270-Unit Florida ATM Route, Duval County, Professionally Managed

$645K

SDE

3.3x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a Florida ATM route operating approximately 270 active machine placements across Duval County and surrounding markets, generating around $645,000 in annual cash flow. The business earns a surcharge every time a cardholder withdraws cash from one of its machines, with revenue spread across a sizable merchant base rather than concentrated in one or two locations. The asking price of $2,150,000 works out to roughly 3.33x cash flow, a typical range for a scaled, managed ATM route.

What distinguishes this listing from a startup ATM operation is that the hard work is done. Building a profitable route means finding merchants, winning placements, installing equipment and establishing transaction volume one location at a time. Here the merchant footprint, transaction history and loading/servicing arrangements already exist. The field operation (cash loading, servicing, maintenance coordination) is handled through a professional management structure that remains in place after closing, so ownership is positioned as a financial monitoring role rather than a route to drive.

The seller cites portfolio restructuring as the reason for exit, and there is no owner financing on offer. Growth is framed as optional: add placements in existing markets, replace weaker locations, or bolt on compatible Florida routes. The core pitch is cash flow that keeps running whether or not the buyer chooses to expand.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is attractive on the surface: roughly $645K of cash flow spread across 270 placements means no single merchant failure materially dents the P&L. ATM surcharge income is high-margin and converts to cash quickly, and the transaction history available in diligence lets a buyer underwrite real volume rather than projections.
The moat is the placed footprint itself. A new entrant can buy a machine in an afternoon but cannot replicate 270 merchant agreements, install history and proven foot-traffic locations without years of grinding. That accumulated density is exactly what you are paying for and exactly what is hard for a competitor to copy.
This is genuinely recession-resistant. Cash usage persists through downturns, surcharge fees are small and non-discretionary from the consumer's view, and the business carries essentially no inventory, receivables or fashion risk. Revenue is also recurring by model: the same machines earn fees from returning foot traffic month after month.
The operator advantage here is leverage, not labor. Field work is already covered by a professional management structure, so a buyer with a portfolio of routes or a holding company can absorb this with near-zero incremental overhead. That makes it a clean tuck-in for a consolidator building a multi-route Florida ATM footprint.

How to improve it

Audit the 270 locations by transaction volume and net profit in the first 90 days and rank them. Expect a long tail of weak placements; the fastest margin win is identifying the bottom quartile and deciding whether to relocate the machines to higher-traffic merchants or renegotiate surcharge splits.
Push surcharge pricing where the market allows. Many route operators under-price surcharge fees at entrenched locations out of inertia; a 25 to 50 cent increase at high-volume sites flows almost entirely to the bottom line with minimal transaction loss, so test it methodically.
Renegotiate the merchant revenue splits at your best-performing locations once relationships transfer. Merchants value reliable service over a few points of split, and tightening splits on the top 20 percent of machines by volume can add meaningful cash flow without any new placements.
Review the cash management and processor costs line by line. Vault cash financing, armored carrier fees and processor interchange are the real cost centers in a route; consolidating processors or renegotiating carrier contracts across the full 270-unit base can recover real dollars.
Execute the bolt-on thesis the listing hints at. With a professional management layer already in place, acquiring one or two smaller distressed Florida routes and plugging them into existing servicing infrastructure is the cleanest path to scale the cash flow and spread fixed overhead.
Harden location retention. ATM routes bleed value when merchants churn or let a competitor swap in a machine, so formalize contract terms, lock in renewal clauses, and build a simple cadence of merchant check-ins to protect the placements you just paid 3.33x for.

Diligence notes

Verify the $645K cash flow against raw processor settlement reports, not a seller-prepared summary. Pull 24 to 36 months of transaction data by machine to confirm volume is stable and not declining, and separate gross surcharge revenue from merchant splits, cash costs, processor fees and servicing to see true owner earnings.
Confirm machine ownership and condition. Establish which of the 270 units are owned free and clear versus leased or financed, their age and EMV/ADA compliance status, and the near-term capex to replace aging terminals, since a wave of mandatory upgrades could quietly erase a year of cash flow.
Scrutinize the merchant contracts and their transferability. Ask how many locations are under written agreement versus handshake, what the churn history looks like, how surcharge and split terms are structured, and whether any top locations are concentrated enough to swing the numbers if they leave.
Pin down the professional management structure the listing leans on. Who loads cash and services machines, what does that cost, is it a related-party arrangement to the seller, and does it convey on the same terms post-close? If that structure is informal or seller-dependent, the absentee pitch collapses.
Trace the vault cash source. Determine whether cash in the machines is the operator's own capital or financed, how much working capital is tied up across 270 units, and whether that cash is included in the sale, because it materially changes the real capital required to own this.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →