Good Deal on SS Wash?

[newcarwashowner]

I am looking at an off market deal where the seller is wanting to retire and move to a different state.

The facility has been fully upgraded over the past year and looks great. I live very close by and have watched their business for over a decade. It always seems strong.

It has 5 self service and one automatic, along with vacs.

They shared their financials with me, and assuming they are telling the truth they are selling for 6.5x profits. The PL they shared with me takes into account a generous amount of labor, repairs, etc. They were very meticulous with record keeping.

I feel like that is a strong deal, but am I crazy? Just looking from the financial perspective right now, not workload, etc.

The facility looks so good and has all the bells and whistles, that I would not assume much room to improve and grow.

How solid is this proposal?

 

[OurTown]

On the surface it sounds really good compared to what I see around here. The updated ones appraise all day long at more than 10x net around here. If getting a loan what will your return be on the down payment and what will it make with today's nutty (and getting worse by the month) interest rate? Are there already corporate owned express exteriors in the area? If not there probably will be soon since they burned thier location placement rulebook a while back and are now out of control.

 

[Burky]

Does that 6.5 just the business or include the real estate? Seems cheap to me.

 

[newcarwashowner]

Yes it does include the real estate of almost an acre.

I feel pretty good about the deal and will probably pull the trigger.

 

[Waxman]

You have to look at the tax returns of the business and work from there. Not an internally created document like a P&L or balance sheet. Federal income tax returns.

 

[newcarwashowner]

I am working off multi year federal income tax returns.

 

[Randy]

What's the gross and how much are they asking for it?

 

[traveler17]

I’ve never gone off the net. 3 to 4x gross w the dirt

 

[newcarwashowner]

It is around 4 times gross with the RE. So I guess it is ok with that metric too