Selling your transport business? Contracts and compliance carry the price; trucks do not.
Transport businesses sell on the durability of freight relationships and the cleanliness of the compliance file — the fleet is table stakes, not the asset.
Australian transport and logistics businesses typically sell for 2.5 to 4.0 times normalised EBITDA. Contracted freight with fuel and CPI escalation, integrated warehousing, and a demonstrable chain-of-responsibility compliance system carry the top of the band; spot-market operators with ageing fleets trade at the bottom, sometimes closer to asset value than enterprise value.
To 4.5× at the premium end: contracted freight with escalation clauses, warehousing integration, CoR systems, driver retention.
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
- ·Contracted freight relationships with tenure, volumes and escalation mechanisms for fuel and wages
- ·Warehousing and 3PL services attached to transport — integration multiplies switching costs
- ·A chain-of-responsibility (CoR) and fatigue-management system that survives an audit, with the records to prove it
- ·Driver retention and a workforce not dependent on the owner's personal relationships
- ·A fleet with honest maintenance records and a replacement schedule already funded in the numbers
What quietly kills transport deals
Compliance exposure above all: CoR liability transfers with the business, and buyers walk from operators whose safety systems live in the owner's head. Customer concentration is endemic — many operators exist around one or two freight relationships, and buyers structure heavily around their renewal. And deferred fleet capex is found in every diligence: the EBITDA that funded the lifestyle but not the trucks gets clawed back out of the price.
Who is buying transport businesses
National and regional carriers buying lanes, contracts and depots; 3PL groups adding capability or geography; and PE in the larger, contract-backed end. Strategic buyers often value your business above its standalone worth — your contracts on their cost base — which is exactly why knowing your standalone number first matters: it is the floor, not the ceiling.
When to start
Contract renewal timing dominates: going to market with your anchor contracts freshly renewed versus expiring inside the buyer's first year can be the difference between a clean sale and an earn-out. Work the renewal calendar backward from the exit date, and get the compliance file audit-ready over the same window.
Common questions.
Is the fleet included in the multiple or added on top?+
In a going-concern sale the operating fleet is inside the enterprise value — a persistent seller misunderstanding. What moves the price is the fleet's condition relative to the depreciation charged: honest numbers support the multiple, deferred replacement gets deducted.
We run mostly subcontractors, not owned trucks. Better or worse?+
Different: capital-light models can price well on margin quality, but buyers stress-test subcontractor availability, rate exposure and whether the relationships are institutional. A stable, documented subbie network is an asset; an informal one is a risk discount.
How much does one dominant customer hurt?+
Above roughly a third of revenue, expect price contingent on that relationship surviving — retention holdbacks or earn-outs. Diversification is slow in freight, which is why it is a two-year-out preparation item, not a during-the-deal fix.
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.
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