizes were about a level. Our class sizes were five to six because nobody in that school did A levels right. Okay. Um, but as a result of that, what happened was that there was a snooker hall down the road from the school.

So every lunchtime. Would be down the Snook Hall. Yeah. So this is at sort of 14, 15 years old. And so what you suddenly found was you were playing a snooker every day for an hour. Yeah. And sometimes  it turned two, three hours. Um, apart from once, um, you, I remember physics A level, um, uh. It was a class of five.

Yeah. And, um, only one person turned up to the class. So that chap said, um, the teacher goes, where is everybody? And he grasses all up. He said, they're all down the Snu Hall. No way. Yeah. And the, the, this teacher, this physics teacher came down the SNU hall, gave us all a slap and got us back into, so, so basically from a very young age Yeah.

We had played and like with anything, I guess you do, yeah. If you practice enough, yeah, you get pretty good at it. And then when I went to uversity, I'll continue to, um, play as well. But even before that, um, you know. When you're 16, you know, my parents really supported us and wanted us to study, and they said, what do you want to do?

Yeah. And I said, I, I said to my mom, I wanna be a professional snooker player as you do, as you, as you do. Then she's really 

Boo Dhaliwal: wanted, he spends all his time at school how to exactly wanna do something like this as 

Nitin Koria: to play er, and uh, at that point she said, get proper job. Right. Right. And then the proper job was, um.

 That network my parents had. Yeah. A lot of the children, pharmacists and what they learned from pharmacy was, it was almost a guaranteed job. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: Post uversity. So they said, right, you're doing pharmacy. Okay, so that's your snooker clear. Yeah. Career over. Yeah. Instantly. And I'll continue to do it and still improve that uversity.

To be fair, I, I, I was president of the snooker club at uversity. You'd 

Boo Dhaliwal: think, you know, when someone's play, you'd think they'd mention something like that. You know what I mean? Not a friendly game of pool. And I'm sitting there thinking, hold on, I'm just getting destroyed here. What's, what's this happeng?

I know when we bought a house, boo, you 

Sheelpa Koria: know, one of the rooms, he goes, I wanna have a snooker, a snooker table. I said, well, snooker table won't fit. He goes, we'll do an extension. I said, you're not over my dead body. Um, and, and he, but he, we do have a pool table at home. Well, I'm not 

Nitin Koria: surprised judging the way he plays bloody old.

Yeah. So, so yeah. So it's one of those, look, I, I would love to now still continue to play, but I mean, hardly, hardly play that. Yeah. You hardly, 

Boo Dhaliwal: well, you could have, could have fooled me. Right. Um, the other thing I've, I've gotta mention to you  guys. We, the podcast has been extremely popular. Very popular, and what we're finding is that a lot of people are coming on board and, sorry, a lot of our guests are coming and the exposure that they're getting, especially for compaes if they represent what have you, is really, really, really good.

Which is good 'cause I like to, I'd like to promote pharmacies, anything that's happeng within pharmacy world anyway. But with all this exposure, I thought, right. Let me see if I can get something else out of my guests. Mm-hmm. 

GROUP DIALOGUE: And 

Boo Dhaliwal: I thought it's time for a shakedown now. Yeah. So what I decided was if guests are coming and we are gonna give them exposure, I've asked each one of the, I'm gonna start asking our guests to see if they can donate something to charity and something that's close to them, and we give you guys exposure and at the same time.

Something good that can come out of it at the same time. So, Nitin, what's your charity? Uh, why and how much are you donate? How much 

Nitin Koria: are we donating? Right. So, so, uh, look at, look at them looking at each other.  So, so I actually, no, I actually, I actually spoke a couple of charities. I'm part of, um, good Lines, um, which is a international charity.

Oh yeah. So they, yeah. So they do, um, local. Support local charities right through to international work. So, and part of that, but the other charity that I'm involved with at the moment where I'm a trustee, um, which is gonna do great things, yeah. Is a company called, uh, tipping wa. 

Boo Dhaliwal: And what does Tiffin Tiffin 

Nitin Koria: do?

Right. So Tiffin by is give Tiffin the food. Yeah, the food. Food. So food delivery, food prep and delivery service. Right. Okay. And everybody's going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's millions of those. That's called Uber. Yeah. Yeah. And all that. So where this came about, a few of us, like-minded people. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: Um, we thought, where's the gap in the market within our, our commuties itially, but it was focused on elderly.

Mm-hmm. There's a lot of elderly people now. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: That, um, live alone or even as a couple. Yeah. And guess what? They don't. Eat properly. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: They don't, they'll say, what shall I cook? I'm not gonna cook. Especially in that Asian culture. Yeah.  They'll go, I don't cook, I'll just have a slice of toast. Yeah.

Right. So they're not eating nourishing. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: Um, food. So we've seen that with our own eyes. Yeah. With family. So we said for those people, how about we, um, prepare food? 

