Diversified Industrial Services Company - Fort Wayne Contractor

$7.0M

Revenue

$1.0M

SDE

3.4x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a regional industrial services contractor based within an hour of Fort Wayne, Indiana, operating across four distinct service divisions. The company serves heavy industrial clients including manufacturing plants, foundries, scrap processing operations, and major distribution centers, with a core value proposition built around 24/7 emergency response for mission-critical equipment failures. That emergency dimension is the interesting part: when a foundry or distribution center goes down, the cost of downtime dwarfs the cost of the service call, which gives this business pricing power and sticky relationships that pure-bid contractors rarely have.

The financials are solid for the category. $7M in revenue, $1M in cash flow (a healthy 14% SDE margin for a services contractor), 35 full-time employees, and a claimed 32% year-over-year revenue growth in 2025. The four-division structure spreads client concentration risk and positions the company as a one-stop industrial solution provider rather than a single-trade vendor, which matters for retention and wallet share.

At $3.395M against $1M cash flow, the deal is priced at 3.4x SDE, which is in-line to slightly rich for a labor-heavy services business but reasonable if the growth and emergency-response stickiness hold up under diligence. The seller is retiring, financing is available, and a strong management team is already in place, which together make this credible as a semi-passive or platform acquisition rather than a job you have to show up to every day. The real estate is owned but offered separately at market price, so it does not inflate the operating multiple.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is anchored in 24/7 emergency response work for mission-critical industrial equipment, which is non-discretionary and commands premium pricing. When a foundry or distribution center has an equipment failure, they pay for speed, not the lowest bid, which protects margins. The 14% SDE margin on $7M is healthy for a labor-driven contractor.
The moat comes from diversification and relationships, not a single contract. Four service divisions across manufacturing, foundries, scrap processing, and distribution reduce client and revenue concentration risk, and the long-term client base in stable industrial sectors creates recurring demand. Being the established go-to emergency provider in a regional market is genuinely hard to displace.
Market tailwinds favor domestic industrial and infrastructure reshoring, and the listing claims 32% revenue growth in 2025. One division is reportedly capacity-constrained and could double with additional staffing, meaning growth is a hiring and capital problem rather than a demand problem. That is the kind of constraint a well-capitalized buyer can solve immediately.
Operator advantage is real here: 35 full-time employees and a strong team are already in place, the seller is retiring and offering full transition support plus seller financing. This is structured to run with management rather than depend on the founder, making it viable as a platform for industrial services consolidation across the Midwest.

How to improve it

Staff up the high-growth division immediately. The listing explicitly states one revenue channel could double with additional staffing, so prioritize recruiting and onboarding skilled trades in the first 90 days to capture demand that is already there. This is the single highest-ROI lever in the deal.
Productize and price the 24/7 emergency response as a contracted retainer or service agreement. Converting ad-hoc emergency callouts into recurring monthly maintenance and priority-response contracts would smooth revenue, raise valuation multiple, and lock in the stickiest clients before a competitor does.
Build a real CRM and pipeline system across all four divisions. Cross-selling existing manufacturing and distribution clients into the other three service lines is the cheapest growth available, but it requires knowing who buys what and systematically pitching the full portfolio.
Tighten margin discipline by division. With four divisions, some are almost certainly more profitable than others; instrument job-level costing so you can shift labor and bidding toward the highest-margin work and prune or reprice the laggards.
Negotiate the real estate separately and decide deliberately. Since the owner will sell the property at market price, model whether owning the facility makes sense versus a market-rate lease, and use a sale-leaseback or SBA structure to keep operating capital free for hiring and equipment.
Formalize the management layer and incentive comp. The team is in place, but a retiring founder usually holds undocumented relationships and knowledge; lock key managers in with retention bonuses and equity-like incentives during the transition to protect the team-driven value.
Use the consolidation angle as a thesis. This company is positioned as a roll-up acquirer for adjacent industrial services firms; line up a pipeline of tuck-in targets in surrounding markets to deploy the platform and de-risk geographic concentration.

Diligence notes

Stress-test the 32% growth claim. Verify whether 2025 growth is organic and recurring or driven by one-time large projects, weather events, or a single anomalous client; one-time emergency surges can flatter a single year. Pull three years of monthly revenue by division to see the real trend.
Quantify true client concentration despite the diversification narrative. Get revenue by client across all four divisions for the last three years, because 'reduced concentration risk' is a marketing line until you see that no single foundry or distribution center represents an outsized share.
Scrutinize the $1M cash flow and the SDE add-backs. Confirm the figure is documented with tax returns and P&Ls, and verify how much owner compensation, personal expenses, and the value of the existing management team are baked in, since labor-heavy contractors can have aggressive add-backs.
Validate the labor and skilled-trades supply. The growth thesis depends on hiring more tradespeople in a tight Midwest labor market; assess wage rates, turnover, overtime reliance, and whether the 35 employees include hard-to-replace certified specialists. Confirm no unionization or pending labor issues.
Examine equipment condition and capex needs. The $800K of FF&E is included, but industrial services equipment wears out; inspect the fleet and machinery, get a maintenance and replacement schedule, and budget realistic ongoing capex that the headline SDE may not reflect.
Clarify the real estate terms and total cost of control. The property is owned and offered at market price separately, so get an independent appraisal and lease comps, and model the all-in acquisition cost whether you buy or lease the facility before committing to the 3.4x operating multiple.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →