The numbers
As stated by the listing on October 9, 2026.
- Asking price
- $2,200,000
- SDE
- $810,000
- Gross revenue
- $2,430,000
- Multiple
- 2.72x
Why we like it
A corporate event does not get a second date. A product launch, a shareholder meeting, a graduation, a gala all have one night on the calendar, and if the lights, the microphones or the video switcher fail at show time there is no reschedule, only a client who does not call back. That is the mechanism underneath every AV and production shop: the client is not really buying equipment, they are buying certainty that the one chance they get goes off clean. This Montgomery County company sits in a corridor thick with corporate headquarters, pharma campuses, hotels and conference venues outside Philadelphia, running live event production alongside video production work that likely fills the calendar in the gaps between big show dates. Start with how the client list splits between recurring institutional accounts, the ones that book the same annual meeting or training shoot every year, and one-off event bookings, because the recurring base is what survives a change of ownership while the one-off work tends to follow whoever answers the phone fastest and has handled their event before. The way a business like this actually grows is less about landing one bigger show and more about converting one-off clients into standing contracts, and about carrying enough crew and gear in house to run two jobs on the same Saturday instead of turning one away.
No personal licence needed
Running a general AV and video production business does not require the owner to personally hold a trade or professional license in Pennsylvania, which has no statewide general contractor licensing requirement and no credential specific to event production, camera work, or video editing. The one thing worth confirming is whether the company does any permanent low-voltage wiring installation in client conference rooms or broadcast spaces, since that kind of fixed electrical work can fall under local electrician licensing rules depending on the municipality and would need to be performed or supervised by someone holding that credential, not necessarily the owner.
What worries us
- Owner dependence on event daysProduction work tends to concentrate the biggest or most sensitive shows in the owner's own hands, since that is where the client relationship and the troubleshooting experience live. A buyer stepping in without live-event production experience inherits real reputational exposure the first time something goes wrong on camera or on stage.
- Client concentration in recurring contractsIf a handful of institutional or corporate accounts account for a large share of the $2,430,000 in stated revenue, losing even one or two of them to an in-house AV team or a competitor would hit cash flow immediately. The seller's revenue figures have not been independently audited, so the split between repeat and one-off work should be verified rather than assumed.
- Equipment refresh cycleCameras, switchers, LED walls and projection gear age out of client expectations faster than they wear out physically, and a competitor showing up with sharper resolution or a bigger video wall can cost a bid. Capital reinvestment to stay current is a real ongoing cost that does not show up as a line in seller's discretionary earnings.
The callSuits a buyer with hands-on AV or live-production experience who can inherit client trust directly; a poor fit for a purely financial, hands-off buyer.
Our calculations
Our standard SBA 7(a) acquisition structure applied to the asking price. Assumptions below.
Sources
| SBA 7(a) loan | $2,090,055 |
| Seller standby note | $116,114 |
| Buyer cash at close | $116,114 |
| Total sources | $2,322,283 |
Uses
| Purchase price | $2,200,000 |
| Closing costs (est.) | $66,000 |
| SBA guaranty fee | $56,283 |
| Total project | $2,322,283 |
- Monthly payment
- $26,760
- Annual debt service
- $321,115
- DSCR
- 2.10xSTRONG
- Injection check
- Meets 10% ($232,228 against $232,228 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.
- What share of the $2.43M in revenue comes from contracts or clients that have booked in each of the last three years, versus one-time event bookings, and who are the top five accounts by revenue?
- What is the age and replacement cost of the camera, switching, lighting, and LED wall inventory, and has any of it been financed or leased rather than owned outright?
- How much of the $810,000 SDE is tied to shows the owner personally produces or sells, and which of the recurring clients have a relationship with the owner specifically rather than with the company?
- Is the revenue seasonal around a spring conference calendar or Q4 gala season, and how does the business cover payroll and crew costs in the slower months?
- Do any of the venues the company regularly works require union stagehands or electricians, and if so how is that labor sourced and what does it do to job margins?
- 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 Pennsylvania 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 2.10x, 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 Pennsylvania acquisition lenders whose typical deal size fits this one.
- Beacon Bank and Trust
28 loans in PAmedian $1,267,500median rate 9.50%~25 days to first disbursement
- First Internet Bank of Indiana
12 loans in PAmedian $1,469,000median rate 10.25%~23 days to first disbursement
- Meridian Bank
10 loans in PAmedian $1,165,000median rate 9.63%~35 days to first disbursement
Loan counts and medians are that lender’s change-of-ownership loans in Pennsylvania, 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 October 8, 2026. One claim was checked.
Worth verifying yourself
These are industry statements we could not confirm against an authoritative public source. They are not contradicted by anything we found, but treat them as leads to check rather than settled facts.
- Live event production work is tied to fixed, non-reschedulable dates, which places a premium on reliability over price for that portion of the business.
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 October 9, 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.