Gridline Electric Co. (the “Company”) is an established electrical contracting firm serving commercial and industrial clients in southeastern Minnesota for nearly two decades. The Company generated $892,752 in disclosed total sales with $370,495 in seller's discretionary earnings — an approximately 36% SDE margin that places it well above typical trade-contracting profitability and reflects a deliberate concentration in higher-margin commercial and industrial work (residential is ≤5% of the portfolio).
The client roster centers on prominent local manufacturers and industrial facilities — relationship-driven, specification-heavy work with recurring service needs and high switching friction.
The transaction is offered at $925,000 — approximately 2.5× SDE — including $30,000 of inventory and $130,000 of fixtures, tools and equipment, with zero liabilities and no receivables transferring.
~36% SDE margin (disclosed) — exceptional for trade contracting, evidencing pricing power and a disciplined commercial/industrial focus
Nearly twenty years of operating history with industrial accounts that change vendors reluctantly and specify proven contractors
Demand exceeds current capacity (per the listing): growth is gated by hiring, not by sales — the rare acquisition where the order book is the easy part
Sector backdrop: electricians' industry revenue is projected at $347.5B in 2026, with ~81,000 job openings annually and 9% projected employment growth through 2034 — a licensed, functioning crew is a scarce, appreciating asset
Electrification and data-center buildout are driving structural demand for industrial electrical capacity (US data-center power demand projected to more than double, 31→66 GW, 2025–2027 per Goldman Sachs Research)
Clean structure: assets included, zero liabilities, no real-estate entanglement
Founded nearly two decades ago, the Company has built its book around commercial and industrial electrical work in southeastern Minnesota — a region anchored by manufacturing, healthcare and food-processing employers with continuous electrical maintenance, retrofit and project needs.
The Company's positioning is deliberately B2B: residential work comprises five percent or less of the portfolio, concentrating the firm in the segment of the trade with specification-driven procurement, repeat institutional clients, and materially higher margins.
The disclosed structure transfers the operating assets (fleet, tools, equipment, inventory) free of liabilities; no real estate is included, keeping the entry price focused on the earning business itself.
Revenue derives from commercial and industrial electrical contracting: plant and facility electrical maintenance, equipment installation and machine wiring, lighting and power-distribution retrofits, and project work attached to facility upgrades and expansions.
Industrial maintenance relationships behave like annuities: once a contractor holds the site knowledge, safety qualifications, and trust of a plant's operations team, work recurs and rebidding is rare. The disclosed concentration on 'prominent local manufacturers and industrial facilities' is the core of the Company's earning power.
Per the listing, demand currently exceeds the Company's capacity to staff it — the binding constraint is licensed labor, not order flow. For an acquirer with recruiting capability or an existing crew, the surplus demand converts directly to growth.
The US electrical contracting industry is projected to reach $347.5 billion in revenue in 2026, having grown at roughly 4.8% annually over the trailing five years (IBISWorld, Electricians in the US, 2026).
The structural story is labor scarcity against accelerating demand. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects approximately 81,000 electrician job openings per year over the coming decade, with employment growing ~9% from 2024 to 2034 — well above the all-occupation average. Industry analyses estimate 300,000+ additional electricians will be needed to serve AI-driven data-center construction alone.
Electrification of industry, EV-charging infrastructure, grid-modernization programs, and the data-center buildout (US data-center power demand projected to grow from 31 GW in 2025 to 66 GW by 2027 — Goldman Sachs Research) are shifting electrical contracting demand toward exactly the commercial/industrial segment this Company occupies.
Residential construction softness driven by interest rates has not extended to the commercial, industrial and public-sector electrical work that constitutes ≥95% of this Company's portfolio; that segment has remained resilient on infrastructure funding and private industrial investment (CMIC Global; Northeastern Advisors 2026 industry report).
Regionally, southeastern Minnesota's manufacturing and healthcare anchors provide the continuous maintenance demand that underwrites the Company's relationship-based model.
The disclosed customer base consists of prominent local manufacturers and industrial facilities, with commercial accounts comprising the balance and residential at or below 5% of the portfolio.
Industrial electrical procurement is relationship- and qualification-driven: vendors must hold site familiarity, safety records and insurance qualifications that take years to establish. This produces revenue that recurs without contracts formally requiring it — and a moat that transfers with the business relationships and crew rather than with any single owner.
Customer concentration specifics (top-customer revenue share, contract terms) are standard diligence items to be verified from the seller's records; the listing does not disclose them, and this memorandum therefore makes no representation about them.
The listing discloses a lean operation whose included assets — $130,000 in fixtures, tools, equipment and vehicles plus $30,000 inventory — constitute a complete operating kit for a commercial/industrial electrical crew.
Staffing specifics (headcount, licensure mix, tenure) are not disclosed in the public listing and are a primary diligence item: in this trade, the crew's licenses and site qualifications are a substantial part of what a buyer is acquiring.
No real estate or leasehold transfers with the business, giving an acquirer full flexibility to consolidate operations into an existing facility or establish a new base.
Staff to the surplus demand (listing-identified). The Company's stated constraint is capacity, not demand: each licensed hire converts queued demand into revenue at the Company's established ~36% SDE economics.
Residential expansion (listing-identified). The listing notes optional expansion into the residential sector; an acquirer can weigh this against the margin advantages of the current B2B concentration.
Ride the regional electrification cycle. Industrial modernization, EV-charging buildouts and grid-upgrade programs (Section 4) are expanding exactly the project types this Company already performs for existing clients.
Institutionalize the relationships. Formalizing maintenance arrangements with the existing industrial accounts converts informal recurring work into contracted recurring revenue — the highest-multiple-impact improvement available.
Platform potential. Trade-services consolidators actively acquire commercial/industrial electrical firms; a buyer who scales the crew and contracts the revenue builds toward a premium exit profile.
At approximately 2.5× disclosed SDE with $160,000 of operating assets included and no liabilities, the offering is priced within customary ranges for commercial/industrial trade contractors of this profile — a category where scarce licensed labor and resilient B2B demand have supported firm valuations. The margin-basis note above is flagged deliberately: reconciling the disclosed ~36% SDE margin against the disclosed sales and SDE figures is a first-order diligence item, and this memorandum presents both as disclosed rather than resolving the discrepancy editorially.
| Total Sales (most recent FY, disclosed) | $892,752 |
| Seller's Discretionary Earnings (disclosed) | $370,495 |
| SDE Margin | ~36% (disclosed; arithmetic consistent: 370,495 ÷ 892,752 = 41.5% of sales — listing's stated margin likely reflects a differing revenue basis; to be reconciled in diligence) |
| EBITDA Margin (disclosed) | ~25% |
| Asking Price | $925,000 |
| Implied Multiple | ~2.5× SDE (derived) |
| Inventory (included) | $30,000 |
| FF&E (included) | $130,000 |
| Accounts Receivable / Liabilities Transferring | $0 / $0 |
The disclosed structure is an asset transaction including inventory ($30,000) and FF&E ($130,000), with no receivables and no liabilities transferring, and no real estate included.
Anticipated process: (1) NDA execution; (2) release of the confidential financial package (P&L, tax returns, add-back schedule, customer and staffing detail); (3) management discussion; (4) offer and negotiation; (5) diligence and closing, with transition support to be negotiated.
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Figures describing the Company are exactly as disclosed in the source broker listing; no financial figures were originated or estimated by the preparer, except ratios explicitly marked “derived.” Market and industry statements are drawn from the public sources below and are independently checkable.