Diversified Retail & Service Business, 20-Year Montana Operator, 2 Locations

$8.3M

Revenue

$1.6M

SDE

4.6x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a diversified retail and service business operating from two owned facilities in Montana, generating roughly $8.3M in revenue and $1.56M in 2025 adjusted EBITDA. The company serves a specialized retail niche with an established customer base, limited direct competition, and a blend of product sales plus service revenue. It runs on documented SOPs and an experienced 20-person team, which allows the current owner to stay largely hands-off after 20 years at the helm.

The listing is deliberately confidential, withholding the specific niche until buyers sign an NDA and prove funds. What we can see is a business with real operating leverage: a 3-year weighted average EBITDA of $1.77M that is meaningfully higher than the 2025 figure, and 2026 tracking back toward $1.7M to $1.8M. That gap between trailing average and current-year earnings is the single most important thing to understand before making an offer, because it swings the effective multiple.

The asking price of $7.2M covers the operating business including $1.5M of inventory and $729K of FF&E. The real estate is owned but priced separately at $2.8M, with the seller willing to write a five-year lease if a buyer prefers to keep the deal asset-light. Growth levers cited are additional retail locations and building an outbound sales program, both supported by a local market experiencing strong residential development and population inflow.

Why we like it

The earnings are real and consistent, with a 2023 to 2025 weighted average EBITDA of $1.77M against a $7.2M ask, which pencils to roughly 4.1x on the weighted number. Inventory of $1.5M and FF&E of $729K are inside the price, so more than 30 percent of the purchase is tangible assets you could liquidate in a downside scenario.
This business is genuinely manager-run, not just marketed that way, with 19 full-time staff, established SOPs, and an owner who has already stepped back. For a buyer who wants cash flow without living inside the operation, that de-risks the transition and lets you focus on the two growth levers rather than firefighting.
The local market is expanding, with strong residential development and population growth feeding an established niche that has limited direct competition. Demand tailwinds plus a defensible niche position give the revenue base more durability than a typical single-line retailer.
Optionality on the real estate is a structural advantage. You can buy the $2.8M of property to control your occupancy cost and build equity, or take the seller's five-year lease and deploy that capital into growth or debt paydown, which is a rare degree of flexibility in an SMB deal.

How to improve it

Reconcile the earnings trend immediately. 2025 EBITDA of $1.56M sits below the three-year weighted average of $1.77M, so within the first 90 days pinpoint whether that dip is a one-off, margin compression, or a softening line of business, then price and finance the deal off the number you can actually sustain.
Launch the outside sales program the listing flags as a primary lever. A retail-heavy business with no outbound motion is leaving commercial and repeat-account revenue on the table, and a single hunter tied to the residential development boom could add high-margin volume without new locations.
Evaluate a third location using the proven two-site playbook. The SOPs and management bench already exist, so a disciplined third store in an adjacent growth corridor is the clearest path to compounding EBITDA without reinventing the operating model.
Introduce or expand recurring service contracts. This business already blends retail with service, so packaging service into maintenance plans, memberships, or annual agreements would convert one-time transactions into predictable revenue and lift the exit multiple.
Tighten inventory turns on the $1.5M stock position. Retail cash flow lives and dies on turns, so within the first quarter measure aged and slow-moving SKUs, free up trapped working capital, and redeploy it into the fastest-selling categories.
Build a simple digital and local marketing engine. Population inflow means a steady stream of new residents who do not yet know the brand, and even basic local SEO, reviews, and targeted ads should convert that growth into net-new customers cheaply.
Formalize succession under the owner's six-month consulting window. Identify or hire a general manager during the handover so the business is not dependent on the seller's institutional knowledge, protecting the absentee model you are paying for.

Diligence notes

Get the full revenue breakdown by the retail versus service split, and by each of the two locations. The listing hides the actual niche, so you need to see what percentage of revenue and margin comes from products versus services and whether one location carries the other.
Scrutinize the EBITDA adjustments and the trend line. Understand every addback bridging reported earnings to the $1.56M adjusted figure, and demand an explanation for why 2025 is below the weighted average while 2026 is claimed to be tracking back to $1.7M to $1.8M.
Verify the $1.5M inventory is real, current, and saleable. Retail inventory can hide dead stock, so require a physical count, aging report, and turn analysis, and confirm how inventory will be valued and trued-up at close.
Model both real estate scenarios in detail. Compare buying the $2.8M property against the five-year lease, get the proposed lease rate and terms in writing, and confirm the lease economics do not quietly transfer value back to the seller and erode the operating EBITDA.
Assess customer and supplier concentration in the niche. Limited competition can also mean dependence on a narrow customer base or key vendor relationships, so pull top-customer and top-supplier revenue percentages and confirm contracts and pricing transfer.
Test how absentee the business truly is. Confirm the manager and 19-person team are stable, review compensation and any key-person risk, and validate that the SOPs actually run the business rather than the departing owner holding undocumented relationships.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →