BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Wholesale Distribution to Strategic / Industry buyers
Industry operators, larger competitors, and corporate buyers acquiring for synergies, geographic expansion, or capability fill. Typically pays a premium for clear strategic fit but discounts for integration cost and overlap.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 9.56x across 62 disclosed deals (P25: 6.79x, P75: 12.46x). Median EV/Revenue 0.69x across 142 deals. Median deal value: $42.2M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 151 deals total (151 from 2018+), filtered to Strategic / Industry acquirers of wholesale distribution businesses.
- Most active buyers
- Watsco, Inc. (5) · Alta Equipment Group Inc. (5) · TopBuild Corp. (4) · DXP Enterprises, Inc. (4) · Installed Building Products, Inc. (3) · H&E Equipment Services, Inc. (:HEES) (3)
Recent disclosed deals
Strategic / Industry acquisitions of wholesale distribution businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Alliance Drilling Tools LLC | Star Operating Companies, Inc (:STRR) | $12.3M | 5.1x | 1.17x |
| 2025 | American Distributors Holding Co., LLC | AAR Corp. | $146.0M | 9.6x | 0.98x |
| 2025 | Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. | QXO, Inc. | $11496.7M | 10.7x | 1.15x |
| 2025 | Carolina Stone Distributors, Inc. | Capstone Holding Corp. | $3.9M | 5.2x | — |
| 2025 | Creager Mercantile Co. Inc. | Labor Smart, Inc. | $0.7M | — | 0.03x |
| 2025 | Drone Nerds, LLC | XTI Drones Holdings, LLC | $36.5M | — | 0.33x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Strategic buyers — operators in adjacent geographies, larger competitors, or corporate consolidators — price for synergies and capability fill. They tend to discount integration cost and overlap risk but pay above market when there's clear strategic fit (key customer relationship, license, geography, technician/professional team). Multiples are competitive with PE for fee-viable deals; below PE for sub-scale acquisitions.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to wholesale distribution businesses acquired by strategic / industry 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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