Cleaning Company: Need Help With A Bid

[CPisHere]

Crazy thing happened today, a guy I sent an email to like 4 months ago contacted me and wants to sell his current porter business. It is not his main job and doesn't have time to really manage it. He was 3 employees and 21 properties he maintains and he personally owns 6 of the properties in which he said he would extend the contract to me no problem. He has 1 year contracts in place and has had these clients for 5 to 6 years. No debt and no real assets. All he has is 21 contracts and 3 contract employees.

Has anyone ever put a valuation on a business like this? 1.5 X Revenue? He will send me all the details (p&L, budget, contracts) next week. PS I may start a new conversation for this.

I bought my cleaning business for a 0.7x multiple of annual EBITDA. 1.5X of revenue is WAYY too high for this type of business. You should be looking at 1-2x of EBITDA.

1x if things are stable/requires owner involvement regularly, which it sounds like.
2x if things are growing & management is in place.

 

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[rafaelmcalle]

Fastlaners,

I have created a new (1 year old) retail cleaning business (Day Porters) and have my first major bid for 6 retails centers. I currently only bid and have contracts for smaller centers that do no need service 7 days a week. Therefore I am having problems coming up with a solid hourly rate.

Are there any fastlaners that own a commercial retail cleaning business (parking lot sweepers, pressure washers, security, etc) that can chime in on an hourly rate or how they go about giving a solid bid? I am not clueless, just having a hard time nailing down an hourly rate. I do not want to come in too low or too high for obvious reasons.

Yes I know this is taboo or whatever to ask, but I am a small company with 4 employees looking to break into the big time, the help would be much appreciated.

Cheers!

Hi!!


What cities do you service? We rent dumpster for home clean ups. Maybe I can help you.
www.dumpstermaxx.com