This trucking company prints $630K/yr. Here's why I haven't pulled the trigger.

A 20+ year trucking company doing $4.6M in revenue with $630K in cash flow - and your out-of-pocket to buy it could be as little as $190K. On paper, this deal prints money. But one number sits right on the razor's edge, and it's the number most buyers wouldn't even check.

•       Industry: Trucking - Agriculture and Freight

•       Location: Texas

•       Asking Price: $1,900,000 (includes $1.75M in fleet/equipment)

•       Revenue (TTM): $4,619,000

•       SDE / Cash Flow: $630,675

•       Years Established: 20+ years

•       Employees: Under 15

•       Owner-Operated: Yes

Bulletproof Score: 3/5 - WORTH A LOOK

That purchase multiple lands at 3.01x. That's a hairline miss. It means there's room to negotiate this deal INTO Bulletproof territory - but at list price, the math says you're paying a fraction too much for each dollar of earnings.

Using the 80/10/10 structure - 80% SBA loan, 10% seller note, 10% buyer down - here's what this deal looks like:

•       Your Cash In: $190,000

•       Annual Cash Flow After All Debt: $300,283

•       Payback on Your Cash: 7.6 months

•       DSCR: 2.47x (Bulletproof target: 2.0x)

I ran this through the Bulletproof calculator at DealScore Pro - you can plug in any deal you're looking at and see the full financing breakdown in 60 seconds.

•       20+ years in business is rare for trucking. This isn't a startup running on hope - it's a company that has survived recessions, fuel spikes, and driver shortages. That track record matters to SBA lenders and to you.

•       $630K SDE on $4.6M revenue is a healthy margin for this industry. Many trucking operations run razor-thin. This one doesn't.

•       $1.75M in fleet and equipment included in the asking price means you're buying real, tangible assets - not goodwill and a logo. If something goes sideways, there's a floor under the value.

•       Agriculture and farming contracts create recurring demand. Crops don't stop growing because the economy dips. That's about as close to recession-resistant as trucking gets.

•       The purchase multiple at 3.01x is a fail. At $1,900,000 asking, you're paying $1 for every $1 of earnings when you should be paying less. The fix: negotiate the price down to $1,890,000 or less, or verify the SDE is actually higher after a full recast. A $10K price reduction flips this criterion to PASS.

•       Owner-operated with under 15 employees means founder dependency is a real risk. Who holds the customer relationships? Who dispatches? If the answer is "the owner" to both, you're buying a job until you build management infrastructure.

•       No working capital data disclosed. Three months of operating expenses for a $4.6M revenue trucking company is roughly $1.15M. That's not a small number. If current working capital is thin, you'll need cash reserves beyond your down payment to keep trucks fueled and drivers paid from day one.

•       "Quality of life" as the sale reason in a physically demanding, logistics-heavy business could mean the owner is burned out. That's not necessarily bad - but it means you need to ask hard questions about what operational burdens transfer to you and whether the current staff can carry more weight.

Here's what makes this deal interesting - and what makes it dangerous if you don't look closely.

The revenue-to-SDE ratio is solid. At roughly 13.7% margins, this trucking company is outperforming the industry average for small carriers, which typically run between 5-10% net. That tells me the owner has done something right with route optimization, fuel management, or contract pricing. The question a smart buyer asks: is that margin dependent on the owner's relationships, or is it baked into the operational systems? Twenty-plus years of business usually means it's more system than personality - but you verify that in due diligence, not by assumption.

The $1.75M in fleet and equipment is both the strength and the risk. Trucks depreciate. Trucks break down. The listing mentions well-maintained vehicles with documented maintenance records - and that documentation better be real. Before you sign anything, you want a third-party fleet inspection. Every truck, every trailer. Deferred maintenance on a fleet this size can cost six figures fast, and it's the thing brokers never highlight. Also ask about the average age of the fleet. If most of these trucks have 500K+ miles, you're looking at significant capital expenditure in the next 2-3 years regardless of how well they've been maintained.

The agriculture niche is genuinely compelling. Farming and ag freight is seasonal but predictable, and the contracts tend to be sticky. Farmers don't switch carriers over a nickel-per-mile difference - they switch when loads show up late. That means customer retention is driven by execution, not price, which is exactly the kind of moat a new owner can maintain. You can run your own numbers on the revenue concentration at DealScore Pro to see how different scenarios play out.

The path forward on this deal is clear: negotiate the price below $1,890,000 (which flips the multiple to PASS), get working capital documentation from the broker, and request a full fleet condition report. If all three come back clean, this deal moves from WORTH A LOOK to the top of your pipeline.

This deal has the bones of a strong acquisition. The DSCR is healthy at 2.47x, the cash flow after debt is over $300K, and you'd get your $190K back in under 8 months. That's compelling math. But I can't call it PURSUE with a purchase multiple that's technically over the line and zero working capital data on a business that burns cash just to keep trucks on the road. Here's what I'd do: contact the broker, request the working capital documentation and last 3 years of tax returns, and negotiate the asking price down by at least $10K. If the working capital is there and the price moves, this deal could score Bulletproof. If the seller won't budge on price when the math says they should - that tells you something too.

Want to learn how to evaluate deals like this yourself? I break down the entire Bulletproof method - the same criteria I just used on this deal - in a free 28-minute masterclass.

________________________________________

WORK WITH MIKE

Want to learn how I evaluate every deal? Watch the free masterclass.

Want to score any deal in 60 seconds? Try DealScore Pro - free.

Ready for expert guidance on your first acquisition? See if you qualify.