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Full Editorial Writeup
Founded in 2007, this is a licensed commercial electrical contractor serving a dense base of hundreds of recurring accounts across Oklahoma and Arkansas. The customer roster is the kind buyers dream about: national retailers and restaurant chains, HVAC service providers, state agencies, railroads, healthcare facilities, banks, municipalities and manufacturers. Critically, most of the work flows from one- to three-year service contracts, and many of the relationships stretch back decades, which tells you churn is low and the revenue is far stickier than a project-based electrician.
The operation is already built out as a going concern. It carries a trained field crew, office staff, a vehicle fleet, equipment, and a track record of customer-service recognition. With 13 full-time employees and roughly $1.18M of FF&E plus two buildings totaling 11,700 SF, this is a turnkey platform rather than an owner-dependent trade shop. The seller frames it as ideal for an owner-operator or a strategic buyer looking to consolidate in the region.
The numbers need care. Gross revenue is $1.68M and the quoted cash flow of $925K is a 2022-2025 average, with the broker candidly noting cash flow has declined year over year because of the owner's health issues. That means the current run-rate earnings likely sit below $925K, and the real estate is valued separately at $2.1M, so the true enterprise value on operations versus property needs to be separated before underwriting any multiple.
Why we like it
- Earnings quality is anchored in contract revenue, not one-off bids. Most work comes from one- to three-year service agreements with blue-chip clients like national retailers, railroads, banks and municipalities, which is unusually durable for an electrical contractor and makes forward cash flow far more forecastable than a typical trade business.
- The moat is the account base and the diversification across it. Hundreds of recurring accounts spanning retail, restaurant, healthcare, government and industrial end markets means no single customer loss sinks the business, and decades-long relationships create real switching friction for buyers who value a licensed, proven vendor.
- Commercial electrical maintenance is genuinely recession-resistant. Retailers, hospitals, banks and government facilities must keep the lights on and stay code-compliant regardless of the macro cycle, so this is repair-and-maintenance demand rather than discretionary new-construction spend that evaporates in a downturn.
- This is a buildable platform, not a solo operator. With 13 full-time staff, an office team, a fleet and equipment already in place, a strategic buyer can bolt on adjacent trades or expand the service radius across the Oklahoma-Arkansas corridor without rebuilding the operational chassis from scratch.
How to improve it
- Stabilize and reverse the earnings decline first. The broker admits cash flow dropped because the owner's health pulled him out of the business, so the first 90 days should focus on diagnosing which accounts or margins slipped and installing a general manager to recover the lost run-rate back toward the $925K average.
- Systematize contract renewals and raise prices. Many contracts are one- to three-year terms with decades-old relationships, which usually means they are underpriced; build a renewal calendar, benchmark rates to current labor and material costs, and push modest annual escalators into every agreement.
- Add preventive maintenance and monitoring plans to existing accounts. These clients already trust the firm for break-fix work, so layering recurring inspection, panel maintenance and emergency-response retainers increases revenue per account and deepens the recurring base without new customer acquisition cost.
- Expand the trade mix into adjacent services. The same facility managers who buy electrical often need low-voltage, lighting retrofits, generator service and EV charger installs, so cross-selling into the existing account base is the fastest organic growth lever available.
- Tighten field productivity and job costing. With 13 staff and significant fleet and equipment, implement route scheduling, mobile time tracking and per-job margin reporting to recover any utilization slack that crept in while the owner was absent.
- Formalize the sales function. The business has grown on relationships and reputation rather than an active sales engine, so hiring or assigning a dedicated business developer to pursue new commercial and municipal contracts gives the platform a repeatable growth motor beyond inbound referrals.
Diligence notes
- Separate operations from real estate immediately. The $2.1M building is listed as owned and included, so split out the fair market rent to normalize operating EBITDA and avoid paying a going-concern multiple on real estate that should be underwritten as a property with its own cap rate.
- Scrutinize the earnings trend, not the average. The $925K is a 2022-2025 average and cash flow has fallen year over year due to the owner's absence, so demand monthly P&Ls and trailing-twelve-month figures to establish the real current run-rate before pricing the business.
- Verify the contract base and renewal risk. Request the actual service agreements, their remaining terms, concentration by customer, and historical renewal rates, since the entire durability thesis rests on those one- to three-year contracts genuinely renewing by default.
- Confirm licensing and key-person transferability. Electrical contracting requires a master license, so determine whether that license is tied to the departing owner or a retained employee, and build a plan to secure or replace it before closing.
- Assess workforce stability post-owner. With an ill owner stepping back, check whether key foremen and the office manager will stay, review compensation, and quantify retention risk given a 13-person team is the operational backbone of the business.
- Review the fleet and equipment condition. FF&E is valued at roughly $1.18M, so inventory the vehicles and equipment, confirm they are owned free and clear, and estimate near-term replacement capex that could pressure cash flow after close.
Source
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- NY Metro Residential Fencing & Commercial Snow Removal, 20-Year Staten Island Contractor
- South Puget Sound Painting Contractor, 15-Year Washington Residential & Commercial
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