Buying an equipment or electronics manufacturer in South Florida
South Florida has 264 established equipment and electronics manufacturers by our count: companies in business at least 15 years that still file with the state every year and aren't part of a larger group. Of those, 75% have been in business 20 years or more. Most will never be listed for sale, and many of their owners have never been asked.
What it takes to own one
Equipment and electronics manufacturers in South Florida come in every size. Here's what owning one could look like at three levels, from a solid company to one of the leaders, with a small business loan covering most of the price.
- Earns about
- $302,000 a year
- Price about
- $997,000
- Your cash
- $140,000
- Could pay you
- up to $122,000 a year
- Earns about
- $782,000 a year
- Price about
- $2.6 million
- Your cash
- $361,000
- Could pay you
- up to $317,000 a year
- Earns about
- $1.4 million a year
- Price about
- $4.8 million
- Your cash
- $666,000
- Could pay you
- up to $584,000 a year
Earnings are owner earnings: profit plus what the owner pays themselves, before loan payments and taxes. They and the prices are our estimates from public records, not the owners' figures, and we value companies like these at about 3.3 times a year's owner earnings. Your cash covers the down payment and closing costs, and what the business could pay you is what's left after the loan payments and the cushion lenders require. The more cash you bring, the further up you can go.
Age, size and location
Revenue is our estimate from public records, grouped into wide ranges.
| In business | Companies |
|---|---|
| Under 20 years | 67 |
| 20 to 29 years | 114 |
| 30 to 39 years | 49 |
| 40 years or more | 34 |
| Estimated yearly revenue | Companies |
|---|---|
| Under $1M | 49 |
| $1M to $2M | 29 |
| $2M to $4M | 26 |
| $4M to $8M | 31 |
| Over $8M | 27 |
| County | Companies |
|---|---|
| Broward | 114 |
| Miami-Dade | 100 |
| Palm Beach | 49 |
| Other counties | 1 |
| Town | Companies |
|---|---|
| Miami | 55 |
| Fort Lauderdale | 18 |
| Hialeah | 16 |
| West Palm Beach | 11 |
| Doral | 9 |
| Ft. Lauderdale | 9 |
| Hollywood | 9 |
| Coral Springs | 8 |
What the best equipment and electronics manufacturers have in common
- Products the company owns, with designs, software and patents documented and in the company's name.
- Customers spread across industries, including some on long-term contracts, so one program ending doesn't empty the order book.
- Repair, spare parts and service work on equipment already in use, which tends to repeat.
- Engineers besides the founder who understand the designs and can support customers.
- Current certifications that customers need: quality systems, safety listings, aerospace or medical standards.
- More than one source for critical parts, or enough stock to ride out shortages.
- Low warranty and return rates that are actually tracked.
- A backlog of firm orders, not just forecasts.
- Products designed so they can be updated when parts are discontinued.
What to check before you buy
- Who owns the designs, software and patents, and whether employees and contractors have signed agreements assigning their work to the company.
- How much of the business rests on a few customers, and contract terms, including warranties and limits on liability.
- Inventory: how old it is, how much is excess or obsolete, and how it's valued.
- Past product liability and warranty claims, and what the company has promised on products already sold.
- Certifications, their next audits, and whether they're tied to the site or to the company.
- How the products are classified for export, and any past export problems.
- Agreements with key engineers, and whether they're likely to stay.
- Parts that will soon be discontinued, and the cost of redesigning around them.
- For a shipyard: the waterfront lease or submerged land lease, Longshore insurance and claims history, and an environmental assessment of the yard.
Questions to ask the owner
- Which products do you own the designs for, and which do you build to customer designs?
- Who besides you understands the core designs?
- What share of sales comes from your top three customers?
- Do you sell to defense, aerospace or medical customers, and what do they require?
- Have you had any product recalls, failures or liability claims?
- Which parts are hardest to get, and who else makes them?
- Which certifications or registrations will need updating after a sale?
- For a shipyard: who are your main customers, and how do you handle Longshore insurance?
To learn what these companies do, which licenses they need and how ownership works, read our full guide to buying an equipment or electronics manufacturer in Florida.
Owning a company in South Florida
The local economy
South Florida covers Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties: Miami, Hialeah, Doral, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Jupiter, and the Florida Keys down to Key West. It's the state's largest metro area and its most international. PortMiami, Port Everglades and Miami International Airport tie the region to Latin America and the Caribbean, which supports a deep base of wholesalers, freight forwarders and logistics firms, many of them near the airport. Tourism and cruises, finance and wealth management, health care, real estate and construction carry much of the rest. Palm Beach County adds wealthy seasonal residents and, out west near Lake Okeechobee, sugarcane and vegetable farms. In the Keys, nearly everything turns on visitors, fishing and boating.
Companies that serve homes, condo buildings and other businesses do well here: the building trades, property services, insurance agencies, medical and dental practices, and professional firms.
What's different about owning a company here
Costs run high: commercial rent, wages and, above all, property and windstorm insurance. Price the insurance before you make an offer, not after. Miami-Dade and Broward make up the Florida Building Code's High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, with stricter rules for roofs, windows and structures. That raises building costs, and it also gives steady work to the contractors who know those rules well.
Much of the workforce and many customers speak Spanish as well as English, and a company that works well in both languages has an edge. The winter season matters more in Palm Beach County and the Keys than in Miami. In the Keys, the cost of housing makes hiring and keeping staff one of the hardest parts of running a company. Ask any seller there how they find workers and where those workers live.