BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Consulting to Individual / Owner-Operator buyers
Owner-operators, SBA-financed independent buyers, and smaller management buyouts. Pricing reflects what an individual can finance (typically 10-25% down + SBA 7(a)) and operate hands-on. Below typical PE engagement size.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 11.99x across 5 disclosed deals (P25: 7.35x, P75: 23.71x). Median EV/Revenue 1.4x across 14 deals. Median deal value: $1.04M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 16 deals total (5 from 2018+), filtered to Individual / Owner-Operator acquirers of consulting businesses.
- Most active buyers
- LMI Aerospace, Inc. (:LMIA) (1) · PRGX Global, Inc. (:PRGX) (1)
Recent disclosed deals
Individual / Owner-Operator acquisitions of consulting businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Integrated Technologies, Inc. | LMI Aerospace, Inc. (:LMIA) | $10.1M | — | 1.44x |
| 2001 | Howard Schultz and Associates Ltd. | PRGX Global, Inc. (:PRGX) | $193.1M | 32.8x | 1.39x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Individual buyers — owner-operators, SBA-financed independents, smaller management buyouts — price for what they can finance (typically 10-25% down with SBA 7(a) loans up to $5M deal value) and operate hands-on. Multiples are below PE / strategic because the buyer is taking the owner-operator role, not stepping in as institutional capital. Owner-dependency and seasonality matter more here than to a PE buyer.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to consulting businesses acquired by individual / owner-operator buyers. EV/EBITDA outliers outside the [0.5x, 60x] band and EV/Revenue outliers outside [0.05x, 25x] are excluded from medians. Where available, post-2018 transactions are weighted; otherwise the all-time sample is used. Deal counts shown reflect deals with disclosed financials only — total transaction count for this buyer pool is typically 2-3x larger. Full methodology
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