With thousands of customer contacts and highly organized digital survey records for it’s previous six years, this company is well suited as a bolt-on to scale an existing surveying firm or as a solid start up for a new licensee.

They have a strong presence in Malibu with architects, small developers, contractors and home builders. Their bread and butter comprises 50% of business in layout work for new residential home construction. These projects have strong margins due to hourly rate invoicing for services.

The majority of the remaining 50% of work is boundary and topographic survey services.

The firm has an average of ten contracts under work in progress at any one time. They complete an average of 125 jobs per year.

The company was founded in 1983 and sold to the current owner in 2018, who was an employee of the founding owner at the time of purchase.

Seller is a licensed land surveyor and will be taking a full-time, W-2 position as Senior Project Manager with a large, multi-state engineering firm.

Equipment included in a sale is a Trimble Total Station S6, Ranger Data Collector, Tripod Legs, Prisms, Tribrachs, GPS Receivers, Survey Rods, Large Scale Plotter, Small Printer, various survey tools and supplies.

There are two full-time employees as Party Chief and Survey Assistant and one part-time Survey Assistant.

Owner’s general in-office responsibilities comprise drafting maps, reviewing maps, setting boundary establishments, scheduling of projects, legal description research, drafting proposals, invoicing, payroll processing and equipment purchasing. 5% of owner time is spent in the field as party chief.

Detailed revenue and expense information is available, post-NDA.

NAICS 541370 Surveying and Mapping Services

This information is compiled and written by Margot Murphy, Principal, Sage Advisory Group, a California Business Brokerage Firm.