Commercial Landscaping & Snow Management, 40-Year New Jersey Contractor

$2.5M

Revenue

$631K

SDE

3.6x

Multiple

Subscribe Free

Read the full deal writeup

Get Free Access

Already a member? Sign in

Full Editorial Writeup

This is a full-service commercial landscaping business founded in the early 1980s and serving Middlesex County, New Jersey. The company runs four core service lines: landscape maintenance, irrigation and sprinkler services, snow management, and landscape plantings, hardscaping, and design. The customer base is 100% commercial, concentrated in 19 HOA and commercial condo accounts, with no single-customer concentration and many relationships running 25-plus years.

What makes this deal stand out is the contractual structure behind the revenue. 16 of the 19 accounts are on 3-year contracts with annual price escalators, and the remaining accounts have renewed annually for over two decades. Route density is tight: 12 properties sit within 6 miles of the shop and the rest are within 20 miles, which keeps drive time, fuel, and labor costs low and margins healthy at roughly 25% EBITDA on $2.48M of revenue.

The sale includes over $1.4M of historical equipment cost, including 13 low-mileage Ford work trucks and 6 heavy loaders and backhoes, plus a tenured 23-person workforce expected to stay. Two owners run the business today: one operationally focused, one customer-facing handling business development and strategy. The founding owner is retiring and willing to stay for a 9-month transition, and the business operates from a leased yard and shop at about $5,667 per month.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is strong and verifiable: $631K EBITDA on $2.48M of revenue is roughly a 25% margin, and the base is 100% commercial with 16 of 19 accounts locked on 3-year contracts carrying annual escalators. Escalators mean pricing keeps pace with wage and fuel inflation without renegotiating every contract, which protects margin over a hold.
The moat here is route density plus relationship tenure. 12 of 19 properties sit within 6 miles of the shop, which compounds labor and fuel efficiency, and many accounts have been served 25-plus years with no customer concentration. That combination makes the book sticky and expensive for a competitor to dislodge.
Demand is durable through cycles: commercial landscape maintenance, irrigation, and snow management are recurring operating costs for HOAs and condo associations, not discretionary spend. Snow is effectively mandatory for liability and access reasons, so a chunk of revenue is close to non-negotiable in a downturn.
Operator advantage is real because the founding owner handles business development while an operations partner runs delivery. A buyer who steps into the customer-facing seat with a 9-month transition can preserve relationships while the tenured 23-person crew keeps the work running, lowering execution risk versus a cold handoff.

How to improve it

Attack the obvious cross-sell first. The listing flags that landscape-only accounts can be upsold snow and irrigation services, which carry high incremental margin against routes you already drive. Audit all 19 accounts in the first 90 days and build a service-gap matrix to prioritize the quickest wins.
Push annual escalators to the maximum the contracts allow and renew the 3 annually-renewing accounts onto multi-year terms. Converting those into 3-year contracts with escalators de-risks the revenue base and lifts enterprise value at exit by making the book look more contractual.
The listing admits digital marketing has been historically limited. A basic local SEO presence, a Google Business Profile, and a simple referral program targeting the existing HOA property-manager network can source new properties without expanding the service radius and hurting route density.
Build a formal maintenance and replacement schedule for the $1.4M equipment fleet. Low-mileage trucks and heavy loaders are a real asset, but a disciplined capex calendar protects uptime and prevents a surprise fleet replacement cycle from eating cash flow in years two and three.
Institutionalize the relationships before the founder leaves. Document account histories, pricing logic, and key contacts in a CRM during the 9-month transition so customer loyalty attaches to the business rather than one departing owner. This is the single biggest risk to protect against.
Tighten snow operations into a predictable P&L. Snow is weather-dependent and can swing earnings, so lock in minimum-charge or seasonal-flat contract language where possible to smooth the revenue and reduce dependence on heavy snowfall years.
Evaluate a modest bolt-on or route-dense tuck-in of another small local operator. With a tight 20-mile radius already established, acquiring a neighboring book at a lower multiple and folding it into existing routes is the fastest path to margin expansion and multiple arbitrage.

Diligence notes

Verify the contract terms directly. Pull all 16 of the 3-year contracts and confirm the escalator clauses, remaining terms, renewal mechanics, and any termination-for-convenience language. The entire thesis rests on how contractual this revenue actually is.
Scrutinize the snow management revenue mix. Ask for 5 years of revenue by service line to see how much EBITDA depends on snowfall, since a few mild winters could materially understate or overstate normalized earnings. Separate recurring maintenance from weather-dependent income.
Confirm the EBITDA build and add-backs. Cash flow (SDE) is listed as not disclosed while EBITDA is $631K, so request the full adjustment schedule and confirm whether two owner salaries have been normalized to a market-rate management replacement cost. That directly affects the real 3.64x multiple.
Pressure-test the workforce assumption. The deal leans heavily on a tenured 23-person crew staying post-sale, so review wage rates, confirm no key-man dependency on specific crew leads, and understand retention risk and any union or H-2B labor exposure common in landscaping.
Review the equipment reality behind the $1.4M figure. That number is historical cost, not current value, so get a fixed-asset list with ages, hours, and condition on the 13 trucks and 6 loaders to confirm low near-term capex and a defensible replacement runway.
Clarify the lease on the yard and shop. At $5,667 per month the facility is leased, so confirm remaining term, renewal options, and landlord relationship, because route density depends entirely on keeping that specific location. Losing the yard would break the core advantage.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →