Environmental Consulting & Restoration Firm, Southeast US Ecosystem Services Provider

$12.0M

Revenue

$773K

SDE

Subscribe Free

Read the full deal writeup

Get Free Access

Already a member? Sign in

Full Editorial Writeup

This is an environmental consulting and ecosystem restoration firm based in the Southeast US that helps clients navigate land development, regulatory compliance, and conservation obligations. The business spans three connected lines: ecosystem restoration and maintenance, environmental consulting, and native plant sales grown in its own nurseries. The integrated model lets the firm follow a project from initial assessment through long-term maintenance, which converts one-time engagements into durable, repeat relationships.

What makes this notable is that 57% of 2025 revenue came from recurring environmental maintenance contracts, and those obligations are driven by regulation, mitigation requirements, and permitting rather than discretionary spending. The company runs two outdoor nurseries producing a combined 100,000 native plants that either feed its own restoration jobs or get sold to third parties, creating a vertically integrated supply advantage that pure consulting competitors lack. Its team carries the licenses and certifications (protected species management, arboriculture, vegetation management, regulatory compliance) that create real barriers to entry.

The financial profile is strong: revenue grew at a 24.1% CAGR and gross profit at 29.1% from 2023 through the TTM ending May 2026, on roughly $12M of revenue and $773K of EBITDA. The business serves a diverse client base including developers, government agencies, utilities, infrastructure operators, and property owners, so demand is not tied to any single customer type. With one owner retiring and the other seeking to de-risk, the sellers are flexible on structure and open to selling or leasing the affiliated real estate.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is anchored by 57% of revenue coming from recurring environmental maintenance contracts tied to regulatory and mitigation obligations, not discretionary budgets. That mix converts a project services firm into something closer to a contracted, renewal-driven book, which is exactly what you want to underwrite at roughly $773K of EBITDA on $12M of revenue.
The moat is real and hard to replicate. The team holds specialized licenses and certifications in protected species management, arboriculture, and regulatory compliance, and the firm grows its own native plant supply across two nurseries producing 100,000 plants. That vertical integration protects margin and creates switching costs versus a broker-model consulting shop.
Market tailwinds favor this business. Environmental permitting, mitigation, and compliance requirements are non-negotiable regulatory obligations that persist and generally tighten regardless of the economic cycle, and infrastructure and land development activity keeps feeding new mandated work.
Growth has been fast and clean. Revenue compounded at 24.1% and gross profit at 29.1% from 2023 through the TTM, meaning the business is scaling profitability faster than sales rather than buying growth with margin. That trajectory, plus a diverse client base spanning government, utilities, and developers, gives an operator multiple levers to keep expanding.

How to improve it

Use the second nursery established in 2025 as a geographic beachhead. Map adjacent Southeast markets with active permitting and mitigation demand, then replicate the restoration-plus-supply model rather than treating nursery capacity as a cost center. This turns a real estate asset into a multi-market expansion platform.
Push to capture full project lifecycles by increasing bid rates across development, restoration, and maintenance phases. The listing flags that staying on a project from development through maintenance converts one-time consulting into recurring maintenance revenue, so incentivize the team to win the maintenance tail on every consulting engagement.
Grow third-party native plant sales while lifting internal nursery utilization. The nurseries already produce 100,000 plants annually, so build a dedicated sales channel for developers and municipalities that need mitigation plantings, capturing margin on inventory that would otherwise sit idle.
Launch the water quality monitoring expansion the sellers identify, adding turbidity monitoring and drainage maintenance. These are recurring, regulation-driven services that leverage existing licensed staff and existing client relationships, so the customer acquisition cost is near zero.
Institutionalize the licensed talent pipeline before the founders exit. With specialized certifications driving the moat, build recruiting and internal certification programs so the business is not exposed to key-person risk when two owners leave. Document the regulatory playbooks that currently live in the owners' heads.
Formalize contract renewal and pricing discipline on the maintenance book. Since 57% of revenue is already recurring, audit each contract for renewal terms and CPI escalators, then systematically add price escalation clauses to protect margin against wage and input inflation.
Build a repeatable business development motion targeting government and utility RFPs. These clients issue predictable, budgeted, compliance-driven work, so a dedicated proposal function focused on public-sector contracts can smooth revenue and grow the recurring base.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize the recurring revenue claim in detail. Verify that the 57% maintenance revenue sits under actual multi-year contracts with defined renewal terms rather than repeat but non-contracted work, and pull the renewal and churn history to confirm how sticky that base truly is.
Assess key-person and licensing risk carefully. With one owner retiring and one exiting, confirm which licenses, certifications, and regulatory relationships are tied to the individual owners versus the entity, and whether contracts or permits transfer cleanly to new ownership.
Reconcile the TTM ending May 2026 figures against audited or reviewed financials. The 24.1% revenue and 29.1% gross profit CAGRs are impressive, so confirm the growth is organic and durable rather than driven by a small number of large, non-repeating projects that could roll off.
Clarify the real estate structure. The 11 acres and 17,075 sq ft of buildings are held by an affiliated entity, so nail down whether you are buying it, leasing it, and at what rate, because a below-market related-party lease could be inflating current EBITDA.
Evaluate customer and contract concentration across the developer, government, utility, and property owner segments. Determine what share of revenue comes from the top handful of clients and whether any single regulatory program or large infrastructure project is driving a disproportionate portion of the maintenance backlog.
Investigate the nursery economics and inventory carrying costs. Confirm the true margin contribution of internally grown plants versus third-party sales, and understand the cash tied up in growing 100,000 plants and the seasonality risk of that biological inventory.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →