Agricultural Irrigation Company, Southeast U.S. Irrigation Design & Service Contractor

$9.8M

Revenue

$1.7M

SDE

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a Southeast U.S. agricultural irrigation contractor doing roughly $9.8M in revenue and $1.75M in EBITDA. The company does the full stack of irrigation work: design, installation, automation systems, excavation, parts, and ongoing service and repair. It primarily serves farmers growing fruit and vegetable crops, plus sod farms and nurseries, and has been operating for more than a decade.

The business recently executed a strategic realignment toward the sod, blueberry, and strawberry markets, which drove 62.2% revenue growth from 2024 to 2025. That is a meaningful inflection and signals the current operators understand where crop-level demand and automation investment are concentrating. Gross margins have averaged 32.9% and adjusted EBITDA margins 12.2% from 2023 through 2025, which is respectable for a contracting business with excavation and installation labor baked in.

What makes this notable for a buyer is the backlog and the recurring service tail. As of June 2026 the company reported $16.0M in total contract value with $15.2M still to be billed, giving forward visibility most contractors never have. Layer on the parts, service, repair, and automation software revenue streams, and you have a project business with a maintenance and consumables annuity underneath it. The two equal owners are exiting to pursue other ventures, not retiring, and will stay on through a transition.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is strong for a contracting business, with $1.75M EBITDA on $9.8M revenue and a 12.2% average adjusted EBITDA margin from 2023 to 2025. The $15.2M in remaining-to-be-billed contract value as of June 2026 gives roughly 18 months of forward revenue visibility, which materially de-risks the earnings profile versus a typical bid-to-bid contractor.
The moat is in specialized agricultural irrigation expertise plus the installed base. Once you design and install automation and irrigation infrastructure for a sod, blueberry, or strawberry grower, you become the default partner for parts, service, repairs, and system expansion. Switching costs for a farmer who depends on reliable water delivery during a growing season are real.
Agricultural irrigation is genuinely recession-resistant. Farmers still need to water crops and keep irrigation systems running regardless of the macro cycle, and the push toward water efficiency and automation is a structural tailwind driven by regulation, input costs, and crop economics rather than discretionary spending.
The business has demonstrated it can grow, posting 62.2% revenue growth from 2024 to 2025 by deliberately realigning toward sod, blueberry, and strawberry markets. That shows a management-driven playbook that a capable operator can continue, not a one-time windfall.
There is a visible path to higher-quality recurring revenue through automation software sales to existing and new clients. Converting one-time installs into software and service subscriptions would lift margins and re-rate the multiple a buyer could eventually exit at.

How to improve it

Hire the in-house estimator the listing flags as missing. Bringing estimation in-house improves bid accuracy, win rates, and project margins, and it reduces reliance on the departing owners for pricing judgment, which is exactly the kind of key-person risk you want to close in the first 90 days.
Build a formal recurring service and maintenance program and attach it to every new install. Package parts, scheduled service, and automation software into an annual contract so the installed base converts into predictable, higher-margin annuity revenue instead of reactive repair calls.
Push automation software sales to the existing client base. These customers already trust the company with their irrigation infrastructure, so upselling monitoring and automation is a warm-list motion that grows recurring revenue without new customer acquisition cost.
Diversify the end markets as the listing suggests, expanding into residential irrigation, municipal projects, industrial filtration, valve systems, and underground utilities. The core excavation and irrigation competency transfers, and these segments smooth out concentration in sod, blueberry, and strawberry farming.
Expand geographically beyond the current Southeast footprint. The playbook that drove 62.2% growth in existing markets can be replicated in adjacent agricultural regions, potentially via a satellite yard or a tuck-in acquisition of a smaller regional irrigation contractor.
Tighten working capital management around the large backlog. With $15.2M still to be billed, disciplined progress billing, milestone invoicing, and collections will free up cash and reduce the drag that a growing contractor typically feels on its balance sheet.
Formalize the long-term lease on the related-party owned building and storage yards before close. Lock in favorable, arm's-length lease terms so a buyer is not exposed to a landlord who is also the exiting seller renegotiating after the transition ends.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize the $16.0M total contract value and the $15.2M remaining to be billed. Verify these are signed, binding contracts with creditworthy counterparties, review cancellation and change-order provisions, and confirm the gross margin embedded in the backlog matches historical margins rather than being front-loaded with low-margin work.
Dig into the 62.2% revenue jump from 2024 to 2025 to confirm it is durable rather than a cluster of large one-time installs. Understand how much of 2025 revenue came from a handful of projects or customers, and assess customer concentration in the sod, blueberry, and strawberry segments.
Examine the related-party real estate arrangement closely. The building and storage yards are owned by an entity tied to the sellers, so you need clarity on current rent, whether it is at market, and the terms under which it may be leased long-term, since this directly affects normalized EBITDA.
Assess the two-owner dependency. Both equal shareholders are leaving to pursue other ventures, so map exactly what each does (sales relationships, estimating, project management) and ensure the transition period and a strong second layer of management are sufficient to replace them.
Reconcile the EBITDA adjustments. With adjusted EBITDA margins cited at 12.2%, review every add-back to confirm they are legitimate and non-recurring, and separate true owner-benefit adjustments from normalized operating costs a new owner will still bear.
Evaluate labor availability and seasonality. Irrigation install and excavation work is labor-intensive and tied to growing seasons, so review crew retention, wage trends, subcontractor reliance, and how revenue and cash flow swing across the agricultural calendar.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →