Situation
Founder-owned oilfield services platform assembled through three tuck-in acquisitions over five years. Concentrated in the Permian Basin. Founder in his early sixties, no clear succession, seeking full exit and permanent liquidity.
Mandate
Sell-side representation. Objective: maximize after-tax proceeds while protecting the workforce and identifying a buyer capable of executing the integration cleanly.
Approach
Positioned the platform on cross-basin scalability, safety record, and blue-chip customer relationships. Rebuilt trailing twelve-month adjusted EBITDA with a sell-side Quality of Earnings, defending $2.3M of normalizing adjustments. Curated a buyer list of nine strategic acquirers and four PE platforms with existing oilfield service holdings.
Execution
Six indications of interest, four management meetings, three LOIs within nine points of one another. Selected a strategic acquirer whose senior team the founder trusted operationally. Negotiated a working-capital peg 8% below the standard trailing average, worth $0.9M at close.
Outcome
Closed at 7.1x adjusted EBITDA, 100% cash at close, 8% escrow secured by RWI, 12-month founder consulting agreement. Total consideration approximately $128M.
Lessons
The sell-side QoE moved the multiple by more than half a turn. The working-capital definition was worth more than the difference between the top two bidders.