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Full Editorial Writeup
This is an established electrical contracting business in Southwest Florida doing over $8.15M in annual revenue and north of $1.1M in adjusted EBITDA. The company serves a diversified mix of commercial, residential, service, and low-voltage and fire customers, with the higher-margin service division now the largest piece of the business. Work is spread across a broad base of general contractors and commercial accounts with no material customer concentration, and the shop has the technical depth to bid complex jobs that smaller local operators cannot touch.
The defining feature of this deal is that it is built to run without the owner. Operations, estimating, and customer relationships sit with a long-tenured operations officer and a bench of department leads, while ownership handles only finance and treasury and has no trade background. Critically, the qualifying state contractor license is held by a career employee under a long-term employment agreement with several years left, so a buyer does not need an electrical license or field experience to own and grow the business.
The workforce is entirely W-2, operations run from a company facility with an owned service fleet, and signed commercial and municipal contracts are in place at closing. In-house capability across service, commercial, residential, and low-voltage and fire lets the company self-perform bundled work rather than paying margin to subcontractors. The owner is approaching retirement and treating this as a portfolio decision, not a forced sale.
Why we like it
- Earnings quality is solid: $1.1M adjusted EBITDA on $8.15M revenue is a roughly 13.5% margin, healthy for electrical, and the mix is shifting toward the higher-margin service division rather than low-margin new-construction bid work. Signed commercial and municipal contracts at closing give near-term revenue visibility that a pure project shop usually lacks.
- The moat is real and rare for a trades deal: the contractor license sits with a career employee under a long-term agreement, so the buyer inherits licensing rather than having to be a licensed electrician. In-house capability across service, commercial, residential, and low-voltage and fire means the company self-performs bundled scopes and keeps margin that fragmented competitors pay away to subs.
- Tailwinds are structural, not cyclical. Florida population growth, EV charger demand, commercial electrification, and regional data center development all drive electrical demand, and electrical work is non-discretionary maintenance and code-driven spend that holds up in a downturn.
- This is a genuine operator advantage story. The business already runs manager-run with an operations officer and department leads owning estimating and customer relationships, so an independent sponsor or strategic acquirer can focus on growth, add-on acquisitions, and capital allocation instead of swinging a hammer.
How to improve it
- Push the service and maintenance division toward contracted recurring revenue by rolling out annual service agreements and preventive maintenance plans for commercial accounts. Converting repeat service work into contracts raises enterprise value and smooths the project-driven revenue lumpiness that depresses the multiple.
- Build out the newly added low-voltage and fire department into a full profit center with dedicated technicians and a sales motion. Capturing scope previously subcontracted is pure incremental margin on work the company already touches.
- Install real financial reporting and job-costing dashboards within the first 90 days so you can see gross margin by division, by job, and by estimator. Electrical shops bleed profit on mispriced bids, and better visibility into job-level margin is the fastest path to EBITDA expansion.
- Formalize a go-to-market for EV charging, electrification retrofits, and data center build-outs, which the listing names as tailwinds but likely under-penetrates today. These are higher-ticket, higher-margin scopes that leverage the existing license and technical depth.
- Use the platform to pursue tuck-in acquisitions of nearby electrical, plumbing, or HVAC operators, exactly as the listing suggests. A manager-run base with an in-house qualifier makes this an ideal roll-up platform where you can bolt on route density and cross-sell.
- Lock down and incentivize the operations officer and the licensed qualifier with retention and equity-like incentives before close. The entire deal thesis depends on these two roles staying, so turning their employment agreements into golden handcuffs protects the asset.
- Negotiate a favorable long-term lease or purchase option on the facility, since the real estate is owned by the seller at $2.5M but excluded from the asking price. Securing occupancy on good terms prevents a post-close rent squeeze from the former owner-landlord.
Diligence notes
- Scrutinize the licensed qualifier's employment agreement line by line: remaining term, compensation, non-compete, and what happens to the company's license if that person leaves or dies. The listing leans heavily on this single employee, and the whole no-electrical-background pitch collapses if the qualifier walks.
- Verify the quality of the $1.1M EBITDA by reviewing the add-back schedule, work-in-process accounting, and percentage-of-completion revenue recognition. Electrical contractors routinely overstate earnings through aggressive WIP and under-accrued warranty or rework costs, so tie reported EBITDA to bank statements and tax returns.
- Confirm the backlog and the signed contracts at closing, including contract values, margins, completion stages, and any retainage owed. A manager-run project business is only as good as its pipeline, so quantify how much revenue is contracted versus speculative bid work.
- Test the no-customer-concentration claim by pulling revenue by customer for the last three years. 'Spread across many general contractors' can still hide a top-five that drives most gross profit, and GC relationships can be personality-driven rather than contractual.
- Validate the Florida contractor and low-voltage/fire licensing status, any open permits, and the company's claims and litigation history. Trade contractors carry liability exposure on completed work, so check warranty claims, lien history, and workers comp experience modifiers.
- Clarify the real estate situation before closing, since the $2.5M property is owned by the seller and excluded from the price. Get the lease terms or purchase option in writing so you are not exposed to an above-market rent demand from a retiring owner who still controls your facility.
Source
- 245D Home Health Care Agency, 13-Year Twin Cities Provider
- Houston Property Restoration Franchise, Commercial-Focused, Harris County TX
- East Tennessee Exterior Cleaning & Dryer Vent Companies, Manager-Run
- Commercial HVAC Contractor, Twin Cities Minnesota
- South Puget Sound Painting Contractor, 15-Year Washington Residential & Commercial
- Leading HVAC Service Company, 40-Year Northern Utah Contractor
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