DFW Retaining Wall Contractor with Owned Quarry, Plano TX

$26.0M

Revenue

$2.0M

SDE

7.0x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a vertically integrated retaining wall contractor serving the Dallas-Fort Worth market, positioned as one of the top three providers in the region. The differentiator is ownership of a 325-acre quarry that supplies engineered retaining wall material, so the business controls its supply chain from raw rock to finished installation. Customers are repeat accounts: production home builders assembling new communities and commercial multi-family developers, both of which need retaining walls as a functional site-work requirement rather than a discretionary purchase.

The company runs on $26M of revenue against $2M of EBITDA, a thin 7.7% margin that the seller openly attributes to loose management and carried debt. The asset base is heavy: $8M of FF&E (quarry and mining equipment, trucks, bobcats, skid steers), $3.2M of owned real estate, and $500k of inventory, all included in the $14M ask. With roughly 50 people (20 full-time, 30 contractors) and a stated absentee ownership model, this is being sold as a systems-driven operation rather than an owner-dependent shop.

The current owner acquired the business as an outside-their-lane bet in the construction and mining space and wants out because it is not their expertise. That framing matters: this is a distressed-attention situation, not a distressed-financials one. A disciplined operator who tightens margin and works the quarry's third-party aggregate sales angle could meaningfully re-rate the earnings, which is exactly the pitch the seller is making.

Why we like it

The vertical integration is real and rare in this trade. Owning the quarry means the business captures margin at both the material and installation layers and controls quality and lead times, which is a genuine structural cost advantage over competitors who buy block on the open market. That owned 325-acre rock resource is a hard asset that also unlocks a separate aggregate-sales revenue stream.
Demand is anchored to DFW population growth and new home and multi-family construction, one of the strongest sustained building markets in the country. Retaining walls are a code-driven, engineered necessity on sloped sites, not an optional upgrade, so the revenue is tied to permits breaking ground rather than consumer sentiment. Repeat relationships with top production builders create a recurring pipeline that is hard for a newcomer to replicate.
The margin story is the upside. At $26M revenue and only $2M EBITDA, this is a 7.7% margin business in a trade where well-run heavy contractors clear low-to-mid teens, and the seller explicitly flags that tighter management and debt reduction would lift it. If a buyer moves margin even a few points, the effective purchase multiple compresses fast.
Asset coverage protects the downside. The $14M ask includes $8M of equipment, $3.2M of owned real estate, and $500k of inventory, roughly $11.7M of tangible collateral against the price. That hard-asset backing makes senior debt financeable and limits how much you are truly paying for goodwill.

How to improve it

Attack gross margin first, since the seller admits the business is loosely run. Rebuild job costing so every project carries true material, labor, and equipment burden, kill unprofitable bids, and enforce change-order discipline. Moving from 7.7% to even 12% EBITDA on $26M nearly doubles cash flow without adding a dollar of revenue.
Stand up third-party aggregate sales from the quarry. The rock is already mined and the equipment is in place, so selling crushed stone and fill to other contractors and site-work firms is nearly incremental margin on assets you already own. Price it against local aggregate suppliers and use existing trucking to deliver.
Formalize the builder relationships into master service agreements with volume pricing and defined margins. Repeat production-home and multi-family clients should be locked into annual or per-community contracts so revenue is booked ahead rather than bid job by job. This smooths the backlog and improves financing terms.
Refinance the balance sheet at close. The seller cites debt as a drag on earnings, so structuring clean acquisition financing against the hard assets and clearing high-cost existing debt directly improves free cash flow. Model the deal with a seller note to reduce upfront capital and align the seller to the transition.
Add excavation and site-work services, which the growth notes flag as adjacent. You already own bobcats, skid steers, and trucks, so bundling site prep with wall installation captures more of each project's scope and lifts revenue per builder relationship. This is a natural upsell to the same customers.
Install real financial and operational reporting before scaling anything. An absentee, loosely managed $26M contractor almost certainly lacks weekly WIP, backlog, and margin-by-job visibility. Put a controller and a project-management dashboard in place in the first 90 days so decisions run on data, not gut.
Rationalize the contractor-heavy labor model. With 30 of 50 workers as contractors, review whether converting core crews to employees improves reliability, quality control, and margin, or whether contractor flexibility is genuinely cheaper. Get the labor structure right before geographic expansion.

Diligence notes

Verify the quarry's permits, mineral rights, remaining reserves, and reclamation obligations. The entire vertical-integration thesis depends on the 325-acre rock resource being legally operable and having years of usable material left. Confirm mining permits are current, transferable, and free of environmental liens or pending regulatory action.
Scrutinize the margin and the debt the seller keeps referencing. Pull three years of tax returns and financials to confirm the $2M EBITDA is clean and understand exactly what debt is depressing earnings and whether it transfers. The claim that margin can be much better needs to be proven with actual cost data, not asserted.
Test the absentee-owned claim hard, because it is doing a lot of work in this pitch. Identify who actually runs sales, estimating, and field operations day to day, and whether those people stay post-close. A management team that walks turns this from a passive asset into a fire drill.
Examine the WIP and backlog quality. A large and expanding WIP can mean healthy demand or it can mean projects stalled and cash tied up. Age the backlog, confirm signed contracts versus verbal commitments, and verify that customer concentration among the top builders is not a single-relationship risk.
Confirm the asset values are real and unencumbered. The $8M FF&E and $3.2M real estate figures anchor the downside, so get an independent equipment appraisal and a property valuation, and run UCC and lien searches. Equipment condition and remaining useful life on quarry and mining gear directly affects near-term capex.
Clarify the deal structure and what you are actually buying. The seller offers the wall business and quarry separately or together, so model both scenarios and understand how price, financing, and the vertical-integration advantage change if the quarry is carved out. A standalone wall business without the quarry loses its core moat.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →