Freight Brokerage & Carrier, 23-Year Southern California Operator

$6.9M

Revenue

$747K

SDE

3.5x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a 23-year-old freight brokerage and carrier operation based in Garden Grove, California, doing roughly $6.9M in gross revenue against $746K in reported EBITDA. The business sits in the middle of the supply chain, connecting shippers who need to move goods with carriers who haul them, earning money on the spread between what the shipper pays and what the carrier gets, plus commissions. It handles standard freight along with specialized loads like refrigerated, oversized, and hazardous materials, and manages compliance, tracking, and payment facilitation across both sides of the transaction.

What makes this listing notable is how thin the owner's involvement is. The seller reports working roughly 20 hours a week on administrative tasks while a team of six employees plus a bench of around 30 contractor carriers runs day-to-day operations. That is an unusually low owner-hour profile for a business generating close to three quarters of a million in EBITDA, which is the central selling point and also the central diligence question.

The operation is asset-light by design: it leases an 833 square foot office at about $2,163 a month and owns no trucks. Revenue is generated through relationships, carrier networks, and pricing execution rather than capital equipment. Priced at $2.6M against $746K EBITDA, the deal comes in at roughly 3.5x, which is a reasonable range for a durable, established logistics intermediary if the margins and customer base hold up under scrutiny.

Why we like it

Earnings quality looks strong on paper: $746K EBITDA on $6.9M revenue is roughly an 11 percent margin, which is healthy for freight brokerage where 3 to 5 percent net is common. The 23-year track record suggests the business has survived multiple freight cycles including the brutal 2022 to 2024 rate collapse, which is a meaningful stress test.
The moat here is relationships and reputation, not capital. A brokerage that has run 23 years has a proven carrier network and repeat shipper relationships that new entrants cannot replicate quickly, and the listing explicitly cites an established reputation as its competitive edge.
Freight is a genuinely non-discretionary function. Goods move in every economy, and while volumes and rates cycle, the underlying need to broker capacity persists through downturns, which puts this well ahead of any discretionary consumer business on durability.
The asset-light model is attractive for a buyer: no truck fleet to maintain, no equipment depreciation, and a tiny $2,163 monthly lease. Combined with a six-person team and 30 contractor carriers, the fixed-cost base is low and the operation scales without heavy reinvestment.

How to improve it

Immediately verify and rebuild the sales engine. The current EBITDA appears to rest on existing relationships with the owner only working 20 hours a week, so within the first 90 days map exactly who owns each shipper relationship and hire or formalize a dedicated business development role to drive new account acquisition.
Institute carrier and shipper diversification analysis. Pull revenue by customer and by carrier to identify concentration risk, then set a target to bring the top account below a safe threshold, because freight brokerages live and die on whether a couple of shippers walk.
Layer in technology and a transportation management system if not already in place. Modern TMS and load-board automation reduce the manual dispatch burden, improve margin capture per load, and make the business less dependent on tribal knowledge held by long-tenured staff.
Push into higher-margin specialized freight. The business already touches refrigerated, oversized, and hazmat loads, which carry better spreads than dry van; deliberately marketing these niches can lift blended gross margin without adding overhead.
Build contracted or dedicated lanes to add revenue stickiness. Spot freight is volatile, so signing shippers to committed volume agreements or dedicated lane contracts would convert one-off transactions into predictable recurring revenue and increase the eventual resale multiple.
Document all processes and cross-train before close. Given the reliance on a small team and the owner's institutional knowledge, codifying SOPs for pricing, carrier vetting, and claims handling protects the buyer from key-person risk during transition.
Renegotiate carrier terms and payment timing. Improving days payable to carriers or securing quick-pay discounts can free working capital and add margin, a lever that is often underexploited in owner-run brokerages.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize the gap between the 20-hour owner claim and $746K EBITDA. Confirm whether the owner truly does only administrative work or holds the key shipper and carrier relationships informally, because if those relationships walk with the seller, the reported earnings are not transferable.
Reconcile EBITDA to tax returns and bank statements. SDE was listed as not disclosed and only EBITDA is given, so demand three years of returns, add-back schedules, and monthly P&Ls to confirm the margin is real and not inflated by aggressive add-backs.
Analyze customer and carrier concentration in detail. Request a revenue breakdown by shipper and by carrier for the trailing 36 months, since a single large shipper leaving can gut a brokerage's earnings overnight.
Assess revenue trend through the recent freight recession. Freight rates cratered from 2022 through 2024, so map monthly revenue and gross margin across that window to determine whether the business is stable, declining, or recovering, and price accordingly.
Verify the contractor and employee structure. With 30 contractors and six staff, confirm worker classification compliance under California law (AB5 is a real risk for logistics), and review whether any dispatchers or account managers are flight risks post-sale.
Confirm licensing, bonding, and compliance status. Validate active FMCSA broker authority, the required BMC-84 surety bond, DOT compliance history, and any pending claims or safety issues that could impair the transferable value of the business.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →