Commercial & Industrial Painting Contractor, 1978 Kansas & Missouri Operator

$4.0M

Revenue

$1.2M

SDE

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a full-service commercial and industrial painting contractor founded in 1978, operating primarily across Kansas and Missouri while deploying traveling foreman-led crews to complete PO-based projects nationwide. Core services include interior and exterior painting for multi-site commercial, senior living, hospitality, logistics, and industrial clients, plus complementary trades like wallcoverings, drywall repair, epoxy flooring, power washing, sandblasting, waterproofing, caulking, and restoration. On roughly $4M in revenue, the business throws off $1.2M in EBITDA, a 30% margin that is strong for a painting contractor and suggests disciplined bidding and crew utilization.

What separates this from a typical residential painter is the customer base and repeatability. The company has served more than 5,000 lifetime clients, with approximately 1,000 accounts generating recurring revenue and about 65% of annual volume coming from repeat business. That repeat concentration in mission-critical facilities (manufacturing plants, warehouses, hotels, senior living) is the real asset here, not the paint itself.

A key operating edge is scheduling flexibility: the crews work nights, weekends, and holidays so that industrial and hospitality clients never have to shut down operations. For a facility manager, minimizing downtime is worth more than the lowest bid, which is why these relationships stick and why the same accounts keep issuing purchase orders year after year.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is genuinely strong for the trade: $1.2M EBITDA on $4M revenue is a 30% margin, well above typical painting-contractor economics that usually land in the low double digits. That margin implies real pricing power tied to specialized industrial and after-hours work rather than commodity residential bidding.
The moat is the recurring relationship base, not the service itself. With roughly 1,000 recurring accounts and 65% of volume from repeat business across 5,000 lifetime clients, the company does not have to re-win every dollar of revenue each year. That repeat concentration in senior living, hospitality, and industrial facilities creates a stable, diversified floor.
Facility maintenance painting is defensive. Industrial plants, warehouses, hotels, and senior living facilities still need caulking, epoxy floors, restoration, and repaint cycles in a downturn because deferred maintenance eventually forces the spend. This is closer to recurring facilities services than discretionary home improvement.
The after-hours and holiday operating model is a durable operator advantage. Clients that cannot shut down production or guest operations pay a premium for crews willing to work overnight and on weekends, which drives both project repeatability and switching costs. A buyer who preserves that reliability inherits a defensible position.

How to improve it

Formalize the recurring revenue into contracts. Today about 65% of volume is repeat business but appears to run on PO-based assignments; converting the top industrial and senior-living accounts into annual maintenance and repaint-cycle agreements would harden the revenue base and lift the exit multiple.
Build a dedicated estimating and sales function. With 15 employees and an owner likely driving bidding relationships, adding one or two dedicated business developers to systematically call the 5,000 lifetime clients could reactivate dormant accounts without adding delivery risk.
Push the higher-margin complementary services. Epoxy flooring, waterproofing, restoration, and sandblasting typically carry better margins than straight painting; cross-selling these into the existing recurring base is the fastest way to grow revenue per account with clients who already trust the crews.
Systematize the traveling-crew model into a scalable playbook. The nationwide PO work is attractive but crew-dependent; documenting scheduling, safety, and quality standards would let the buyer add foreman-led crews and take on more multi-site rollout work from national accounts.
Tighten labor and job-costing analytics. Painting margins live and die on crew productivity and material waste; installing job-level cost tracking and crew utilization dashboards protects the 30% margin as the business scales beyond owner oversight.
Target multi-site national accounts deliberately. Senior living operators, hotel brands, and logistics REITs manage hundreds of locations; landing even a few master-service agreements would convert episodic project work into predictable, portfolio-wide repaint programs.

Diligence notes

Verify the recurring revenue claim in the data. Confirm that roughly 1,000 accounts and 65% repeat volume hold up in the customer-level billing history, and check how concentrated that repeat business is among the top 10 to 20 clients versus being truly diversified.
Understand owner dependence in bidding and client relationships. With only 15 employees, the seller may personally own estimating and the key account relationships; the absence of a disclosed transition offer is a flag worth pressing on given the 1978 founding and likely long-tenured owner.
Reconcile margin sustainability. A 30% EBITDA margin is high for painting, so confirm whether add-backs, unusually favorable recent contracts, or under-market owner compensation are inflating the $1.2M, and how margins have trended over the last three to five years.
Assess the labor model and crew retention. The night, weekend, and holiday capability depends on skilled foremen; examine turnover, subcontractor reliance, workers comp experience modifiers, and whether crews are employees or 1099s given the compliance exposure.
Clarify the nationwide PO work's stickiness and pricing. Traveling-crew projects can carry lumpy travel and lodging costs; verify how these jobs are priced, whether they are one-off or repeatable, and what percentage of EBITDA depends on out-of-market assignments.
Confirm no real estate or major equipment is baked into expectations. The asking price is undisclosed and listed by a Generational Equity M&A shop, so establish whether spray rigs, lifts, and vehicles are owned free and clear and what the working capital and capex profile looks like.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →