Established Commercial Landscaping & Grounds Maintenance, Indiana Contractor

$2.8M

Revenue

$761K

SDE

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is an established Midwest commercial landscaping and grounds maintenance operation serving both commercial and residential customers in Indiana. The service mix is diversified across contracted grounds maintenance, landscape installation and enhancements, weed control and fertilization, and winter snow and ice management. That snow component matters because it creates a counter-seasonal revenue stream that smooths out the winter trough most pure landscaping shops suffer.

The company reports roughly $3.26 million in gross revenue and about $1.11 million in seller's discretionary earnings for FY2025, which pencils to an eye-catching margin profile north of 30 percent. Growth has been organic and backed by multi-year commercial maintenance agreements plus add-on project work for the same customers, which is exactly the kind of sticky, low-churn revenue base an acquirer wants to underwrite. A 24-person W-2 workforce with dedicated sales and operations leadership sits beneath the owner, meaning there is real management infrastructure rather than a one-man band.

The business runs from a leased shop and yard with concentrated service routes and an owned fleet of trucks, trailers, and equipment carried at roughly $1.15 million in schedule cost. That owned-free fleet is a meaningful hard-asset floor under the purchase price and reduces the day-one capex a buyer needs to plan for. The offering is being marketed confidentially, so the identity, exact location, and detailed financials come post-NDA, and the seller is open to a consulting arrangement to hand off key relationships.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is strong on paper with roughly $1.11 million of SDE on $3.26 million of revenue, a margin profile that is unusually high for landscaping. The revenue is anchored by multi-year commercial maintenance agreements rather than one-off jobs, which makes the cash flow far more forecastable than a project-driven green industry shop.
The moat is the contracted, route-dense commercial book plus a 24-person trained W-2 crew and existing sales and ops leadership. Commercial grounds contracts renew by default and switching costs for a property manager are real, so churn tends to be low and relationships compound over time.
Snow and ice management gives this business counter-seasonal revenue, which is the single biggest structural weakness in most landscaping deals. Grounds maintenance, fertilization, and winter work together keep crews and equipment utilized across all four seasons.
Commercial landscaping is squarely recession-resistant because property owners and facility managers must maintain grounds and clear snow regardless of the economy. This is a boring, essential, cash-generative service that a patient operator can hold and compound for years.
The owned fleet carried at roughly $1.15 million in schedule cost provides a tangible asset floor and reduces near-term capex. A buyer is not walking into a business that needs an immediate truck and equipment refresh to keep routes running.

How to improve it

Push landscape enhancement sales into the existing commercial maintenance base, since the seller flags this as an underexploited lane. These customers already trust the crew on-site, so attaching irrigation, hardscape, and seasonal enhancement work is a high-margin cross-sell that requires no new customer acquisition.
Audit and standardize the commercial contracts to ensure they carry annual price escalators and auto-renewal terms. Locking in CPI-linked increases protects margin against wage and fuel inflation and makes the recurring revenue even more durable for a future resale.
Build a route-density acquisition thesis for nearby Indiana markets, using this as a platform. Tuck-in acquisitions of smaller maintenance operators let you spread the existing sales and ops leadership over more revenue and improve crew utilization.
Tighten crew productivity tracking with job-costing by route and contract. With 24 W-2 employees, small gains in man-hours per property flow directly to the bottom line given the labor-heavy cost structure.
Formalize a commercial sales function with outbound targeting of property management firms, HOAs, and industrial parks. Winning a handful of multi-site accounts can meaningfully grow top line without diluting the recurring maintenance mix.
Evaluate adding or expanding fertilization and weed control as a stand-alone recurring program with its own route scheduling. Chemical application is high-margin, repeatable, and increases visits per customer per year, deepening wallet share.
Negotiate to purchase or lock in a long-term favorable lease on the shop and yard to secure operational continuity. Concentrated routes depend on that yard location, so protecting it removes a real operational risk at renewal.

Diligence notes

Reconcile the two revenue and SDE figures in the listing, which cites both approximately $2.82 million revenue with $760,557 cash flow and $3.26 million revenue with $1.11 million SDE for FY2025. Confirm which period is which, what add-backs make up the SDE, and whether the higher figure is a projection versus actuals in the CBR.
Verify the commercial maintenance contracts: pull the actual agreements, remaining terms, renewal history, and customer concentration. A high-margin landscaping business can still carry hidden risk if a few large accounts drive the bulk of revenue.
Stress-test the snow and ice revenue for weather dependency, since a mild winter can swing that line materially. Review three to five years of winter revenue to understand the range and how much of the margin depends on heavy snow seasons.
Inspect the fleet condition behind the $1.15 million schedule cost and separate book value from true remaining useful life. Deferred maintenance or an aging fleet could mean significant capex that offsets the asset floor the seller is highlighting.
Assess owner dependence and the depth of the sales and ops leadership that would remain post-close. Confirm which key customer relationships are tied to the owner personally and scope the consulting arrangement before relying on it in your model.
Confirm labor structure, wage rates, overtime, and any seasonal or H-2B labor dependency across the 24-person crew. Labor availability and cost is the primary operational risk in landscaping and directly determines whether the reported margins are sustainable.

Source

Originally listed on BusinessBroker.net. View original listing →