Investment criteria
Published in full, so you can rule us out in ninety seconds.
Most buyers keep their criteria vague to keep their options open. We would rather you know immediately whether a conversation is worth your time.
Sectors
Where we focus.
Essential services — businesses where the work is required by code, regulation, or an insurer, and gets done whether or not the economy is good.
Fire protection & life safety
Inspection, testing, and maintenance of extinguishers, suppression systems, alarms, and related life-safety equipment.
Water & environmental compliance
Backflow prevention testing, environmental services, and recurring compliance work tied to a regulatory calendar.
Medical waste & secure destruction
Scheduled route-based collection, treatment, and documented chain-of-custody destruction services.
Adjacent essential services
Other route-based or mandated-service businesses with the same economics. If you are unsure whether you fit, ask.
The box
What we are looking for.
| Criterion | Target | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Earnings (EBITDA) | $750K – $1.5M | Large enough to support a full management layer and debt service after close. |
| Enterprise value | $3M – $6M | The range we can finance cleanly and close without a syndicate. |
| EBITDA margin | 15% or better | Below this, a business usually has no pricing power or is being measured wrong. |
| Recurring revenue | 40% or more | Contracts, routes, or legally required service. The foundation of what we are buying. |
| Geography | Within 50 miles of Atlanta | Route density, and the ability for one of us to be on site regularly. |
| Customer concentration | No customer above 15% | Concentration is the single most common reason an acquisition loan is declined. |
| Employees | 10 – 50 | Enough people for a management layer, few enough to know everyone. |
| Owner’s role | Transferable within 90 days | We will be there to learn it. What we cannot do is replace a licence held by one person with no path to transfer. |
| Financial records | Three years of clean returns | Reviewed statements or tax returns that reconcile. Lenders require it, and so does a fair price. |
Honest limits
What we pass on.
These are not negotiating positions. They are the situations where we know we are the wrong buyer, and saying so early saves everyone a quarter.
- Any single customer above 25% of revenue.
- An owner who is the only licensed or certified individual, with no path to transfer that licence.
- Revenue declining more than two consecutive years without an identified, fixable cause.
- Books that cannot be reconciled to the tax returns.
- Pending litigation or regulatory action material to operations.
- A sale with no transition period and no seller financing of any kind.
- Primarily new-construction work rather than recurring service. Cyclical, and not what we are trying to own.
Close on one of these and unsure about the rest? Send it anyway. The criteria exist to save your time, not to disqualify a good business on a technicality.
Tell us about your business.
A short, confidential note is enough to start. No broker, no marketing process, and no obligation of any kind.