Ohio Commercial Concrete Subcontractor, 36-Year Self-Perform Contractor

Full Editorial Writeup

This is a 36-year-old Ohio commercial concrete subcontractor that self-performs foundations, flatwork, site concrete and paving for general contractors across a diversified commercial, industrial and institutional mix. The company does $16.0M in revenue with $2.08M of SDE and $1.6M of EBITDA, sitting on a $24M backlog. It runs a complete operating platform: roughly 35 field employees under working foremen, a four-person shop with a full-time mechanic, a staffed estimating department, and an owned fleet of 81 units (excavators, skid steers, trucks, trailers, gang forming systems and 3D grading equipment) worth about $1.7M free and clear.

The revenue engine is built on invitation-only bidding. Nearly all volume comes from long-held general contractor relationships, often with last look, and the company keeps a short do-not-bid list to screen out bad payers. It targets the $500k to $3M package size that larger contractors have abandoned to chase semiconductor, data center and logistics megaprojects, leaving a smaller field of qualified bidders. City prequalification standing, three-plus decades of dispute-free job closings and an owned fleet form real barriers to new entrants.

What makes this notable is the depth of the management team and the owners' explicit choice to run below capacity. The CEO moved to part-time years ago and the business ran without him. The CFO, both superintendents, both project managers, the lead estimator and the field foremen are all expected to stay. An estimator with the company since 1999 is ready to absorb the exiting owner's estimating work, which is why a three-year transition is on the table. The owners declined work every year by preference, meaning the demand to grow toward management's stated $25M to $30M target is already in hand.