What Is Your Restoration Company Worth? Multiples by Revenue Band

It is the first question every owner asks and the one most advisors answer badly. Your revenue number alone tells a buyer almost nothing. What decides your price is which earnings basis applies to a company your size, and how much of next year's work a buyer can count on without your name on the referral.

Here is how buyers actually bracket restoration and mitigation companies, based on what we see at the deal table rather than what gets printed on a broker's slick.

Under about $1M in earnings: you are priced on SDE

Smaller companies get valued on seller's discretionary earnings, which is your profit with your salary and personal expenses added back. Buyers here are usually individuals, a local competitor, or a regional consolidator making a tuck-in. The number lands low when the owner personally holds the carrier and adjuster relationships, runs the estimates, and takes the after-hours calls.

• Owner-held referral relationships sit at the bottom of the band, because they may not transfer.
• A project manager and estimator already in place moves you up immediately.
• Documented program or TPA work moves you up more than a strong storm year.

Platform scale: you are priced on adjusted EBITDA

Once the company runs without the owner, the basis changes to adjusted EBITDA and the buyer pool changes with it. Private equity platforms and their portfolio companies enter, and they underwrite next year's claim flow rather than last year's. That shift is worth more than any amount of revenue growth, because it changes the multiple applied to every dollar you earn.

The four things that set your position in the band

1. Owner dependence. If the referrals stop when you take two weeks off, that is the finding that costs you the most.
2. Referral durability. Whether carriers, adjusters, plumbers and property managers call the company or call you personally.
3. Certification depth. IICRC and related credentials held across the crew rather than by the owner alone.
4. Storm dependence and receivables. Revenue that swings with weather, and carrier receivables aging past ninety days, both pull the number down.

What a real range looks like

A credible valuation is a range with reasons attached, not a single number. It should name the earnings basis, the comparable deals behind it, and the specific findings pulling you toward the top or the bottom. If someone hands you one number and no reasoning, they are marketing to you rather than advising you.

“Nobody gets paid for revenue. They get paid for the part of the revenue that keeps arriving after they hand over the keys.”

Getting your own number

Inside a private exit review we benchmark your company against recent deals in your trade and give you a range you can plan around, along with the two or three things most likely to move it. It is confidential, there is no obligation to list, and nothing about your company gets shared or shopped.