Premier Decorative Plumbing & Luxury Bath Distributor, 25-Year Broward County FL

$6.4M

Revenue

$765K

SDE

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a 25-plus year decorative plumbing, luxury bath, and specialty building products distributor operating out of Broward County, Florida. The company runs a hybrid model: a professionally designed working-display showroom paired with warehouse and distribution capacity, letting contractors, custom home builders, remodelers, designers, and retail homeowners see and buy premium products across bathtubs, shower systems, faucets, vanities, countertops, steam systems, and water filtration. At $6.4M in revenue and $765K in SDE, it clears roughly a 12 percent owner-earnings margin, which is respectable for a showroom-plus-warehouse distribution operation carrying $500K in inventory.

The standout feature is that the business runs on a 10-person team handling sales, purchasing, bookkeeping, customer service, warehouse ops, and vendor relationships, with the owner largely stepping back. Management is expected to stay through and after the transaction, which is exactly what a buyer wants when the seller is retiring. It is SBA prequalified, which broadens the buyer pool and confirms the earnings hold up to lender scrutiny.

The caveat: this is discretionary demand tied directly to residential construction, custom home building, and high-end remodeling. Luxury bath and decorative plumbing sales rise and fall with housing turnover and homeowner renovation budgets, both of which soften meaningfully in a downturn. The business is durable within its niche and well-run, but it is not recession-proof, and a buyer should underwrite the earnings against a cyclical revenue base.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is solid for the category, with $765K SDE and $690K EBITDA on $6.4M revenue, a roughly 11 to 12 percent margin, and SBA prequalification that signals the financials survived third-party review. Significant repeat and referral business gives the revenue base more predictability than a project-by-project contractor would have.
The moat is relationship-driven and hard to replicate: 25-plus years of established relationships with premium manufacturers and a diversified base of contractors, builders, designers, and remodelers. The physical working-display showroom plus warehouse creates a real barrier versus online-only competitors who cannot let customers experience high-ticket bath products firsthand.
This is a genuinely manager-run business, which is rare at this size. An experienced team already handles sales, purchasing, bookkeeping, and warehouse operations, and key management is expected to stay, so the buyer inherits operating continuity rather than a business that collapses when the owner leaves.
The operator upside is clean because ownership ran conservatively on reputation and referrals with essentially no digital marketing. A buyer who layers in SEO, contractor and designer outreach, and multifamily or commercial project targeting can potentially grow revenue on the existing overhead base, since the infrastructure and team are already in place.

How to improve it

Stand up a real digital presence within 90 days: SEO, a modern showroom-showcase website, Google Business optimization, and targeted paid search for high-intent luxury bath and remodel queries in South Florida. The seller admits this channel is untouched, so incremental leads should convert against an already-strong showroom close rate.
Build a structured outbound program to contractors, custom builders, and interior designers, with a referral incentive and a preferred-trade pricing tier. The customer base is already diversified, but relationship-based selling has been passive, and a formal business development motion could deepen wallet share per account.
Pursue commercial and multifamily project work explicitly, since the current mix skews residential and custom. Multifamily developers buy fixtures in volume and provide larger, more predictable orders that smooth the residential-renovation cyclicality.
Tighten inventory management against the $500K on hand by analyzing turns by SKU, cutting slow movers, and negotiating better manufacturer terms on fast-selling lines. Freeing working capital and improving vendor terms drops directly to cash flow and de-risks the cyclical exposure.
Formalize and retain the management team with incentive comp or retention agreements before close, since the entire absentee thesis depends on them staying. Losing a key salesperson or purchaser post-close would materially damage the value you paid for.
Expand adjacent product categories where the same customers already buy, such as kitchen hardware, tile, or smart-home water systems, to increase order size per transaction. Cross-selling into an existing loyal base is cheaper than acquiring new customers.
Renegotiate or extend the lease well ahead of the January 2028 expiration, given $25K per month rent on 16,000 SF is a significant fixed cost. Locking favorable terms early protects margins and removes a real risk that could otherwise spook a lender or future buyer.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize revenue concentration and cyclicality: pull monthly revenue back through 2008 to 2011 and 2020 to see how the business performed in housing downturns, since luxury bath and decorative plumbing demand tracks residential construction and discretionary remodeling. Understand how much revenue comes from the top 10 contractor and builder accounts.
Verify the SDE and EBITDA bridge line by line, confirming what add-backs make up the gap between $690K EBITDA and $765K SDE, and whether the seller's compensation and any absentee-owner assumptions are realistic. Confirm the SBA prequalification is based on these same normalized numbers.
Stress-test the absentee claim by identifying exactly which employees hold customer and vendor relationships, and confirm through interviews and retention agreements that they will stay. The valuation rests heavily on management continuity, so key-person risk is the central threat here.
Examine the lease carefully: $25K per month expiring January 2028 with no real estate included means rent is a major, potentially rising cost, and the buyer needs to know renewal terms, escalators, and whether the landlord relationship is stable. Model what happens to cash flow if rent jumps at renewal.
Audit inventory quality and turns behind the $500K stated value, checking for obsolete, discontinued, or slow-moving SKUs that inflate the number. Confirm the $150K FF&E and showroom displays are current and not carrying deferred capex.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →