Miami-Dade Electrical Contractor, 12-Year Commercial & Government Specialist

$5.5M

Revenue

$1.5M

SDE

3.6x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

Founded in 2014 in Miami-Dade County, this electrical contractor started life as a residential service shop and deliberately climbed up-market into commercial and industrial work. The business now runs on roughly $5.47M in revenue and $1.54M in cash flow (a 28% owner-earnings margin), supported by 23 full-time employees and a recently upgraded, larger warehouse and office footprint. The 2023 push to increase bonding capacity unlocked a run of larger, more technical jobs and transformed the company from a small residential player into a credentialed infrastructure contractor.

The project portfolio is the story here: gas stations, military bases, medical facilities, water treatment plants, fire stations, landfills, EV charging stations, schools, and public parks. That mix skews heavily toward government and public-infrastructure work, which tends to be funded through capital budgets rather than discretionary consumer spending, and generally carries payment reliability that private GCs do not. Bonding capacity and prequalification with public agencies act as a real barrier to entry that most small electrical shops never clear.

At a $5.5M ask on $1.54M of cash flow, the deal is priced at roughly 3.57x, a fair-to-slightly-full number for a project-based trades business with no recurring contracted revenue. The upside case rests on whether the government relationships, bonding capacity, and backlog are durable and transferable, and whether margins hold once a new owner replaces the retiring founder. This is a buy-and-operate situation for a hands-on owner or a platform building a Florida electrical roll-up.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is strong on paper: $1.54M of cash flow on $5.47M of revenue is a 28% margin, well above the typical electrical contractor, likely helped by higher-value government and industrial work. The key diligence question is how much of that $1.54M is true owner replaceable earnings versus a single working owner's labor and estimating function.
The moat is bonding capacity and public-agency prequalification. The 2023 initiative to grow bonding capacity opened the door to military bases, water treatment plants, and other work most small shops cannot bid, and those credentials and relationships are genuinely hard to replicate quickly.
Demand is counter-cyclical and infrastructure-driven. Government, utility, EV charging, and public-facility electrical work is funded by capital budgets and mandates (not consumer confidence), so the revenue base holds up better in a downturn than residential or discretionary commercial build-out.
The operator advantage is clear for the right buyer: an experienced electrical or trades operator, or a Florida roll-up, can add project management capacity, pursue higher bonding limits, and expand crews against the same back office and reputation. South Florida population and infrastructure growth provides a long demand runway.

How to improve it

Map and document the government contract pipeline and prequalification status in the first 90 days. Lock down which agencies the company is prequalified with, transfer those relationships and master service agreements cleanly, and confirm the bonding line survives the ownership change so backlog does not stall at close.
Build a service and maintenance arm to add recurring revenue. The company already touches gas stations, EV chargers, medical facilities, and public buildings, all of which need ongoing inspection, emergency repair, and maintenance contracts that would smooth out the lumpy project revenue and lift the exit multiple.
Professionalize estimating and project management so the business is less dependent on the owner. If the retiring founder is the primary estimator or relationship holder, hire or promote that capacity early and standardize bid processes to protect the 28% margin after the handover.
Pursue higher bonding capacity to bid larger jobs. The 2023 bonding push already proved the growth lever works, so a buyer with a stronger balance sheet can underwrite larger single contracts and move up into bigger infrastructure packages the current owner could not bond.
Tighten job costing and margin tracking by project type. Separate residential, commercial, industrial, and government work to see where the real profit sits, then reallocate crews and bidding effort toward the highest-margin public and industrial segments.
Expand the labor pipeline through apprenticeship and licensing programs. Electrical capacity is gated by licensed and skilled labor, so building a steady recruiting and training funnel directly unlocks the ability to take on more backlog at current margins.
Diversify customer concentration if a few agencies or GCs dominate revenue. Use existing credentials to bid adjacent public entities across South Florida so no single contract loss threatens the earnings base.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize customer and contract concentration. Request a project-by-project revenue breakdown for the last three years to see how much of the $5.47M depends on a handful of government contracts or a single GC relationship, since public contracts are competitively rebid and can disappear.
Verify bonding capacity and its transferability. Confirm current bonding limits, the surety relationship, and whether a new owner's balance sheet and the founder's departure affect the ability to bond future work, because the growth thesis collapses without it.
Normalize the $1.54M cash flow and test owner dependence. Identify the owner's actual operating role (estimating, agency relationships, field oversight), add back and re-burden for a replacement, and confirm the margin is sustainable rather than propped up by unpaid owner labor.
Examine backlog, work-in-progress, and bonding-related receivables. Review signed contracts, remaining backlog value, retainage held by public agencies, and historical collection timelines, since government payment cycles can be slow and tie up working capital.
Confirm licensing continuity. Determine whether the master electrician license is held by the owner or a qualifying agent who stays post-sale, because Florida electrical contractor licenses are tied to a qualifier and a gap there can halt operations.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →