Exit Planning for Florida Trades Business Owners: What Roofing, HVAC, Plumbing, and Electrical Companies Need to Know Before They Sell

In January 2025, Sun Capital Partners acquired Latite Roofing and Sheet Metal (Florida’s largest roofing services provider) positioning it as a Florida building-services platform for further acquisitions. That deal wasn’t a surprise to anyone paying attention to what private equity has been doing in the trades. It was the logical outcome of a consolidation wave that has been building for years and is now running at a pace most Florida trades owners haven’t fully registered.

In May 2026, Apollo agreed to invest roughly $2 billion into Apex Service Partners at approximately a $10 billion valuation. Apex alone closed roughly 60 add-on acquisitions in 2025 across HVAC, plumbing, and electrical, bringing the platform to nearly 300 businesses. Goldman Sachs Alternatives acquired a majority stake in Sila Services at a reported $1.7 billion valuation. Roofing PE platforms tripled from 17 at the start of 2023 to 56 by the end of 2024, with platform-level transactions happening at roughly one every 48 hours through 2025. Private equity add-on activity in HVAC services rose 88 percent year-over-year through mid-2025.

The buyers are here. The capital is real. The multiples are significant.

But there is a shortage of prepared sellers. And in Florida’s trades market specifically (one of the most active acquisition environments in the country) the difference between a prepared seller and an unprepared one is measured in millions of dollars at the closing table.

We wrote this guide for Florida roofing, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical business owners generating between $5M and $50M in revenue who are beginning to think seriously about what a transition might look like in the next three to seven years.

Why Florida Is the Most Active Trades Acquisition Market in the Country

Florida’s trades market has a specific set of structural advantages that make it more attractive to private equity buyers than almost any other state in the country.

Start with demand. Florida’s population continues to grow faster than the national average, driven by in-migration from the Northeast and Midwest. That population growth translates directly into sustained residential and commercial construction demand, which translates into sustained demand for every trade that serves it. Add Florida’s hurricane exposure (which creates recurring storm-restoration revenue cycles that sophisticated buyers understand how to underwrite) and you have a trades market with demand characteristics that are both durable and, in some cases, uniquely defensible.

Add Florida’s no state income tax advantage. For a trades owner selling a business, that single fact can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in preserved wealth compared to a seller in a high-tax state. Combined with the federal capital gains treatment and the right deal structure, a Florida trades owner is in one of the most favorable tax positions of any seller in the country.

Then add the concentration of active PE buyers.

Platforms like Apex Service Partners, Sila Services, Wrench Group, Legacy Service Partners (Tampa-based), and dozens of regional acquirers are actively sourcing Florida deals across every trade. The P3 plumbing platform explicitly disclosed Jacksonville acquisitions in 2025. Latite Roofing’s acquisition by Sun Capital in early 2025 signaled that Florida’s largest trades businesses are now in play at the platform level. The buyer pool in Florida is not just large, it’s increasingly sophisticated and well-capitalized.

What Florida Trades Buyers Are Actually Paying… and Why It Varies So Much

Here’s the number every Florida trades owner needs to understand: the spread between a poorly prepared business and a well-prepared one in the same trade, doing the same revenue, in the same Florida market, can be several million dollars.

Platform-quality HVAC businesses with $2M or more in EBITDA are trading at 6 to 10 times EBITDA in 2026. Well-run roofing companies above $5M in revenue with commercial maintenance contracts and low storm-work concentration are landing in the 6 to 8 times range. Owner-dependent operations in any trade with concentrated customer bases and messy financials are landing at 2.5 to 4 times, and sometimes not selling at all.

On a business with $1.64 million in adjusted EBITDA, the difference between a 4 times and a 7 times multiple is roughly $4.9 million in your pocket at the closing table. You create that gap almost entirely by preparation or more appropriately, non-preparation; not by luck, not by timing, and not by which buyer shows up.

What moves your business from the bottom of that range to the top is a specific set of factors that buyers evaluate in every deal.

The Five Factors That Drive Florida Trades Valuations

1. Recurring Revenue and Maintenance Agreements

This is the single most powerful value driver in Florida’s trades market right now. HVAC maintenance agreement customers convert to replacement sales at three to four times the rate of customers without agreements. Commercial maintenance contracts in roofing can reclassify a storm-chasing restoration contractor into a true commercial service business, and that reclassification alone can move the multiple into a meaningfully higher band. Whatever form recurring revenue takes in your trade, more of it is worth more in a buyer’s valuation model.

2. Owner Dependency

If you are the primary estimator, the key client relationship, and the institutional memory of the business, buyers will price that transition risk heavily. The businesses commanding premium multiples in Florida’s 2026 trades market are the ones where the founder has built a management team that can run the operation independently, including, for example, a project manager who handles commercial relationships, a lead technician who runs the field team, an operations structure that doesn’t depend on the owner’s daily presence. That work takes two to four years to build convincingly. Our guide on business succession planning covers this process in depth.

3. Customer Concentration

In Florida’s trades market, customer concentration risk shows up in specific ways. For roofing, heavy dependence on insurance restoration work from a single adjuster network creates the kind of revenue volatility that buyers discount aggressively. For HVAC and plumbing, dependence on one or two large property management companies or commercial clients creates similar risk. No single customer should represent over 15 to 20 percent of revenue, and the top five customers combined should ideally be below 30 percent.

