Businesses for Sale (Mandated) Construction/Building Services

General Builder

Location: North West

Privately-owned and long-established general contractor specializing in education, health and social housing. All its business is of a repeat nature and they serve the end-client directly. It carries out new build, refurbishment and maintenance via its own directly-employed tradesmen. Healthy order book. Profitably turns over £9M. Sale due to planned retirement of owner-manager. Asking Price £0.7M.

Mechanical Services Contractor

Location: North West

A long-established firm which is recognized as the market leader in its local area, it also serves the North West region generally. Customers are both public and private sector, and strong relationships mean substantial repeat business. Some of its business is directly with the end user. Profitably turns over £4M. Sale due to retirement. Price £2M.

Maintenance of Building Utilities

Location: East

A building services M&E maintenance business is for sale carrying out planned and response maintenance on term contracts typically of 3 years duration. It does maintenance only and no projects. It also manages the building utilities maintenance. It serves the commercial sector and mainly end-users who have multi-site operations. Sales are growing well based on existing customers, but the number of large customers is low and the directors want to increase this. The forecast is £3M this year and its sustainable profitability is at least £0.25M per annum. The business has a good management team which will remain in place post sale, and is structured to handle a bigger organisation. The directors are satisfied the company can grow even faster than currently and also want more customer diversity. To achieve this, a majority shareholding is offered to a buyer with whom there would be good synergies such as cross-selling. The total shareholding is valued at £0.75M premium to Net Worth. There is significant surplus cash on the balance sheet.

Consultant Engineering Practice

Location: North

A long-established consultancy practice which is one of the regional leaders in chartered civil and structural engineering is for sale due to planned retirement. It focuses on commercial, infrastructural and residential projects, and has a leading position in urban renewal, marine and leisure. Most of its business is of a repeat nature, deriving from framework or partnering agreements with architects, developers and major contractors. It makes above-average margins on a fee income approaching £2M and has strong growth potential. It operates from 2 offices with a good management organization and strong succession planning. Asking Price £1.7M.

Landscaping Contractor

Location: South East

Well-established landscaper specializing in sports-related projects. It focuses on the construction of golf courses, sportsgrounds, and also maintenance of sports surfaces plus hard and soft landscaping projects in the commercial and public sectors. Significant element of repeat business. Profitably turns over £1.6M per annum. Sale due to planned retirement of owner-manager. Asking price is £0.55M including a balance sheet complete with all working assets including good plant and a substantial cash surplus of circa £0.15M.

Building Services Contractor
Location: South West

An M&E business which both contracts and consults and which is strong in Design and Build. It is widely regarded as one of the Top Ten independent M&E firms in the UK and has a big reputation for delivering quality. It has framework or partnering agreements with a number of nationwide clients and all of its business is repeat. It is a market leader in the leisure sector but displays good client and market diversity having a significant presence in commercial and industrial too. Growing steadily over the years it has a full order book and strong prospects for continued growth. It has a well-developed management system and team with good succession planning. It turns over £15M and makes margins which are well above industry-average. Price £14M SOLD

Historical Building Restoration
Location: South London

A specialist builder which restores and maintains the exteriors of historical buildings is for sale. Its primary skill base is stone masonry and it occupies a UK market niche Clients include churches, schools, listed public and private buildings, ancient monuments and trusts such as English Heritage. Its business is mainly repeat and its reputation means it easily achieves the sales levels this lifestyle business requires without marketing. Turnover averages circa £0.6M and it achieves a high return on capital with relatively low risk. There is opportunity to increase turnover. Cash flow is strong and working capital requirements are low. The Asking Price for the business with sustainable profits of circa £165K per annum after management costs is £500K excluding surplus cash. This business complements that summarized immediately below (‘Niche Restoration…’) and both businesses could rationally be bought by a single purchaser as there are good marketing and operational synergies. The combination would be £1.7M turnover with above-average profits.

