Looking for something highly specific. Shot in the dark that someone here knows of one that checks these boxes. More likely someone knows a person who could help me find it.

1. Needs to have the right capabilities in house which are pretty basic: must be good at making light gauge stainless sheet into boxes. Cut, form, bend, and weld.

2. Needs to be an operating business with some capacity. What isn't the right fit is a couple of guys in their garage or a business that is essentially closed down. Good litmus test is if they could take on a new $500k or $1MM/yr customer without it spinning them out of control.

3. Must be able to be relocated to Terrell, TX (the town 30 miles east of Dallas, not the county in west Texas).


Obviously like shopping for anything you've got to compromise. And it's possible that nothing close enough to this business I'm looking for exists. I'm in the very early stages of looking.

If you happen to know a person who is well-suited to help me search please let me know.

Or maybe I'm super lucky and someone on here owns this business (or their cousin or their aunt or their brother does) and wants to sell it.

If you've got questions DM me.

Also this is a discussion board so if anyone wants to talk acquisitions we can do that here, too.

Agreed. I think that's by far the biggest hurdle.

I have the resources to home grow the additional capabilities I need if I don't find something. Combining the operations would of course come with its own set of challenges but there's a lot of upside if I found the right deal. I can't make sense of it if we can't be co-located.

DFW is a big area so I'm not totally hopeless.

Passed this along to someone

Ill let you know

Thanks I greatly appreciate it.

want to sell me the business?? it'll have to be relocated to Houston.

Anything is for sale at the right price

There was a sheet metal business for sale several years ago in Odessa, TX. Not sure if it is still for sale.

They had a huge shop and inventory. The real estate was a large portion of the valuation. Their customer base was all around the oil field in the area.

Relocating would be a bad idea because you'd lose all the revenue of their local oil and gas customers. Physically moving all of the equipment and inventory would be expensive.

If you already have the customer, why would you not just start the business in Terrell? Paying a premium for an ongoing business just to shut it down and move the equipment seems like starting all over again.

CaptnCarl said:

---

There was a sheet metal business for sale several years ago in Odessa, TX. Not sure if it is still for sale.

They had a huge shop and inventory. The real estate was a large portion of the valuation. Their customer base was all around the oil field in the area.

Relocating would be a bad idea because you'd lose all the revenue of their local oil and gas customers. Physically moving all of the equipment and inventory would be expensive.

---

Agree that a company like that would be a bad fit. Relocating someone from Odessa or Houston wouldn't make any sense because almost all of these operations are servicing local and regional customers. Someone in Garland, Mesquite, Balch Springs, Richardson.... maybe it would be fine.

Quote:

---

If you already have the customer, why would you not just start the business in Terrell? Paying a premium for an ongoing business just to shut it down and move the equipment seems like starting all over again.

---

The existing customer is me. Right now I'm doing my own sheet metal work. When it comes to the reality of serving my customers it's a bit of a must, but looking at it on a spreadsheet it doesn't make a ton of sense.

Three ways I can think to deal with it, all come with their own pros and cons.

1. Do nothing and just keep doing what I'm doing.
2. Find a way to outsource it and deal with the consequences.
3. Basically spin off my fab capability into its own thing to justify its existence.

The third option is by far the most interesting and attractive to me. Really I already own a sheet metal company (within my own company). It just has one customer (me) and limited growth opportunities because it doesn't have a ton of capabilities with which it could go get new customers.

No big deal... just get the capabilities it would need to get new customers and problem solved. I can buy those capabilities piece by piece (buying equipment, hiring people, sales and marketing) or maybe I'm lucky and there's a right-fit business for sale and I can buy a big chunk of them all at once.

If not we can home-grow it.

I think a business broker could make quick work of this for you.

Yeah option 3 sounds like a good growth opportunity. It would be interesting to know how the margins compare to your pass through customers versus if you sold sheet metal to other customers.

doubt they'd sell but an outsource option in muenster https://www.fluscheenterprises.com/

i know a guy in SA that seems to be aging a lot and not sure of a succession plan.