GROUP DIALOGUE: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: Uh, might start a couple of days a week. Yeah. Uh, give 'em a, uh, send them a tiff in and get it delivered. Charge. But, but here's the thing I 

Boo Dhaliwal: would assume for your charge, it's a charity, right?

If you turned around, it's a good little money earner. Like, hold on. Yeah, yeah. But 

Nitin Koria: it's 50 50. So what we're saying for pensioners Yeah. We are gonna do it. Um, we want to do it free of charge. Yeah. Right? Absolutely. So we know, and their families actually know, um, their parents are getting a nourishing meal.

Is really good. A couple of times a week delivered, delivered to their doorstep. Yeah. And, and to fund that, obviously we're dependent on donations, so everybody listeng to podcasts feel free to donate. Yeah, well just 

Boo Dhaliwal: send us your, uh, send us the details and we'll stick it at the bomb. 

Nitin Koria: Yeah. So, you know, feel free to donate, but also we said the youngsters. 

You and me, boo. Yeah. We said, you know, we might want to tiff, we might fancy a tiffin. Yeah. Right. So we said, but we are gonna pay. Okay. So we'll pay whatever it is. Yeah. So, but that's normal, right? Yeah. A lot of people offer that service. Yeah. So there's a paid service, but that's too, but obviously the. It's for the charity, right?

It's for the charity. You can make money for the charity. This is not, not for profit. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we've, we've done our numbers and stuff so we know, you know, what we need to make it happen. So we we're about to launch that actually in January. Okay. So we're going through all the approvals. So tvo set up.

Boo Dhaliwal: Okay. 

Nitin Koria: Um, and how 

Boo Dhaliwal: much, how much would you like to donate for that then? So we are going to, I'm gonna, but I 

Sheelpa Koria: think we'll donate a thousand pounds itially. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Well, that's great. Yeah, that what a great, there you go. A thousand pounds. So I'm gonna make sure this podcast, anyone who comes on, I'm gonna keep adding it up.

So this right now, a thousand pound pledge. Good one. Yeah. Um, now, now my side hustle. I still got my merch going on. Yeah. Oh yeah. I've still got, what do you think? 

Is a is a bit, it's a bit tight, but uh, I should have got one size bigger. But yeah, I've still got my merch happeng. Um, even though I've got all this merch, you'll be shocked to learn this. I've actually sold zero. Absolutely zero actually. Really? Well, we haven't listed it yet, so really gonna, uh, I think it's probably listed.

We're supposed to be listing it imminently. Yeah. So I've sold zero, so I'm not surprised. Yeah. And to be honest. I think it's gonna be fantastic, but just to make sure it is at the same time, whatever we sell, I'm gonna match it in terms of charity as well. Whatever the value of the product is. Yeah. Not the cost, price, the value of any of the merch that we sell for Make Pharmacy great.

Again, I will match that in terms of charity donations. Yeah. Um, I've gotta be mindful here just in case. We sell an absolute shed load and I'll bankrupt myself. Yeah. And the flipping at the lower, so I might have to cap it at some point.  Yeah. But I think that'd be a ce problem. Yeah. But not for me. It won't be a ce problem.

Do you know what I mean? As I see, since we support a local charities called Alexander Divine, um, they're in lau. We've been swimming for years and I think we'll probably put anything that we donate towards, towards them. Um, but yeah, so hopefully some good comes outta the podcast as well. Right? That's brilliant.

Sheelpa Koria: Absolutely. Where can I buy 

Boo Dhaliwal: the merch? 

Sheelpa Koria: Yeah, 

Boo Dhaliwal: pharmacy planet.com. 

Sheelpa Koria: Perfect. Pharmacy planet.com. We'll take 10, Liz, 

Boo Dhaliwal: we haven't got the link right. Okay. Forward slash nothing. Forward slash tc. Alright. Just look at the, just look at the link below here now. Okay. Right from there. Yeah. Okay. We will buy 

Sheelpa Koria: hoodies 

Boo Dhaliwal: for our team.

Yeah. Yeah, you can buy, you can buy hoodies for the team by anyone. For right guys. Well thanks for coming on the Pharmacy Planet podcast. Thank you. No, thank you for having us. Your questions. Oh, sugar. I've forgot about it. Gimme the questions. Oh,  these podcasts are gonna be getting longer and longer isn't it?

Just about is going up. I dunno whether you guys, uh, seen the last podcast with, uh, Adele, but we are now AI powered podcast. Right? Okay. So it's all about artificial intelligence powered podcast. Triple the valuation now. Yeah. Yeah. Triple, triple valuation now. So we've gone from zero to zero bit like pharmacy valuation.

Yeah. So yeah. So now because we're AI powered, I've pulled up my AI powered questions Okay. For, uh, for you guys. So you know how the quickfire questions work. Is this, like, I'm not sure which one, uh, who, who to direct this at. Yeah. I'm gonna just have to, I'll have to Oh, Sheelpa will do it. I'll just, no, I'll have to alternate.

