Proxeno | Preparation and matching for the sale of Australian general practices

The story

The proxenos

Twenty-four centuries ago, a merchant from Corinth arriving in Athens had a problem that will be familiar to anyone who has sold a business. He was competent at home and a stranger here. He did not know who decided things, what anything should cost, which assurances were real or who could be trusted. The people who did know had every reason to charge him for the difference.

The Greek cities solved this with a role, not a market. A proxenos was a citizen of one city appointed by another to look after its people: to house them, introduce them, get them in front of the right officials, stand beside them in disputes and vouch for them. The word means, near enough, one who acts on behalf of the guest. The appointment was made by public decree, and cities carved those decrees in stone. Thousands survive.

A proxenos was rewarded in standing, with honours, privileges and a name that carried, not with a cut of whatever his guests transacted.

The arrangement had a structural feature that modern intermediaries have lost. The proxenos picked a side and everyone knew which. He served the visiting city openly while remaining a trusted citizen of his own, and the openness was the point: because his allegiance was declared and his reward was reputation, both sides could rely on him. The institution ran for centuries, outlasted the independence of the city-states themselves and persisted well into the Roman era. It faded when empires replaced the world of many small polities dealing with each other as strangers.

The same problem now

The owner as the Corinthian merchant

A GP practice owner selling a practice is the Corinthian merchant. They will do this once, perhaps twice. The buyer across the table does it for a living. The owner does not know who the real buyers are, what practices like theirs have sold for, which conditions in a deal are standard and which are opportunism, or what their own numbers will look like under a buyer’s scrutiny. The people who do know monetise the difference. That is not a criticism of any individual broker; it is the business model. A broker’s asset is opacity, and a success fee ties their income to a deal closing, any deal, with whoever turned up.

The technology has changed and the values problem has not moved at all. Which is the argument for reaching back past the broking industry entirely, to the institution that solved strangers-transacting-at-a-knowledge-gap the first time.

What to expect from an engagement

Fixed, staged fees for defined work: preparation, evidence, matching, coordination. No success commission.
One declared side in every deal, named in the engagement letter. The other side knows who we act for.
No listing and no advertising. Your practice never appears on a marketplace, no teaser circulates, and the owner register is confidential.
Matching against the whole documented market, not one firm's contact book. Buyers are scored against the priorities you weight.
A published record of the market, free to read whether or not you ever engage us.
Valuation by independent accountants. Proxeno never values the practice.

Five principles

What Proxeno keeps

Proxeno is the proxenia rebuilt for one market: the sale and purchase of Australian general practices. Five of the old role’s values carry across whole.

A declared side

We represent one party in a deal and say which. The other side knows who we are and what our interest is. No dual mandates, no acting for the transaction itself.

Reputation, not commission

We are paid fixed and staged fees for work done: preparation, evidence, matching, coordination. Our incentive is that the sale is the right one, not that a sale happens fast.

Knowledge in public

The proxeny decree was carved where anyone could read it. We publish the record of this market, who owns what, what is changing hands and what the process involves, because an informed owner is the client we want and an informed market is the one we want to work in.

Read the published record

Preparation of the stranger

The proxenos’s first job was to make the visitor competent in an unfamiliar city. Ours is to make the owner competent in a sale: their numbers, their gaps, their real options, before any buyer is in the room.

Principal to principal

The proxenos opened doors and vouched. The parties dealt with each other. We manage the engagement to the point where owner and buyer discuss terms directly, and independent accountants, not us, put the value on the practice.

The method

Five steps from owner to introduction

The work runs in order. Preparation comes first, buyers come last, and the readiness assessment is where it starts.

Discovery

The readiness assessment and an intake conversation. What you own, how it runs and what the sale must protect.
Position

A written report from the workup: your numbers as a buyer will read them, the gaps worth closing before a sale and the options open to you.
Valuation

A referral to independent accountants who value the practice. Accountants set the number; we never do.
Match

You weight what the sale must protect: price, staff, continuity of care, the practice name, your own exit. The result is a scored shortlist of buyers who fit your priorities.
Introduction

We manage the engagement to the point where you and the buyer discuss terms directly. From there, principal deals with principal.

For sellers

Two ways to start

Preparation comes before any buyer. Start with the readiness assessment, or register your practice and we will arrange a conversation. Registrations go to Kate Marie at Medius Global and are not shared with any buyer.

Assess your readiness

A free, structured self-assessment of how prepared your practice is for a sale: your numbers, your documentation, your gaps. It runs on its own site and asks for nothing you would not want a buyer to ask about.

Start the assessment

Register your practice

Tell us where the practice is and what you are weighing. Nothing here commits you to a sale or an engagement.

Full name

Email

Phone

Practice name

Suburb or postcode

State

Timeframe you are considering a sale

Anything you want us to know

How we collect and handle personal information is set out in our collection notice.

The form is not wired to the CRM yet. Email us instead at the address in the footer.

For buyers

Register your acquisition criteria

Proxeno acts for the practice owner. That is the declared side, and it does not change when a buyer registers. You receive no mandate from us and no representation, and we do not solicit you toward any particular sale.

Buyers here range from a GP buying a first practice to a group adding a site. What registering does is record your criteria: the regions you buy in, the practice size you look for, how you operate. When an owner’s weighted priorities fit those criteria, you enter the scored shortlist for that sale. What you get from us is a prepared owner, a documented practice and a process run to a standard you can check against the published record.

Buyer registration

Join the work

For practice managers and consultants

The number of practices that will need preparation, improvement or an exit path over the next decade is far beyond what one firm can serve. We are building the tools, data and playbooks for the people who already do that work.

Practice managers: tools that make the practice you run stronger, in your own name, portable between jobs. Running them for your owner is doing your job, not selling your practice.

Independent consultants: work your own clients on the same data and playbooks we use, and stay the owner of the relationship. Your optimisation work remains yours; we have no interest in a cut of it.

The terms are being designed now and early registrations shape them. The published record shows the kind of material you would be working with.

Register your interest

A note on the names

Medius and Proxeno

Medius is Latin: the one in the middle. Proxeno is Greek: the one who acts for the guest. Different tongues, different traditions, and we do not pretend they are one.

What they share is age, and the reason for it. Roles survive that long when the problem they answer is permanent. Strangers still transact across a knowledge gap, and the answer is still a declared, accountable intermediary whose reward is standing rather than a toll.

Know more about the sale than the broker. Sell to the right buyer, not the first.