Yes, yes. How interesting. Another thing, Joe, about the business is that 900,000 SDE number is great. Large, what self funded searchers love to find, hard to find, but that's actually also a bit exceptional. The year before you bought it was a very strong year.
Acquiring Minds
How Business-Buyer Fit Led to 2.2x and No PG
Deal story
Former medical device sales rep Joe Wynn bought an operating-room equipment sales/service distributorship in Georgia for $1.35M, leveraging supplier veto power and business-buyer fit to negotiate a 90%+ seller note at 7% over 10 years with no personal guarantee. The business does $2M revenue with ~45% margins; Joe underwrote it at a stabilized ~$600K SDE and is forecasting $3M+ revenue in his first full year.
Deal facts
Industry
Medical / operating-room equipment (surgical lights, tables, booms)
Business
Sales & service distributorship
Location
Atlanta / Georgia
Revenue
$2M (2025)
SDE / EBITDA
$889K reported SDE; ~$600K stabilized (underwritten)
Multiple
~2.25x on stabilized ~$600K SDE
Deal size
$1.35M purchase price
Acquisition model
Partnered
Outcome
Closed Jan 21; $120K down, ~90% seller note at 7% over 10 years, no PG, 3-month standby; received $150K working capital; forecasting $3-3.5M revenue for the year
People
Will Smithhost
Host of Acquiring Minds podcast
Joe Wynnguest
Former medical device sales rep, now owner of Surgical Specialties, an OR equipment sales/service business
Topics
Excerpts · 410 segments · ~1:33:42 long
Short excerpts only — hear the full conversation on the publisher's site.
05:03 Joe's medical sales background13:40 Finding the equipment business18:15 Revenue and SDE breakdown21:14 High margins and pricing power26:04 Lumpy project revenue history37:13 Purchase price negotiation57:52 Deal structure and seller note1:11:53 Bank froze account post-close
The prior three years it wasn't as high as 900. So give us the historic numbers going back two or three years.
Yeah. So last year the SDE was around 630,000 last year. And then the year prior to that was around 340,000 in SDE. And the reason for that is.
So this is essentially project management. Right. So there are projects that will go, but then there are projects that will be delayed to a number of things. So as I was looking into that, obviously that was a big concern as to having a huge jump and then looking at the previous years as to the previous performance.
But then it kind of all made sense as to why that was kind of reflective and.
Sorry, what, what was the explanation for.
The explanation? Yeah, so explanation was that they had some projects that were in line to go in. Was that I guess two years ago, but then those projects got pushed until next year. Right. And then I see he didn't have anything essentially to backfill those things.
So. So getting that information made a lot of sense as to why it was the case. So for me, you know, my whole thing since kind of stepping in is to obviously continuously to have as many place spinning as possible. So that if there's a project that's not going that we expect to go, you still have other opportunities kind of coming through the pipeline.
Yep. But when you think about this business at. And it's sort of stabilized earnings level.
Yeah.
Historically. Not, not. Not with you going forward because you're going to change things and grow that number. Did you think about it as a kind of 900 is the stable. Is the stable earnings level or more like 600 is the more stable?
Yeah, I saw more as more of a 600 type of business. And the reason being is because when I just looked at it this performance over time, but having that effect to where you do have projects that will go and then some projects that won't. That's kind of the number I was kind of comfortable with in terms of truly evaluating that.
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