Long-Established Commercial Electrical Contractor, 20-Year Nashville Business

$12.4M

Revenue

$1.4M

SDE

5.0x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a commercial electrical contracting business that has served the Nashville metro since 2006. It handles the full range of commercial electrical work: new construction projects, tenant improvements, renovations, service calls, and ongoing maintenance contracts. Its customer base spans general contractors, commercial property managers, and direct commercial clients, and management stresses that no single customer is a meaningful share of revenue, which is the diversification profile you want in a construction-adjacent services business.

The operation runs at real scale with $12.4M in revenue, $1.44M in EBITDA, and 58 employees including licensed electricians, field supervisors, project managers, and administrative staff. That layered management structure matters because it means the business is not fully dependent on the departing owner to keep jobs moving. Revenue leans on repeat work, referrals, and a mix of contracted projects, which suggests durable relationships rather than one-off bidding.

The business leases a 9,800 square foot facility at $8,950 per month that supports admin, project management, material storage, and equipment staging. The sale includes vehicles, equipment, office systems, and work in progress. It is being sold as an owner retirement and succession situation with seller financing potentially available, which is the classic setup for a buyer who can step in and run a licensed trades operation.

Why we like it

The earnings are real at $1.44M EBITDA on $12.4M revenue, an 11.6% margin that is healthy for commercial electrical contracting. At a 5x multiple the price of $7.2M is right in the fairway for a trades business of this size, and seller financing availability suggests room to structure the deal with less cash at close.
The moat here is licensing, reputation, and a 20-year track record with general contractors and property managers in a single fast-growing metro. Commercial electrical work requires licensed electricians and bonding capacity, which limits the pool of competitors who can bid the same jobs. Long-standing GC relationships and referral flow are hard to replicate quickly.
Nashville is one of the strongest construction and population-growth markets in the country, and commercial buildout, tenant improvements, and maintenance all ride that wave. Electrical is also increasingly essential given EV charging, data infrastructure, and grid upgrades layered on top of ordinary commercial demand. This is a rising-tide market rather than a shrinking one.
The 58-person team includes field supervisors and project managers, meaning the business is not a one-man-band dependent on the seller swinging a hammer. That management depth plus a diversified customer base makes this operable for a buyer who brings capital and oversight rather than personally holding an electrician license, provided a qualified license holder is retained.

How to improve it

Push the recurring maintenance and service book. Project revenue is lumpy and margin-thin, but service agreements and preventive maintenance contracts smooth cash flow and carry higher margins. Building a dedicated service division targeting the existing commercial property manager relationships is the single fastest path to more durable earnings.
Implement job-level costing and gross-margin tracking on every project within the first 90 days. Contracting businesses bleed profit on poorly bid or poorly managed jobs, and without granular per-project margins you cannot tell winners from losers. Tightening estimating and change-order discipline can add points of margin without adding revenue.
Formalize the licensing and bonding continuity plan before close. If the departing owner personally holds the qualifying license or key bonding relationships, you need a retained or newly hired qualifier in place to keep the business bidding work. Lock this down early so the transition does not stall project pipeline.
Expand geographically into surrounding counties around Nashville where the same GC relationships already have projects. The reputation and workforce are the constraint, not demand, so incremental market coverage can be added through targeted electrician recruiting and staged crew expansion.
Invest in workforce retention and recruiting pipeline. Licensed electricians are the binding constraint on growth in this trade, so apprenticeship programs, retention bonuses, and steady project flow directly translate into revenue capacity. Losing key field supervisors post-close is the biggest operational risk to sustaining the earnings.
Layer in higher-value electrical niches like EV charging installation, data center and low-voltage work, and energy efficiency retrofits. These carry premium pricing and ride current tailwinds, and they let you win larger, stickier commercial contracts off the existing client base.

Diligence notes

Verify the quality and mix of the $12.4M revenue: what share is one-off construction projects versus recurring service and maintenance. Project-heavy revenue is cyclical and tied to the local construction cycle, so understanding backlog, contracted pipeline, and repeat-customer percentage is essential to pricing durability.
Confirm who holds the electrical license and bonding capacity, and whether it transfers with the business or leaves with the seller. This is the single most important gate for a non-licensed buyer, because the business cannot legally operate or bid without a qualified license holder in place.
Scrutinize work-in-progress and change-order accounting. Contractors can overstate profitability by recognizing revenue on incomplete jobs or by carrying underbid projects that will lose money to complete. Get an independent WIP schedule and review the last two years of completed job margins.
Stress-test workforce stability by reviewing tenure, compensation, and non-compete status of the field supervisors and project managers. With 58 employees and a labor-constrained trade, key-man risk sits with the supervisory layer, not just the owner. Identify which employees are critical and whether they will stay post-close.
Review customer and GC concentration in detail despite the claim of diversification. Confirm that no single general contractor or property manager drives an outsized share of gross profit, since project-based revenue can be concentrated even when customer count is high.
Examine the equipment and vehicle fleet condition and any deferred capex. The sale includes vehicles and equipment, so confirm what is owned free and clear versus leased or financed, and budget for near-term replacement of aging trucks and tools that could hit cash flow post-close.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →