Established East Texas Commercial General Contractor, 15-Year Public-Sector Builder

$17.4M

Revenue

$2.1M

SDE

4.3x

Multiple

Subscribe Free

Read the full deal writeup

Get Free Access

Already a member? Sign in

Full Editorial Writeup

This is a commercial general contracting firm based in East Texas that has run continuously since 2010, primarily serving public and institutional clients. The company holds prequalified vendor status with TxDOT, Region 7, and TIPS, and carries bonding capacity north of $30 million, which lets it chase a diversified mix of schools, municipal buildings, churches, retail, and government-funded infrastructure. Most revenue comes from competitively bid public-sector contracts, with the balance from negotiated work and repeat clients.

The business does roughly $17.4 million in revenue and $2.13 million in cash flow, a healthy ~12% owner-earnings margin for a GC that has to win most work on price. It runs lean with 15 full-time office and field staff, several of whom have a decade or more of tenure, plus about $1.2 million in machinery, vehicles, and equipment. The facility is leased at $3,500 a month, so this is a pure operating-business sale with no real estate wrapped into the price.

The headline risk is concentration: the listing openly states a single local school district has accounted for the large majority of business over the past several years, and the current owner is deeply hands-on across bidding, financials, and field operations. That combination of customer concentration plus owner dependence is what any buyer needs to underwrite carefully, but the underlying public-sector demand (record $18.6B in Texas school bonds and a $101.6B TxDOT 10-year plan) gives the pipeline real depth.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is solid for the category: $2.13M in cash flow on $17.4M revenue is a ~12% margin, and it comes mostly from public-sector contracts backed by tax dollars and bond funding rather than fickle private demand. Public owners pay, and bonded, prequalified GCs face a limited competitive set on that work.
The moat is real but narrow: prequalification with TxDOT, Region 7, and TIPS plus $30M+ bonding capacity are earned credentials that take years and a clean track record to build, and they gate out smaller competitors. A new entrant cannot simply show up and bid the same projects.
Market tailwinds are unusually concrete here: Texas school districts approved a record $18.6B in bonds in late 2025 and TxDOT's 10-year plan calls for $101.6B, giving multi-year visibility into K-12 and infrastructure work even as private commercial slows under high rates. The company is positioned to capture funded work immediately.
The seller is retiring and the price is grounded at 4.26x cash flow, which is a defensible multiple for a bonded GC with a decade-plus track record and a tenured crew. The lean 15-person team with long tenure means institutional knowledge is not walking entirely out the door with the owner.

How to improve it

Attack the customer concentration immediately by building a named-account pipeline beyond the single school district that drives the majority of revenue. Formalize relationships with adjacent districts, municipalities, and churches already in the client mix, and target a hard cap where no single owner exceeds 25% of backlog within 24 months.
Systematize the owner's bidding function before the seller leaves, since he personally runs bidding, financials, and field operations. Document estimating templates, historical win rates, and margin assumptions so the estimating IP survives the transition, and hire or promote a lead estimator during the handoff period.
Leverage the $30M+ bonding capacity that is currently underused given $17.4M in revenue. Pursue larger or additional simultaneous projects to grow top line without new credential-building, since the bonding headroom is already paid-for capacity sitting idle.
Expand into neighboring East Texas markets along the I-20/I-10 corridor where industrial and logistics investment is steady. The prequalifications travel across the region, so geographic expansion is mostly a business-development and staffing exercise rather than a new-market gamble.
Tighten project-level financial controls with real-time job costing and percentage-of-completion tracking. GCs bleed margin on cost overruns and change-order disputes, so installing disciplined WIP reporting protects the ~12% margin as volume grows.
Build a repeatable field-labor pipeline given the statewide labor shortage cited in the listing. Formalize apprenticeship and recruiting relationships now so growth is not throttled by crew availability, which is the binding constraint for most Texas GCs entering 2026.

Diligence notes

Quantify the school-district concentration precisely: get the revenue share by customer for the last five years, contract terms, and whether the relationship is contractual or purely reputational. If one owner drives 60%+ of business, the entire valuation hinges on whether that relationship survives an ownership change, and the deal should be structured with an earnout or holdback accordingly.
Scrutinize the owner-dependence risk since he is hands-on across bidding, financials, and field operations. Determine whether win rates and margins are a function of his personal relationships and estimating judgment, and stress-test how backlog and gross margin would look with him gone after a 6-to-12 month transition.
Verify the backlog and pipeline as of closing, not just trailing revenue. Public-sector GC earnings are lumpy and project-driven, so confirm signed contracts, bid pipeline, and expected revenue for the next 12-18 months to ensure $17.4M is repeatable rather than a peak year.
Review the WIP schedule, historical cost overruns, change orders, and any litigation or claims. GC financials can look clean until an underwater project surfaces, so tie the $2.13M cash flow back to completed-job profitability and confirm no in-progress jobs are running negative.
Confirm bonding capacity and prequalification transferability with the surety and public agencies. The $30M+ bonding line and TxDOT/Region 7/TIPS prequalifications are core to the moat, so validate they can survive a change of control and identify what a new owner must demonstrate to retain them.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →