Selling your manufacturing business? Repeatability is the multiple.
Australian manufacturers with proprietary products, repeat order books and documented processes sell at the top of the SME market — jobbing shops sell at the bottom of it.
Australian manufacturing and engineering businesses typically sell for 3.0 to 5.0 times normalised EBITDA — the strongest band in the SME industrial economy. The spread is driven by repeatability: proprietary products with repeat customers and documented processes reach the top; quote-by-quote jobbing shops, however skilled, sit at the bottom because the buyer cannot underwrite next year.
To 5.5× at the premium end: proprietary products, repeat OEM relationships, second-tier management, documented processes.
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
- ·Proprietary products, tooling or designs the business owns — versus building to others' drawings
- ·Repeat OEM and contract-manufacturing relationships with scheduled or forecast volumes
- ·A production manager and estimator layer that quotes, schedules and ships without the owner
- ·Documented processes and quality certification (ISO 9001 and sector equivalents) that transfer with the business
- ·Niche positions with import protection through freight, lead times, certification or service intensity
What quietly kills manufacturing deals
The owner-estimator problem: in many engineering shops the exiting owner is the only person who can price work, and buyers treat that as inventory of one. Customer concentration around one or two OEMs structures the deal around their continuity. Under-invested plant produces the same clawback as transport fleets — diligence prices the deferred capex back out. And environmental or site-contamination legacy issues on owned premises can stall otherwise-agreed deals for months.
Who is buying manufacturing businesses
Strategic acquirers filling capability or capacity gaps, PE and family offices drawn to industrial cash flows, overseas groups buying an Australian foothold with certification and customer relationships attached, and occasionally management. The strategic buyers pay for what slots into their operations — which frequently means your niche products and customer list are worth more than your factory.
When to start
Succession of technical knowledge is the long pole: getting quoting, scheduling and key customer relationships genuinely held by employees takes years, not quarters. Certification, documented processes and clean plant records compound the same way. Manufacturing exits reward the longest runways in the SME market — and punish the shortest.
Common questions.
We build to our customers' drawings. What does that do to the price?+
It caps the multiple unless the relationships themselves are contracted and repeat: build-to-print with scheduled volumes and switching costs still sells well, but pure jobbing on rotating quotes prices at the bottom of the band. Any proprietary product line, however small, changes the story buyers can tell themselves.
Should the factory property be sold with the business?+
Usually separately: most buyers want the business with a market-rate lease, and holding the property can give you income continuity past the sale. Set the lease on arm's-length terms before marketing — a below-market rent flatters EBITDA and unwinds in diligence.
Does ISO certification actually change the price?+
It changes the buyer pool, which changes the price: certified suppliers are acquirable by corporates and usable by their customers immediately. It also evidences the process documentation buyers otherwise have to take on faith.
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.
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Fixed fees from $1,495 + GST · 10–35 business days