Charlotte MEP Engineering Firm, 20-Year NC Design Practice

Full Editorial Writeup

This is a 20-year-old mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineering design firm based in Charlotte, serving commercial clients across the Southeastern United States. The business delivers MEP and fire protection design services on roughly 215 projects annually, with a repeat client base of architects and commercial property owners. No single customer exceeds 10% of revenue, which is a meaningfully healthier concentration profile than most firms this size.

The operation runs with a team of eight, including licensed electrical, mechanical, and plumbing engineers plus an in-house office manager handling bookkeeping and billing. On $2.28M of revenue the firm throws off $617K of cash flow, a 27% owner-earnings margin that reflects the asset-light, labor-leveraged economics of design services. The owner remains hands-on with proposals and some technical design, but has already begun mentoring two senior engineers to absorb his responsibilities ahead of a sale.

What makes this notable is the combination of a licensed engineering bench, a diversified repeat client roster, and roughly 15 to 20% of latent capacity the current team can absorb without new hires. The seller is retiring, offering a 1 to 2 year transition and willing to carry 10% of the price. Priced at 3.64x cash flow, it reads as a credible owner-operator entry point or a geographic tuck-in for a strategic acquirer.