Specialized Commercial Field Service Company, Oklahoma City Contractor

$2.0M

Revenue

$510K

SDE

1.0x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is an Oklahoma City based commercial field service company founded in 2009 that performs scheduled specialty service and maintenance work at customer facilities across a mix of business and institutional environments. The model is built on repeat service cycles and ongoing account relationships, with centralized estimating, scheduling and job documentation supporting trained field crews that execute the work on-site. With roughly eight employees (six full-time, two part-time), the operation is lean and process-driven rather than founder-dependent for the actual labor.

The economics are the headline. On $2.02M of revenue the business throws off $509,850 in cash flow, a 25 percent owner earnings margin, and it is being offered at $523,700. That is essentially a 1.03x cash flow multiple, meaning a buyer is paying roughly one year of earnings for a business with recurring commercial accounts. A multiple that low on a profitable, recurring-revenue services company is either a genuine bargain or a signal that something in the story needs verifying.

What makes it notable is the combination of stickiness and price. Commercial customers who rely on scheduled specialty work rarely churn on a whim, and the centralized back office plus documented operating procedures suggests the business can be handed off without the buyer needing to personally hold every client relationship. The owner's role is described as account service, pricing, scheduling, crew coordination and quality control, which is a coachable operator seat rather than a licensed-tradesperson bottleneck.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is strong on paper: $509,850 of cash flow on $2.02M revenue is a 25 percent margin, and the work is described as recurring service cycles rather than one-off project chasing. Recurring commercial accounts produce more predictable monthly cash than a bid-to-bid contractor, which is exactly what you want to underwrite against acquisition debt.
The price is the story. At $523,700 against $509,850 of cash flow, you are buying at roughly 1.03x, so the business theoretically pays for itself in about a year of earnings. Even if real transferable earnings come in materially lower after adjusting for owner labor, the downside cushion at this multiple is unusually wide.
Durability comes from the recurring commercial account base and the centralized estimating, scheduling and documentation systems. Because the field work is process-driven and supported by organized operating procedures, customer relationships and job knowledge are less likely to walk out the door with a single key person.
The operator advantage is that ownership sits in a coachable seat: pricing, scheduling, crew coordination, quality control and customer communication. This is not a licensed-trade bottleneck where the owner must personally perform the service, so a competent operator with a systems mindset can step in and scale account count.

How to improve it

Nail down and formalize the recurring revenue in the first 90 days by converting loose repeat accounts into written service agreements with defined scopes, renewal terms and price escalators. Contractual recurring revenue lifts both stability and exit multiple far above a business that merely enjoys repeat customers.
Institute annual price increases on the existing book. Many owner-run service firms hold pricing flat for years, so a modest 5 to 10 percent adjustment across recurring accounts can flow almost entirely to the bottom line given the fixed cost base.
Add a light-touch sales function to grow account density in the Oklahoma City metro. With only eight employees and a centralized dispatch system, adding routes and clients in the same geography raises crew utilization without proportionally raising overhead.
Build a real KPI dashboard tracking revenue per account, crew utilization, job margin and churn. The listing mentions documentation but not analytics, and visibility into which accounts and service types actually make money is the fastest path to margin expansion.
Reduce owner dependency by promoting or hiring an operations lead to own scheduling, crew coordination and quality control. This protects the transition, de-risks the business for a future sale, and frees the buyer to focus on account growth and pricing.
Cross-sell additional specialty services into the existing commercial base. Facilities that already trust the company for one scheduled service are the cheapest source of new revenue, and bolting on adjacent recurring work raises lifetime value per account.

Diligence notes

Verify what the $509,850 cash flow actually includes and whether it fully burdens a market-rate replacement for the owner's role. At a 1.03x multiple this low, the single biggest risk is that reported SDE overstates transferable earnings once you add back a real salary for the pricing, scheduling and QC functions the owner performs.
Pin down exactly what specialty service this company performs, since the listing is deliberately vague. Whether it is fire safety, industrial cleaning, coatings, restoration or another niche materially changes the recession resilience, licensing requirements, competitive set and true recurring nature of the accounts.
Quantify the recurring revenue rigorously: what percent of revenue is contracted versus repeat-but-unsigned, customer concentration, average account tenure and churn. Request the top-20 customer list with revenue and start dates to confirm the accounts are genuinely sticky rather than reactive project work relabeled as recurring.
Confirm any licensing, safety certifications, insurance and regulatory requirements needed to perform the field work, and whether those transfer to a non-industry buyer. The mention of safety procedures in the field suggests hazard exposure that could carry insurance cost and liability implications.
Understand why a profitable, recurring-revenue business with a 25 percent margin is priced at roughly one year of cash flow. Confirm the seller's motivation, check for undisclosed customer losses, pending contract non-renewals, or vehicle and equipment condition issues that could explain the discount.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →