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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Food producers, metal fabricators and component makers from Dandenong South to Laverton North, where the plant register usually says more about value than the profit and loss.
For most Melbourne manufacturers the asset approach leads: production plant, tooling, inventory and debtors are restated from book value to what they would realise, and plant finance is deducted. The income approach is then applied as a test of whether the earnings justify a value above the adjusted net assets, and where they do not, the asset result governs.
A sale to a trade buyer or a competitor, handing a Campbellfield workshop to the next generation, a shareholder leaving, a family law settlement, refinancing a CNC line, an insurance claim after a fire, or an ATO market value requirement on a restructure: these are the usual reasons a manufacturer engages us. Lenders will also ask for a figure before they fund a new press or a second site.
Owners also commission a valuation to settle a question the accounts cannot answer. Plant carried at written down value says nothing about what a buyer would pay for it, and a fabricator in Braeside with a shed full of financed machinery can have no clear idea whether the equity is substantial or close to nil until every item is restated and the finance is netted off.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Asset Approach leads. Machinery and tooling dominate a manufacturer's balance sheet and the margin on production is often thin, so the real worth of the plant is generally the largest part of the answer.
The adjusted net assets method restates every asset and liability to market value: production lines, machine tools, presses, welders, forklifts and racking, tooling and dies, inventory at what it would realise, debtors after realistic provisioning, contingent liabilities and the tax that would fall due on unrealised gains. Where the plant is material we engage a licensed plant and machinery valuer rather than estimate the figures ourselves.
The income approach takes over only where the business earns well above a fair return on those assets. A food manufacturer in Dandenong South with a long supply agreement to a national grocery chain, or a fabricator with proprietary tooling and a product nobody else makes, can be worth more than its plant, and in that case the asset result becomes the floor. Capitalised excess earnings can bridge the two, applied sparingly and with its limitations set out.
Maintainable earnings, after the owner is paid a market wage, are capitalised to test whether the business earns a fair return on the capital tied up in plant. Where the answer is no, the asset result governs and the report states that finding directly.
Sales of manufacturers of similar size, sector and asset intensity inform the range. Evidence in Australian mid-market manufacturing is scarce, so it guides the conclusion rather than setting it.
Because the adjustments are where most arguments about value start, each one is set out in the report with its reason rather than left in a schedule. For a manufacturing or fabrication business the recurring items are:
Melbourne's manufacturing sits in a ring of industrial precincts. Dandenong South is the largest industrial precinct in the state and holds much of the food manufacturing, packaging and metal fabrication of the south-east, with Braeside and Moorabbin close by for smaller engineering shops. Laverton North serves the west, and Campbellfield and Somerton the north, while smaller specialist workshops still trade in Brunswick and Collingwood.
The precinct settles two things in the valuation. First, the comparable set: a food processor in Dandenong South is compared with food processors, not with a sheet metal fabricator in Campbellfield, because the buyers, the margins and the asset profile differ. Second, the treatment of the premises: industrial land in these precincts has moved on its own market, independent of trading conditions, so an owned factory is valued as property and kept separate from the operating business, while a leased one is assessed on the unexpired term and any make-good obligation. Freight access to the Port of Melbourne and the Western Ring Road matters to import-dependent producers and forms part of what a site is worth to them.
Entity numbers tell the story of a mature sector. Manufacturing business counts rose only 0.2 per cent nationally in 2025 to 2026, among the slowest rates of any industry division (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026), even as Victoria recorded a net increase of 19,581 actively trading businesses across all industries (same source). In a capital intensive sector that is not growing its numbers, buyers are selective, and the asset position carries more of the value than it would in an expanding one.
The report sets out the purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the information relied on, including anything requested and not supplied. It then works through each approach considered, the method applied, every adjustment and the reason for it, and reconciles the results into a range with the weighting explained in plain language rather than by formula.
That reconciliation is the part an opposing expert reads first. A report that cannot explain why the asset result was preferred, or why one point in a range was chosen over another, is easy to unpick in the Commercial Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria or in front of a financier's credit committee. Reports are prepared consistently with APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and are signed by a credentialed certified valuer who will explain and defend the opinion.
Which assumption in this report would an opposing expert challenge first, and what would you say back? If the valuer has to think about it, the work is not done.
An Indicative valuation suits an owner who wants to see the equity that sits behind the plant once the finance is deducted. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits a sale, a change of shareholder or a refinance. A Detailed report is required for family law, a shareholder dispute, a large insurance claim and any matter that another expert will review.
The purpose sets the depth. The more likely a court, a lender, the ATO or an opposing expert is to read the report, the more of the reasoning must be shown.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.