Selling your electrical business? The licence question decides the price.
Typical multiples for Australian electrical contractors, the contractor-registration traps, and why contract-weighted books sell for a turn more.
Australian electrical contracting businesses typically sell for 2.0 to 3.5 times normalised EBITDA, with contract-rich operations carrying specialist accreditations and non-owner management reaching 4 to 5 times. As with plumbing, the decisive issues are licence structure and revenue quality: the contractor registration must survive the owner leaving, and maintenance or programmed work is worth far more per dollar than one-off installations.
To 5.0× at the premium end: contracted service work, specialist accreditations, management below the owner.
Indicative market observation, not a valuation of your business. Where your business sits in — or beyond — the band is exactly what a valuation establishes.
What buyers pay a premium for
- ·Recurring commercial and industrial service agreements, test-and-tag programs, and switchboard or asset maintenance books
- ·The contractor registration held or replaceable by an employee — not solely the exiting owner
- ·Specialist accreditations that gate work: level 2 ASP, solar and battery accreditation, hazardous areas, data and comms
- ·A project pipeline with signed contracts rather than quotes outstanding
- ·Low warranty exposure and documented compliance certificates for past work
What quietly kills electrical deals
Registration dependency first: whichever state you operate in, a buyer must be able to keep the entity licensed the day after settlement, and businesses where only the seller holds the qualification trade at a structural discount or with long, painful earn-outs. Second, construction concentration: books dominated by volume-builder or single-head-contractor work carry both concentration risk and margin risk, and buyers price both. Third, solar-only revenue is treated cautiously — buyers remember the rebate-driven boom-bust cycles.
Who is buying electrical businesses
Owner-operators at the small end; adjacent trades (plumbing, HVAC, fire) building multi-service platforms; facility-services and energy-services groups buying contracted maintenance books; and emerging PE-backed consolidators, for whom electrical is usually the second or third leg of a trades platform. Data, solar-plus-storage and EV-charging capability are increasingly what makes a target strategic rather than merely profitable.
When to start
Two to three years out. The levers that move price — getting a second person registered, converting install customers to service agreements, diversifying away from one builder — all take multiple financial years to show up in the numbers a buyer will diligence. A valuation now establishes the baseline and quantifies each lever.
Common questions.
Does solar work help or hurt the price?+
Contracted commercial solar maintenance helps. Residential install volume with no service tail is priced cautiously because buyers have watched rebate changes whipsaw that revenue. A mixed book with service agreements attached to the install base gets the benefit of both.
What multiple does a sub-$500K EBITDA electrical business get?+
Usually the bottom of the band or below it, and often structured with vendor finance or earn-outs, because the buyer pool is individuals rather than companies. The step-change in both multiple and deal quality happens as sustainable EBITDA approaches $1M and corporate buyers enter.
Should I sell the company or the assets?+
It changes tax, risk and even which advisers can legally act, so decide it early with your accountant. Buyers often prefer assets for a clean slate; sellers often prefer shares for CGT concessions. The valuation itself should be structured to support either path.
Where does your business sit in the band?
Five minutes, free, and private. An instant indicative range from your figures, with a human read-through to follow.
What is my business worth?Talk to a valuer
Tell us what you need valued.
A fifteen-minute call confirms the tier, the fixed fee and the delivery date — before you commit to anything.
0433 475 518Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm AEST
Fixed fees from $1,495 + GST · 10–35 business days