The thesis
Boring, necessary,and locally held.
Demand for waste collection, towing, storage, and route-based services does not track consumer confidence. The operators are small, owner-run, and retire without a successor.
That durability is what makes these companies worth owning for decades. It is also why they are undervalued by buyers looking for a story rather than a business.
We buy companies that are already working before the market wakes up.
Criteria
The numbers,stated plainly.
Most companies miss one line. One line rarely decides the answer, so send it anyway.
Platform
The first acquisition in a market carries management depth below the owner and enough scale to absorb systems, financing, and integration work.
- Operating history
- Ten years or moreWith ten or more employees
- How earnings are read
- One measure, not bothAn owner-operated company is read on seller’s discretionary earnings. A company with a management layer is read on EBITDA.
- Owner earnings
- $500,000 to $2 millionSeller’s discretionary earnings, meaning business earnings adjusted for one owner’s compensation and qualifying owner-specific or discretionary add-backs.
- EBITDA
- $1 million to $2 millionEarnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Stable or sustained performance across the trailing twelve quarters.
- Customer concentration
- Largest customer under 15 percent
- Government contracting
- Preferred, not requiredLocal, state, or federal capability.
Add-on
A company joining an established platform in that market can be smaller and owner-operated because the platform provides management and systems.
Add-on thresholds are set against the platform it would join rather than published as a single range. If the company serves customers, territory, routes, or capabilities the platform already has, it is worth a conversation regardless of size.
Sectors
Two families,one discipline.
The first is industrial and route-based. The second is asset-light and service-based. Both are need-driven, both repeat, and both are held by owners who are ready for the next chapter.
Vehicle lifecycle
Towing and roadside, auto dismantling and salvage, scrap and steel.
Waste and materials
Waste collection and recycling, paint stripping, route-based industrial services.
Building services
Plumbing, electrical, HVAC, pest control, landscaping and tree care.
Business services
Accounting, bookkeeping and tax, insurance brokerage, IT maintenance.
What we decline
The wrong fit is clearbefore the first call.
- Businesses that depend on one customer. Above fifteen percent, concentration becomes a central valuation issue.
- Discretionary demand. If demand can be deferred indefinitely, the revenue base is harder to underwrite.
- Unreported income. If revenue cannot be verified in the records, we cannot include it in valuation.
- Books that cannot be reconstructed. We can work with imperfect records. We cannot work with absent records.
- Owners still deciding. An early conversation is useful; a rushed process leaves less room to make good choices.
Clear limits make the right conversation easier to recognize.
The next step
Close but not exactis still worth a call.
A short conversation is enough to begin.
Start a confidential conversation.