BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Food Distribution 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 9.33x across 3 disclosed deals (P25: —x, P75: —x). Median EV/Revenue 0.77x across 8 deals. Median deal value: $42.8M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 8 deals total (0 from 2018+), filtered to Individual / Owner-Operator acquirers of food distribution businesses.
- Most active buyers
- Grupo Bimbo, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV:BIMBO A) (1) · Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC (1)
Recent disclosed deals
Individual / Owner-Operator acquisitions of food distribution businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | George Weston Bakeries Distribution Inc. | Grupo Bimbo, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV:BIMBO A) | $2380.0M | 9.3x | 1.08x |
| 2007 | U.S. Foodservice, Inc. | Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC | $7100.0M | — | 0.37x |
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 food distribution 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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