Yeah. Um, right. Sheelpa. Mm-hmm. Uh, have perfect hair day every day, or never have to do laundry again. Which one would I prefer? Yeah, this it one of the sexiest questions because now I'm giving it to she. You know what I mean? What's the laundry with? She probably sitting there. He does the laundry. Why are you asking me?

I don't have to do it anyway. Yeah, he 

Sheelpa Koria:  does the irong actually. Yeah. There you go. 

Boo Dhaliwal: I'm a top ironer. All right. Okay. Alright, so pool player, pool, shark, and top ironer. Yeah. Right. Got it. Right. Anyway, so in your case, have perfect hair day every day, or never have to do laundry again. 

Sheelpa Koria: Never have to do laundry.

Boo Dhaliwal: Why? Why I never have to do laundry. You, you're on perfect hair, right? All 

Sheelpa Koria: the time. No, but, but you, I just talk to customers. Don't, and they don't see me. I'll be in my pajamas and I'm talking to 'em. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Okay? Okay. So, uh, alright, , and you're up next. Stay in with a takeaway or ght out with friends. It depends which friends,

I bet your pharmacy customers hundred percent 

Nitin Koria: out 

Boo Dhaliwal: with this. No, no, for God. Stan with takeaway or not out with friends? Oh, stay staying with, take away Stan. With Really? Yeah. You're such a sociable person. I can't imagine him being, staying with takeaway. Out with friends anytime. Are you saying that just because she's here, you making it seem 

like you don't like to go out normally?

No. I prefer to stay in,  I always home at 10 o'clock at ght. It's, I, I work with my family and I want to stay at home with my family, and I never wanted to leave my family home. Ever. Yeah. Yes. She, yeah. That's, that's the answer. That's the, that was the answer. Okay. Cool. 

Uh, someone gives you 1 million pound, what is the first thing you're buying?

What's the first 

Sheelpa Koria: thing I'm buying? 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah, this one's gonna go to you as well, Nate. And so one at a time. 

Sheelpa Koria: What's the first thing I'm buying? 

Boo Dhaliwal: You've been given a million pound. I, 

Sheelpa Koria: I'll, I'll be giving some of it to, uh, charity. Tiff Ro? 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Sheelpa Koria: And I think I would get my car. My new car. 

Boo Dhaliwal: And what would your new car be?

Sheelpa Koria: It would be a Porsche. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Ooh, lovely, lovely. Why can't you buy a Porsche anyway, ck? She's got one already. Oh, right. You mean another one? 

A replacement. 

Nitin Koria: How many do you need a replacement? Replacement? Downsizing because, uh, Sheelpa uses a current Porsche as a bumper car.

Boo Dhaliwal: So, uh, Nitin, you got a million pound, what's the first thing you're buying? I reckon it's a pool hall. Snooker hall. Is it Ook Hall Now what, what do you buy for a million  pound? What I buy for a million pound 

Sheelpa Koria: pharmacy?

Nitin Koria: Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's defitely, uh, give as much as I can to charities. Yeah. Um, defitely. Look, um, life's been good to us, so I think we are at stage defitely wanna start giving back. So that's the, I think 

Boo Dhaliwal: I'm, I'm very well, you know, who's. Last week, like I was saying, I had AADE on and honestly the amount of stuff that she does.

Commuty minded. Yeah, absolutely. And it made me think, man, I'm doing nothing. Yeah. I'm doing nothing. I spend most of my time just watching football, chilling. 

Nitin Koria: It's time to give back. Right? Yeah. And, and, and that and defitely rather than materials, I think trouble. We got bad trouble. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Yeah. 

Nitin Koria: So I think world's a huge place.

Yeah. So, so where's 

Boo Dhaliwal: next on the destination list with your laptops? Mals in the right time zones. Maldives, I'll tell you a funny 

Sheelpa Koria: story. Uh, Farook was going to the Maldives, I think it was last year, 

Boo Dhaliwal: right? And that, that's a, that's my business partner by That's your business partner? Yeah. Yeah. Before someone says, why is someone ran?

Sheelpa Koria: And then he was sending me live pictures. This is my view. And I said to , you've gotta take me where Farouk's taken his wife. Otherwise we're not gonna be together. Right? So we are going. 

Boo Dhaliwal: So you're going, so when's that next year? 

Sheelpa Koria: Two weeks next week. Oh, two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks. 

Boo Dhaliwal: Oh right. Okay. Over Christmas.

Just before. Prior. Just before, yeah. Yeah. Too expensive over Christmas. Can't go to Christmas. Right. Alright. Okay. Well, uh, thanks for coming on the Pharmacy Planet podcast guys. Thank too. Um, it's been great having you. Thanks. Been great for having us. Thank you so much. Cheers.