Working with Business Brokers: What Ridge & Valley Holdings Looks For

If you are a business broker or intermediary representing a seller in the lower-middle market, you understand the challenge of finding qualified buyers who close. Plenty of buyers express interest. Fewer have their financing together. Fewer still have the operational background to satisfy lenders and actually run what they acquire.

Ridge & Valley Holdings was built to be the kind of buyer brokers want to work with. Here is exactly what we are looking for, and how we approach broker relationships.

Our Acquisition Criteria

We are looking for established service businesses that meet the following parameters:

Annual Revenue between $7M and $30M
Adjusted EBITDA between $1.5M and $6M
Enterprise Value of $7M to $50M per acquisition
3+ years of operating history with consistent or growing revenue
Service business in HVAC, pest control, lawn care, plumbing, or electrical (with selective interest in staffing as an adjacent vertical)
No single customer exceeding 25% of total revenue
Clean, verifiable financials across three years
Seller willing to remain for a 30 to 60 day transition period
No active litigation and no material deferred maintenance

What We Bring to the Table

How we finance acquisitions

Each acquisition is financed with a tailored combination of senior debt, equity, and seller financing, structured to fit the specific deal. We work from a defined network of lender and equity relationships active in service-trade acquisitions in the Southeast.

Two qualified operators

Ridge & Valley Holdings is operated by two founders with directly relevant backgrounds. One brings clinical operations experience: process documentation, quality systems, people management, regulatory compliance. The other brings technology and revenue growth experience: CRM, digital marketing, loyalty programs, financial reporting. Lenders respond well to operator backgrounds that match the acquisition target.

Disciplined underwriting

We do not sign LOIs on businesses that do not fit our criteria. We do not submit offers we cannot finance. For standard deals, we target 90 days from signed LOI to closing. Larger or multi-entity transactions may take longer, with diligence extending up to 6 months.

Industries We Are Most Active In

We focus on five core recession-resilient service trades, with selective interest in staffing as an adjacent vertical:

HVAC
Pest control
Lawn care
Plumbing
Electrical
Staffing and workforce placement (selectively evaluated as an adjacent vertical)

The Ideal Seller Profile

Beyond the financial criteria, we do our best work with sellers who:

Are motivated by retirement or a life transition, not distress
Care about what happens to their employees and customers
Are willing to stay for a proper transition period
Have been transparent with their financials over the years

These are the businesses we will fight to acquire, and that we will take the best care of after closing.

We honor your fee arrangements without negotiation. We maintain strict confidentiality on all introductions. We communicate clearly throughout the process, including if we decide a business is not right for us.

To submit a listing for private review or to discuss a business in your pipeline:

Email: sierra@ridgeandvalleyholdings.com or zachary@ridgeandvalleyholdings.com

Website: ridgeandvalleyholdings.com

We respond to every broker inquiry within one business day.