Niche Restoration/Refurbishment Builder

Location: Sussex

A building and decorating contractor based in Sussex is for sale due to retirement. Most of its business is of a repeat nature, and all of it derives from its reputation which means it achieves all its sales without any marketing support. It has a strong local market position which enables it to achieve margins and payment terms that are better than average, and also to win work with a low creditor risk and strong cash flow, which in turn means it has a low working capital requirement. It serves a niche sector mainly within the domestic market with a strong emphasis on the restoration and refurbishment of older buildings. It is growing steadily and currently turns over £1.1M with a normalised net PBT of £100K per annum after allowing full management costs. The Asking Price is £450K for a balance sheet which includes much surplus cash. The owner-director who works part-time will withdraw following a suitable handover, but a day-to-day management team will remain in place. This business complements that summarized immediately above (‘Historical Restoration…’) and both businesses could rationally be bought by a single purchaser as there are good marketing and operational synergies. The combination would be £1.7M turnover with above-average profits.

Niche FM Services

Location: South Midlands

A facilities management contractor providing hard services including building maintenance, electrical and mechanical utilities, and civils is for sale. It is well-established and has a strong market position in one niche sector while also serving other commercial clients. Much of its work is via term contracts typically of 3 years’ duration, most of which continually renew. Customer diversity is good as are growth prospects. A day-to-day management team remains in place but a new MD will be required. It profitably turns over £2M. Asking Price £0.55M.

Painter Decorator
Location: London

A long-established painting and decorating business is for sale due to retirement. All its business derives from its strong reputation. No marketing is required and most business is repeat. Its market is diverse. It makes strong margins and requires little working capital. The Asking Price for a business making a sustainable net profit of £0.27M per annum along with a freehold of value £0.4M is £1.1M total.

Dorset Builder

Family-owned firm established 2 generations providing refurbishment and new build to the public and private sectors. Operates as a main contractor delivering contracts up to £0.5M value to local clients in the schools, hospitals, infrastructure and residential sectors. Small works and maintenance is also undertaken. Business is largely of a repeat nature. Turnover circa £1. 5M on which gross margins are about 20%. Sale is due to planned withdrawal by shareholders from contracting to focus on their separate plant hire activities. The outgoing director will need to be replaced by purchaser. Price £125K

Electrical Contractor

Location: Essex

A building services business concentrating on electrical maintenance is for sale. It provides mainly planned maintenance directly to clients via term contracts. It also provides electrical installation services. There is strong potential to increase sales from within the existing client base. All of its business is of a repeat nature either through term contracts or framework agreements with clients mainly in the commercial sector. It will turn over circa £1.5M this year and has gross margins averaging circa 40%. The Asking Price for a balance sheet with a Net Worth of circa £0.4M is £0.75M

Utilities Contractor:

Location: Undisclosed to preserve confidentiality

A niche civil engineering contractor which specialises in servicing the water, gas, telecoms and electricity sectors. The company is one of the local market leaders. Business is virtually all repeat, and there are framework deals in place or being established which will provide medium term contracts for future work. The business has being growing steadily and turns over circa £3.5M at exceptional margins. There are good opportunities for continued growth. Asking Price £1M premium to Net Asset Value

Housebuilder and Property Developer

Location: Bulgaria

This has recently established itself as the largest housebuilder in the country. It has a freehold landbank of 144 plots with full planning permission which are part-built and is well advanced in finalising purchase of several hundred more plots. Current market valuation of the 144 plots is 7M Euro. The buildout cost to complete is 9M Euro, and the sale value at current prices is 32M, giving a development profit uplift on these alone of 16M Euro. The product is detached private housing in the Sofia suburbs and the market is the Bulgarian corporate and private market plus some UK buy-to-let investors. Demand exceeds supply and the sales allocation queue is full with strong prospects for more sales. Due to illness the business is without a managing director and the UK shareholders have not been able to suitably replace him. They also want to realise some value from the development which until now has been financed only by their private funds. Commercial financing is available locally but now the shareholders want to invite new investors and management. The assets of the business, which has a booked value of 4.6M Euro, are offered for sale either in whole or in part or on a property-only basis. Alternatively, a joint venture is sought along with management and finance. The vendors are willing to share the accumulated gain and goodwill in order to motivate a sound deal, and they are flexible about its nature and phasing.

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