Full-Service Commercial Concrete Contractor, 24-Year North Carolina Operator

$26.0M

Revenue

$818K

SDE

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a full-service commercial concrete contractor based in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (the Charlotte metro), running roughly $26M in annual revenue with about 100 full-time employees. The company executes the full range of concrete scopes: foundations, slab on grade, slab on deck, structural concrete, turnkey concrete packages, and place-and-finish work across commercial, industrial, institutional, and infrastructure projects. Work is performed to engineered drawings and project specs with an emphasis on dimensional accuracy, structural integrity, finish quality, and schedule performance, which are the things general contractors actually pay for on subcontract packages.

Founded in 2000, the business has 24 years of operating history in one of the fastest-growing construction markets in the country. Charlotte and the broader Southeast continue to attract manufacturing, distribution, and institutional capital, which drives sustained demand for structural concrete subcontractors that can staff and self-perform at scale. A 100-person self-perform crew is a real barrier: labor is the constraint in this trade, and a bench of trained finishers and formwork crews is not easily replicated by a new entrant.

The headline financial tension is the margin profile. $818K of EBITDA on $26M of revenue is a 3.1% margin, which is thin even by concrete subcontractor standards and is the single most important thing a buyer must diagnose. The reason for selling is simply that the owner wants to increase liquidity, and he is willing to stay on post-close, which suggests a partial exit or recap rather than a walk-away. No real estate is included in the sale.

Why we like it

The business has genuine scale with $26M in revenue and a 100-person self-performing workforce, which is hard to build from scratch in a labor-constrained trade. That crew depth is the actual asset here, because general contractors award structural concrete packages to subs who can reliably staff and hit schedule.
It sits in the Charlotte metro, one of the strongest construction demand corridors in the country, with sustained inflows of manufacturing, distribution, and institutional projects. The listing correctly notes the region ranks among the nation's fastest-growing, which gives a top-line tailwind independent of operator skill.
Structural concrete is early in the build sequence and non-optional, so a competent contractor with 24 years of GC relationships has a defensible pipeline position. Repeat GC relationships function as a soft moat even though the revenue itself is project-based rather than contractual.
The owner is willing to stay post-close and is selling for liquidity rather than distress or burnout, which lowers transition risk and signals the business is not a fire sale. That alignment is useful for a financial buyer who needs operational continuity through the first cycle.

How to improve it

The first job is margin diagnosis, because 3.1% EBITDA on $26M is dangerously thin and leaves almost no room for a mispriced job or a bad weather quarter. Rebuild job costing by project type and cut or reprice the scopes that consistently bleed, because in concrete a handful of underbid jobs can erase the entire year's profit.
Tighten estimating and bid discipline so the company stops chasing revenue at breakeven margins. Implement a minimum gross margin floor and walk away from GCs who commoditize your bid, since $26M of low-margin work is worth less than $18M of well-priced work.
Attack labor productivity, which is the largest cost line and the biggest margin lever in self-perform concrete. Track pours per crew per day, formwork reuse, and rework rates, then tie crew leads to productivity bonuses so the incentive structure pushes finish quality and speed.
Formalize change-order capture, because concrete subs routinely leave money on the table by absorbing scope creep from GCs. A disciplined change-order and claims process on engineered-drawing deviations can add real points of margin without winning a single new job.
Build a rolling backlog and pipeline dashboard so the buyer knows committed revenue, bid volume, and win rate at all times. A subcontractor with no visible backlog is uninvestable, and demonstrating 6 to 12 months of committed work materially de-risks the deal and supports a higher multiple.
Diversify the GC customer base if concentration is high, since dependence on one or two general contractors is the classic killer for concrete subs. Add institutional and infrastructure clients (schools, healthcare, public works) that pay reliably and smooth the private-cycle volatility.

Diligence notes

Interrogate the margin structure line by line, because 3.1% EBITDA is the central risk of this deal. Confirm whether the thin margin reflects a few bad jobs, structural underpricing, owner add-backs not yet applied, or genuinely commoditized work, since each has very different implications for value.
Pull the full backlog and work-in-progress schedule, and reconcile percentage-of-completion accounting against actual costs to date. Concrete subs can look profitable on paper while carrying underwater jobs, so scrutinize any over/under billings and jobs where cost-to-complete has crept above the contract value.
Analyze customer concentration by GC and by project, because reliance on one or two general contractors would cap the multiple and threaten revenue continuity post-close. Verify the durability of those relationships and whether they are owner-dependent given the seller is only staying for a transition.
Assess workforce stability, including finisher and crew-lead tenure, wage rates, and how much of the 100-person team is dependent on the owner personally. Labor is the whole business here, so a diligence finding that key crews would leave post-close is a dealbreaker.
Verify equipment condition, ownership, and deferred capex, since the sale includes no real estate but a concrete operation requires forms, pumps, and vehicles. Confirm whether the fleet is owned, leased, or aging into a large near-term replacement bill that would swallow the modest EBITDA.
Confirm bonding capacity, insurance history, and any open warranty or structural-defect claims, because concrete carries long-tail liability on structural work. A single failed pour or foundation claim can dwarf annual earnings, so review the claims and litigation history carefully.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →