Multi-Family Kitchen & Bath Design-Build Firm, 60-Year Northeast Millwork Installer

$13.3M

Revenue

$1.6M

SDE

4.3x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a kitchen and bath design-build and millwork firm serving the multi-family residential housing market across the Northeast U.S. Founded in 1960, the business has installed more than 25,000 units since 2007 and supplies cabinetry, countertops, doors, trim, and custom millwork plus installation services to builders and developers across the NY/NJ/CT Tri-State region and New England. It runs on 15 employees out of a leased 7,000 SF facility and carries a sizable showroom for higher-margin custom retail work.

The model is built around repeat developer relationships on multi-family projects, which gives the company economies of scale and operational leverage on standardized unit installs. The listing reports 35%+ growth in the post-pandemic era on roughly $13.3M of revenue and $1.6M of cash flow, a healthy 12% margin for a project-based installation business. Reputation and developer trust are the core assets here: in multi-family construction, on-time delivery and reliability drive the next contract.

At $7M against $1.6M cash flow (4.33x), the buyer is paying up for a durable name and a strong developer book. The key question is how concentrated that book is and how much of the trailing cash flow depends on a construction cycle that was unusually hot. This is a cyclical, project-driven business dressed up with 60 years of history, and it should be underwritten as such.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is solid for a construction-adjacent business, with $1.6M of cash flow on $13.3M of revenue, a 12% margin that beats most project-based installers. The 25,000+ units installed since 2007 show a repeatable, standardized install model rather than one-off custom chaos. That repeatability is what makes the margin defensible.
The moat is reputation and developer relationships, not patents or tech. Sixty years of operating history and a trusted name among leading builders drive repeat business, and in multi-family construction the incumbent with a clean delivery record wins the next tower by default. Switching away from a reliable installer mid-pipeline is a real risk developers avoid.
Multi-family housing demand across the Northeast is a genuine tailwind, with chronic undersupply and continued development activity in the Tri-State and New England markets. The listing cites 35%+ post-pandemic growth, which suggests the company is riding real volume, not just price. There is stated runway into the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
The operator advantage is a lean 15-person team and an owner willing to give 26 weeks of transition support, which is unusually generous. A buyer with construction or building-products experience could layer on sales capacity and a second region without rebuilding the core install machine. The large showroom is an underused higher-margin retail channel.

How to improve it

Audit customer and developer concentration in the first 30 days, then lock in top accounts with multi-project master agreements or preferred-vendor status. In a project business, a single developer walking can erase a quarter, so converting relationships into something closer to contractual commitment protects the cash flow you just paid 4.33x for.
Push the high-margin showroom and custom residential channel harder, since the listing flags it as underexploited. Custom kitchen and bath retail carries fatter margins than bulk multi-family installs and diversifies revenue away from the construction cycle. A dedicated showroom salesperson and basic digital lead gen could move the needle within two quarters.
Build a real backlog and pipeline tracking system so you can underwrite future revenue instead of guessing. Multi-family work is lumpy, and knowing signed versus probable versus speculative projects lets you staff and buy materials intelligently. This also becomes a valuation asset when you eventually sell.
Tighten procurement on cabinetry, doors, and countertops by consolidating vendors and negotiating volume pricing against the full install pipeline. At $13M of revenue, even a few points of materials savings flows straight to the $1.6M cash flow line. Standardized multi-family specs make bulk buying easier here than in custom shops.
Formalize the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast expansion the listing teases, but do it with a hired regional lead before committing capital. Follow existing developer clients who build in multiple regions rather than cold-starting a new market. Expansion funded by existing relationships carries far lower risk than greenfield.
Reduce key-person risk by documenting estimating, bidding, and project-management processes while the retiring owner is still on the 26-week support clock. Sixty-year businesses often live in one person's head, and the handover window is the moment to extract that knowledge. This is non-negotiable before the seller walks.

Diligence notes

Verify the revenue and cash flow with tax returns and project-level job costing, not just a broker summary. Construction cash flow can be distorted by work-in-progress timing, retainage, and change orders, so confirm the $1.6M is clean, normalized owner earnings and not a peak-cycle year. The 35%+ post-pandemic growth needs to be stress-tested against a normalized construction environment.
Dig into developer and customer concentration, because premier developer partnerships cut both ways. Ask what percentage of revenue the top three clients represent and how durable those relationships are once the founder who built them is gone. A book of two or three large builders is a materially different risk than a diversified base.
Examine the backlog and the dependence on the current construction cycle, since multi-family starts are rate-sensitive and cyclical. Request signed contracts versus pipeline and model what revenue looks like if Northeast multi-family starts slow. This business is not recession-proof, and the price assumes continued volume.
Confirm the lease terms on the 7,000 SF facility and the showroom, including remaining term, renewal options, and rent escalations. The real estate is leased, so lease security directly affects operational continuity and should be nailed down before close. Also verify the showroom revenue and margins the listing touts.
Assess workforce and subcontractor stability given only 15 employees carry $13M of revenue, which implies heavy reliance on skilled installers or subs. Understand who the critical estimators and project managers are, their compensation, and their likelihood of staying post-sale. Labor availability in skilled trades is a real constraint on scaling this model.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →