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How Wisable sold a business the owner didn't know he could sell.
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The business didn’t know its own worth.
Wisable sold it for six figures.
After 51 years in the industry, our client was ready to retire, but he had no idea what his business, the business, was actually worth, or that someone would want to buy it.
Our client built his business from scratch in 2020, growing it into a profitable commercial HVAC operation serving the Dallas market. When Wisable reached out, he wasn't looking to sell. He was planning to hand the business to an employee. A year later, he had closed a deal worth more than $750,000.
Hidden in plain sight.
The business.
Our client’s business is a commercial HVAC firm specializing in variable refrigerant flow technology. He got his start fixing AC units after high school football season wrapped up and he never left the industry. The business operated on a lean subcontractor model with no owned real estate and minimal fixed costs. Revenue had grown nearly four-fold from 2021 to 2023, with strong margins and 99% of work coming from repeat customers. By any measure, it was a well-run, highly sellable business. Ed just didn't know it yet.
The challenge: Walking away from value.
Our client was approaching retirement with no exit plan. His intention was to give the business to his employee, leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table without realizing it. He wasn’t even sure anyone would want to buy it.
Wisable enters the process.
Wisable identified our client through outbound outreach and immediately recognized the opportunity. He agreed to explore a sale.
The team moved into action, educating the client on the process and conducting a professional valuation. When learning what his business was worth. He was “mostly in shock that he could sell his business for money.”
Expectations easily exceeded
He entered with essentially no expectations, which were easily surpassed after a series of buyer introductions. Buyers personally connected with him. They saw the value in his decades of relationships, his roster of loyal subcontractors, and his business model. Ed got excited at the prospect of EJ trucks across the Dallas Metroplex.
Within the first few months of listing, a buyer expressed interest. But then the process got harder. When the employee learned of a potential sale, he quit and started his own business, collapsing the first deal entirely. The buyer, who had no HVAC background, needed an operational structure that was no longer there. The process had to restart from scratch.
When a second deal fell apart in due diligence, Wisable didn't walk away. Ed understandably grew skeptical but stayed in the process. The Wisable team kept requalifying buyers and moving forward. Ed hired a new manager, demonstrating to the market that the business could run without him.
The outcome: a retirement didn't know he could fund
On the third attempt, EJ Mechanical sold to a buyer who owned a residential HVAC company and was looking to expand into commercial HVAC. It was a clean strategic fit.
Our client and his wife had been planning to sell their home, move closer to their daughters outside Houston, and take a long-delayed trip to Italy. The sale gave them the means to do it. Money Ed had been fully prepared to walk away from became the foundation of his retirement.
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