4. Financial Statement Quality

Florida’s PE buyers are bringing institutional-grade diligence to every deal. Three to five years of clean, consistent, professionally prepared financial statements (with normalized owner compensation, clearly documented one-time items, and defensible add-backs) are what allow a buyer to trust your adjusted EBITDA number. Quality of earnings reports on a $25M revenue, $5M EBITDA business typically run $35,000 to $75,000. Moving the multiple from 5 times to 6 times on that same business equals $5 million of additional sale price. The math on preparation spend is compelling.

5. Storm-Work Concentration for Roofers

This is specific to Florida and worth addressing directly. A roofing business that is heavily dependent on storm and insurance restoration revenue carries a specific type of risk that Florida PE buyers understand deeply because they’ve seen what happens when a quiet storm season follows a banner year. The roofing businesses commanding the best multiples in Florida have diversified their revenue mix across retail, commercial maintenance, and restoration, rather than being predominantly storm-dependent. Commercial maintenance contract penetration in the 15 to 25 percent range is often the line that separates a storm chaser from a commercial service business in a buyer’s model.

Florida’s Tax Advantage in a Trades Exit

Florida’s no state income tax is a meaningful advantage for any business sale, but it’s amplified for trades owners because of the transaction sizes now being done in this market. On a $10 million transaction, the difference between selling in Florida versus a 5 percent income tax state is $500,000 in preserved wealth. On a $20 million transaction, that number doubles.

But that advantage only materializes if you structure the deal to capture it. Without a business exit strategy built specifically around your situation, Florida’s tax advantage can disappear at the closing table through structuring mistakes that a properly prepared seller avoids. This is why integrated business financial planning that connects your business valuation, personal balance sheet, and post-sale investment plan before you go to market is the foundation of a premium Florida trades exit.

A Practical Timeline for Florida Trades Owners

Three to Five Years Out: Get Honest About Where You Stand
Commission a third-party valuation. Identify the specific gaps (recurring revenue, owner dependency, customer concentration) that are costing you multiple points. Begin building the management depth that a buyer will need to see operating independently. Explore business retirement plan strategies that can accelerate pre-sale wealth accumulation. Start the conversation with your CPA about what your financials need to look like for a buyer.

One to Three Years Out: Build the Business Buyers Want to Buy
Diversify your customer base and revenue mix. Strengthen maintenance agreement penetration and recurring revenue. Clean up and standardize your financial statements. Review your business risk management picture: key person coverage, buy-sell agreements, and liability structures all surface during due diligence.

The Year Before Going to Market: Assemble Your Team
A business exit in Florida’s current trades market requires a coordinated advisory team that understands the specific buyers active in your trade and geography. A financial planner acting as quarterback, an M&A attorney, a CPA with transaction experience, and an insurance specialist, all assembled before active deal conversations begin.

Why the Right Advisor Combination Matters for Florida Trades Owners

The private equity platforms now buying Florida trades businesses have done hundreds of these transactions. They know exactly what they’re looking for, exactly how to price what they find, and exactly how to structure a deal to their advantage. Most Florida trades owners are doing this once.

At Portus, the team you’d work with brings a combination of credentials built specifically for this conversation. William Bissett, CFP, CEPA, founder of Portus, holds the Certified Exit Planning Advisor designation focused on the full mechanics of a successful business transition. John Sanders, CFP, CVGA, holds the Certified Value Growth Advisor designation with a focus on growing what your business is worth before the transaction conversation even starts. Sakshi Chauhan, CFA, manages investment strategy and post-sale wealth positioning, ensuring the proceeds from your exit are working as hard as the business did.

Every recommendation made at Portus comes from a fee-only fiduciary standard. No commissions. No product incentives. In a market where sophisticated buyers are sitting across the table, having an advisor whose only financial interest is your outcome is the structural advantage that levels the playing field.

Florida Trades Markets We Serve

Portus works with trades business owners throughout Florida, with dedicated exit planning resources for the following markets:

The Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches: Stuart, Port St. Lucie, Vero Beach, Jupiter, and Palm Beach Gardens represent one of the most active trades acquisition corridors in the state, driven by sustained residential growth and the concentration of institutional buyers now operating in Palm Beach County.

Northeast Florida: Jacksonville’s $28 billion annual port cargo value and $12 billion military-economic impact have created a stable, diverse trades market that is increasingly on the radar of PE platforms expanding their Southeast footprints.

Central Florida: Lakeland and the I-4 corridor is home to one of the densest concentrations of roofing, HVAC, electrical, and plumbing businesses in the state, with the region’s top contractors posting combined revenue of over $10 billion last year.

The Space Coast: Brevard County’s mission-critical aerospace economy creates uniquely durable construction and trades demand that sophisticated buyers recognize as a structural advantage.

Ready to Start the Conversation?

Portus Wealth Advisors works with trades business owners throughout Florida and the eastern seaboard who are beginning to think seriously about their financial future and what a business transition might look like. If you’re generating between $5M and $50M in revenue and want an honest, no-pressure conversation about where your business stands today and what it would take to position it for a premium exit in Florida’s active trades market, we’d welcome that conversation.

You can also download our free e-book, Charting Your Exit, which features in-depth interviews with M&A specialists, attorneys, and successful founders who have navigated exactly this process.

Portus Wealth Advisors is a Charlotte, NC-based wealth management firm serving business owners throughout the Southeast and eastern seaboard. We specialize in integrated financial planning for business owners/founders, executives, and retirees navigating growth, transition, and legacy.