Established Pile Driving & Heavy Construction Contractor, Tacoma WA

$1.2M

Revenue

$700K

SDE

1.2x

Multiple

Subscribe Free

Read the full deal writeup

Get Free Access

Already a member? Sign in

Full Editorial Writeup

This is a specialty pile driving and heavy construction contractor operating in the Puget Sound Basin out of Tacoma, Washington. The company installs 2-8 inch piles, helical anchors, H-piles, and soldier-pile walls, and it layers on related civil work like excavation, pipeline installation, backfill, and hauling. It works across the full customer spectrum: residential slope repair and seawalls at one end and large commercial, municipal, state, and federal contracts at the other, all within a 50-mile radius of Tacoma.

The economics are the headline here. On $1.2M of revenue the business throws off roughly $700K in SDE, a fat 58 percent owner margin that reflects a niche with real technical barriers and, per the seller, almost no direct competition. The Puget Sound's soft-ground soil conditions create structural demand for engineered pile systems, and the business has built a durable book of repeat builders, homeowners, and government clients driven by referrals rather than paid marketing.

What you are really buying at $850K is a $2M equipment package (two pile rigs, dump truck, Peterbilt flatbed, trailers, service truck, and specialized hand-carry gear) plus a working crew of five and an established bid pipeline. The asking price is roughly 1.2x SDE, which on paper looks cheap, but the discount reflects heavy owner dependence, a specialized skill requirement, and equipment-heavy asset intensity that a buyer needs to underwrite carefully.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is strong on the surface: $700K SDE on $1.2M revenue is a 58 percent margin, far above typical heavy construction comps. The listing claims year-round work with repeat clientele, which suggests the cash flow is not purely lumpy project-based revenue but has a recurring referral engine underneath.
The moat is real and technical. Pile driving in the Puget Sound's soft-ground conditions requires engineered systems, specialized rigs, and relationships with structural, civil, and geotechnical engineers, which the seller says leaves them with almost no direct competitors in their radius.
The purchase price is backed by hard assets. The sale includes roughly $2M of equipment (two pile rigs, trucks, trailers, and hand-carry gear) against an $850K ask, so you are buying the operating business for effectively less than the liquidation value of the iron.
The seller is motivated and offering unusual continuity. A retiring owner committing to 1-2 years of hands-on training on bidding, office ops, and crew management, plus seller financing at 80 percent down with a 3-year payoff, materially de-risks the transition for the right operator.

How to improve it

Systematize the bidding function immediately. The entire pipeline appears to run through the owner's estimating and engineer relationships, so document the bid process, historical win rates, and pricing logic in the first 90 days to survive the handoff and avoid a revenue cliff.
Expand the service radius beyond 50 miles. The owner explicitly flags a huge untapped market in the broader Pacific Northwest, and with rigs and crew already in place, a second geographic node or mobile crew could scale revenue without proportional overhead.
Formalize government and federal contracting. The business already touches municipal, state, and federal work; pursuing prequalification, prevailing-wage bid capability, and set-aside certifications would open a larger, more durable book of public infrastructure contracts.
Build a marketing and inbound engine. Revenue is entirely word-of-mouth today, so a basic website, targeted outreach to general contractors and geotech firms, and a CRM to track repeat builders could meaningfully lift lead flow at low cost.
Cross-train and retain the five-person crew. Owner and key-operator dependence is the central risk, so lock in the existing workforce with retention agreements and develop a lead foreman who can run jobs without you before the owner's training window closes.
Optimize equipment utilization and add capacity. With $2M of gear, track billable hours per rig and evaluate whether adding a second crew or renting idle capacity between jobs can raise asset productivity and revenue per dollar of iron.
Segment and reprice profitable work. Residential slope repair, seawalls, and government contracts likely carry very different margins; analyze job-level profitability and steer bidding toward the highest-return work now that you understand the cost structure.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize the $700K SDE against tax returns and job costing. A 58 percent margin is exceptional for heavy construction, so verify that owner labor, equipment depreciation, maintenance, and fuel are properly reflected and that SDE is not overstated by underinvesting in equipment upkeep.
Inspect and independently value the $2M equipment package. Two pile rigs, trucks, and trailers need condition assessment, hour readings, maintenance logs, and confirmation they are owned free and clear; deferred maintenance on aging rigs could turn the asset story into a capex liability.
Quantify owner and key-person dependence. The ideal buyer profile (mechanical skills, CDL, bidding, engineer relationships) signals the business runs on the owner's expertise, so map exactly which relationships, licenses, and contracts transfer and which walk out the door.
Confirm licensing, bonding, and contract backlog. Verify the WA contractor license, insurance, bonding capacity, and whether any active or awarded contracts are assignable; understand the pipeline of signed vs. prospective work to gauge revenue continuity post-close.
Test the no-competition and repeat-client claims. Pull a customer concentration analysis and revenue by client type over three years; a niche with 'almost no competitors' may also mean thin, concentrated demand that is vulnerable to a single lost relationship or a construction slowdown.
Assess cyclicality and downturn exposure. Pile driving is tied to new construction and infrastructure spend, which contract in a recession, so model how revenue and margin held up in prior slow periods and whether government work provides a countercyclical floor.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →