Joseph Caffrey

Well, how in the world DID this happen?? So many people have asked that question that we thought we should address it.

Our story – or that of Worldwide Business Brokers – starts in 2001 but the genesis of the Worldwide Business Brokers story starts a few years earlier – around 1997. That was the year in which our founder, Joe Caffrey, sold a business he had started in 1991. That business was not for sale but the event proved the old saw that, “everything’s for sale for the right price”. And indeed it is!

Having sold the business but not having planned in advance to do so, our fearless leader was adrift and a little unsure what to do. But having no strings to tie him down, he bought a plane ticket to Paris, leased a car and spent a good part of the next four years wandering around Europe.

Returning to the United States, he tried to buy a business using a business broker affiliated with what was at the time the largest chain of business brokers offices in the country. The experience was so unprofessional, so frustrating, so disappointing and completely unsuccessful that he figured that if this was the best the biggest could do, it might be time for a little competition. So, at the end of 2001, he found an honest and professional business broker to partner with and the first office was opened.

As it happened, the partnership did not survive the economic downturn that followed the “dot com” crash so Joe bought out his partner and started the rebuilding process. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Because Joe’s background is in franchising, Worldwide Business Brokers was conceived as a franchise. However, to make things MUCH easier for potential franchisees, the business was converted to a licensing format requiring FAR less compliance by and more freedom for our licensees and less oversight on the part of the corporate office. (Worldwide Business Brokers now has affiliate partners in Europe as well as in North, Central and South America.)