The numbers
As stated by the listing on September 5, 2026.
- Asking price
- $425,000
- SDE
- $277,464
- Gross revenue
- $823,140
- Multiple
- 1.53x
- Established
- 2002
- Employees
- 1
Why we like it
When a programmable logic controller or a motor drive fails on a production line, the plant does not have a shopping problem, it has a downtime problem, and an hour of a stopped line costs far more than the part that stopped it. That is the demand this business sits on. Industrial customers need the right part fast, and because automation and controls equipment routinely stays in service for fifteen or twenty years, a large share of what gets ordered is for machinery its original manufacturer stopped supporting long ago. Finding an exact replacement, or a documented cross reference to one, is a skill built from years of vendor relationships and a memory for what interchanges with what, not something a catalog can do for you. This distributor has run out of King County, in the middle of Puget Sound's aerospace and manufacturing base, since 2002, operating lean with a single employee alongside the owner. Start with the vendor and distributor agreements: authorization to sell certain brands is often granted to a relationship the manufacturer approved, not automatically to whoever buys the company, and losing it would cut off access to the parts that make this more than a reseller of commodity components. A business like this tends to grow by adding authorized lines and widening what it can cross reference, not by chasing new accounts, since the plants it already serves keep calling as long as their machines keep aging.
No personal licence needed
Reselling industrial automation parts is not itself a licensed trade, so a buyer does not need a personal credential to own this business as described. The open question is scope: if the company also does any on-site panel building, wiring, or installation work beyond parts sales, that can bring in electrical contractor licensing or UL508A panel shop certification, which the listing does not address. Confirm the actual mix of services before assuming pure distribution.
What worries us
- Owner dependenceWith one employee besides the owner, the vendor contacts, part cross-reference knowledge, and customer trust built over 24 years likely live mostly with the owner, and the deal's coverage math assumes that knowledge transfers cleanly to a new buyer.
- Customer and vendor concentrationA single-employee industrial distributor this size is often built on a handful of long-running plant accounts and a handful of brand authorizations, and the listing does not say how concentrated either one is.
- Inventory riskParts stocked for legacy or discontinued equipment can sit for years or become worthless if a customer finally replaces the machine it fits, and it is unclear how much of the asking price is inventory or how it was valued.
The callSuits a buyer with an industrial, electrical, or technical sales background who can step into vendor relationships quickly, not a newcomer to manufacturing supply chains.
Our calculations
Our standard SBA 7(a) acquisition structure applied to the asking price. Assumptions below.
Sources
| SBA 7(a) loan | $402,118 |
| Seller standby note | $22,340 |
| Buyer cash at close | $22,340 |
| Total sources | $446,798 |
Uses
| Purchase price | $425,000 |
| Closing costs (est.) | $12,750 |
| SBA guaranty fee | $9,048 |
| Total project | $446,798 |
- Monthly payment
- $5,148
- Annual debt service
- $61,781
- DSCR
- 2.32xSTRONG
- Injection check
- Meets 10% ($44,680 against $44,680 required)
- Closing costs estimated at 3% of asking price
- Owner salary of $120,000, loaded
- Rate of Prime + 2.25% = 9.25%
- 10-year term, fully amortizing
- Injection split half cash, half seller standby note
How we would go about buying it
The order matters. Every step below is free until the last one, and each is a chance to walk away before it costs you anything.
- 1
Call the broker, not the bank
The listing is brokered, so the broker is the gate. Ask for the CIM and the last three years of tax returns, and expect to sign an NDA first. Do this before you talk to a lender: no lender will size a loan without the numbers, and the broker will not release them to a lender you have not engaged.
Open the listing - 2
Ask these before you spend anything
Specific to this business, from our read of the listing. The answers decide whether the numbers above survive contact.
- Which manufacturers or brands does the business currently hold distributor or authorized-reseller status for, and does that status transfer to a new owner or require re-approval from each vendor?
- What share of the $823,140 in stated revenue comes from the top five customers, and how long has each of those relationships been in place?
- How much of the $425,000 asking price is inventory, how was that inventory valued, and how much of it is for equipment lines no longer in production?
- Does the business do any on-site installation, panel building, or repair work alongside parts sales, and if so under what certifications or facility approvals?
- How does the owner currently source parts for discontinued or obsolete automation equipment, and is that sourcing knowledge written down anywhere or held only in the owner's head?
- 3
Take it to lenders who do this size
Talk to more than one. Rate is the least of it: the lender who has done fifty of these in Washington will close, and the one who has done two will waste your quarter. Below are the lenders whose typical deal size actually fits this one.
- 4
Structure the offer around the coverage
Our structure clears the floor at 2.32x, and a lender will run its own version with its own add-backs. If the earnings come back lower than stated, the price has to come down or the seller note has to grow. Model both before you make an offer.
Model it yourself
Who we would call
Active Washington acquisition lenders whose typical deal size fits this one.
- Hanmi Bank
44 loans in WAmedian $412,500median rate 9.50%~18 days to first disbursement
- East West Bank
35 loans in WAmedian $460,000median rate 8.75%~24 days to first disbursement
- Gesa CU
33 loans in WAmedian $594,000median rate 9.25%~13 days to first disbursement
Loan counts and medians are that lender’s change-of-ownership loans in Washington, FY2025 to FY2026 Q3. Funding speed is the lender’s national median from approval to first disbursement. Names link to our data profile for each lender.
The fine print
The statements this write-up makes about the trade and its rules, as opposed to the figures, were checked against public sources on September 3, 2026. 5 claims were checked.
Run your own numbers
The deal analyzer models price, seller note, equity injection, and DSCR under current SBA terms, with every assumption adjustable.
Open the deal analyzerListing facts as stated by the listing on September 5, 2026, not independently verified. Structure, payment, DSCR, and injection figures are our own computation under the assumptions above, using the Prime rate as of September 28, 2026. Lender shortlist from the SBA 7(a) FOIA file, FY2025 to FY2026 Q3, as of June 30, 2026. Methodology. See an error? Email us and we will correct it.