What would you pay someone to do the seller’s job?
Consider a fictional $750k HVAC acquisition with the same $600k loan in two scenarios. With the buyer doing the seller’s job, debt coverage is 2.06×. Put a $95k manager in that seat and coverage falls to 0.97×. The business comes up about $2,356 short on annual payments before the buyer takes a distribution.
Before an LOI, I’d ask the seller to walk me through last week’s calendar. Who quoted the jobs, handled callbacks and approved overtime? For searchers who have priced a replacement, which of those duties changed your hiring budget the most?