High and Medium Voltage Electrical Contractor, 27-Year Florida Infrastructure Specialist

$4.9M

Revenue

$2.3M

SDE

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a Winter Park, Florida high- and medium-voltage electrical contractor that has operated continuously since 1997, giving it roughly 27 years of track record in a licensing-gated specialty trade. The company works across mission-critical public and industrial infrastructure: water and wastewater treatment, pump and lift stations, aviation facilities, correctional institutions, educational campuses, parking structures, and municipal buildings. It functions as both a licensed prime contractor and as a specialty subcontractor to national and regional general contractors, delivering design-assist, installation, and maintenance work.

The numbers are the headline here. On $4.93M of revenue the business throws off $2.29M of SDE and $1.81M of EBITDA, which is a 46% SDE margin and a 37% EBITDA margin. Those are exceptional margins for a contracting business and reflect the pricing power that comes from high- and medium-voltage licensing, complex public-sector work, and a reputation that lets the company win specialized bids that generalist electricians cannot touch.

The business runs lean with only 12 full-time employees and operates from a leased office, meaning it is not weighed down by heavy owned real estate or a large fleet. The seller is retiring, offers seller financing, and states the SDE could reach roughly $3M by year end. The stated growth path is straightforward: the reputation to win more work exists, but capturing it requires a buyer willing to add crews and extend the geographic footprint.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is the standout: $2.29M SDE and $1.81M EBITDA on $4.93M revenue is a 46% SDE margin, which is rare for electrical contracting and signals real pricing power. The gap between EBITDA and SDE (roughly $485K) is modest, suggesting the reported cash flow is not heavily inflated by add-backs and the business genuinely produces strong operating profit.
The moat is licensing plus reputation. High- and medium-voltage work is a narrow, credential-gated specialty that most electricians cannot legally or competently perform, and 27 years of continuous operation as both a licensed prime and a trusted sub to national GCs creates switching costs and repeat relationships that are hard to replicate quickly.
The end markets are as recession-resistant as construction gets. Water and wastewater treatment, pump and lift stations, aviation, corrections, schools, and municipal facilities are funded by public budgets and non-discretionary maintenance cycles, so demand persists through downturns and is partly insulated from private commercial construction swings.
This is a genuine operator play with a clear scaling lever. The business is capacity-constrained rather than demand-constrained, with the reputation to win more work but only 12 employees, so a buyer who can recruit licensed crews and push into adjacent Florida geographies inherits a proven brand and a demand backlog to grow into.

How to improve it

Attack the capacity constraint immediately by recruiting and onboarding additional licensed high-voltage electricians and field crews. The listing explicitly states the reputation exists to take on more work, so every additional qualified crew converts directly into incremental high-margin revenue rather than requiring new demand generation.
Build a formal estimating and bidding function to systematically pursue public-sector and municipal RFPs. With mission-critical infrastructure clients that procure through structured bids, a dedicated bid pipeline and pre-qualification with more agencies would smooth revenue and reduce reliance on inbound relationships.
Extend the geographic footprint beyond the current Orange County base into adjacent Florida markets such as Tampa, Jacksonville, and South Florida. The specialty is portable, the brand travels through GC relationships, and Florida's ongoing infrastructure and population growth supports demand across the state.
Institutionalize the owner's relationships and knowledge before the retiring seller fully exits. Document key GC contacts, agency contacts, bidding know-how, and technical procedures so the enterprise value does not walk out the door with the founder, which is the single biggest risk in a founder-run trade business.
Grow the recurring maintenance and service revenue stream on top of project installation work. Maintenance contracts on installed medium-voltage systems create predictable, higher-margin annuity revenue and deepen client stickiness versus one-off project bidding.
Layer in project management software and job-costing systems to protect margins as headcount scales. The current 46% SDE margin is exceptional at 12 employees, and disciplined job costing and change-order management will be essential to hold that margin as the crew count and project volume double.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize customer and project concentration across the reported revenue. With only 12 employees producing nearly $5M, verify whether earnings depend on a handful of large public contracts or a small set of GC relationships, and confirm what happens to backlog and pipeline once the founder departs.
Validate the SDE and EBITDA figures against tax returns and detailed job-cost records, and understand the add-backs bridging EBITDA to SDE. Also press hard on the claim that SDE could reach roughly $3M by year end, since projected earnings are marketing until backed by signed contracts and work in progress.
Confirm the licensing and bonding structure. High- and medium-voltage work requires specific electrical licenses and, for public work, bonding capacity, so determine whose license the business operates under, whether it transfers to the buyer, and whether the buyer must qualify or retain a qualifying agent.
Assess the labor situation in detail, including the tenure, licensing, and retention risk of the 12 employees. In a credential-gated trade with a tight labor market, the ability to keep and recruit qualified electricians is the binding constraint on both continuity and growth, so understand comp, non-competes, and key-person exposure.
Review the pipeline, backlog, and any bid pending or awarded but not yet performed. Contracting earnings can be lumpy, so a multi-year revenue and backlog history is needed to determine whether the $4.93M is a stable run rate or a peak driven by one or two unusually large jobs.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →