Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - Alabama NEMT Company for Sale: $3M Revenue, $376K SDE Breakdown

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

In this episode the hosts review an Alabama non-emergency medical transportation business priced around $1.0–1.4M and unanimously reject the deal due to unstable earnings, questionable financial reporting, and heavy dependence on government contracts.Business Listing – https://www.dealonomy.com/s/non-emergency-medical-van-transportationWelcome to Acquisitions Anonymous – the #1 podcast for small business M&A. Every week, we break down businesses for sale and talk about buying, operating, and growing them.Looking to build a professional website in minutes? Try Wix: https://wix.pxf.io/c/6898629/3115214/25616?trafcat=templateHubSpot is the backbone for how businesses scale without chaos. Try them out here: https://go.try-hubspot.com/OeG9Vr💰 Sponsored by:Viso Business CapitalViso Business Capital helps acquisition entrepreneurs secure the right SBA loan by matching them with lenders that fit their specific deal. With access to over 30 lending partners, they streamline the financing process so buyers can close faster and with better terms. Sign up for a free live Q&A on SBA loans at https://www.visocap.netQuiet Light BrokerageQuiet Light Brokerage specializes in helping entrepreneurs buy and sell businesses with experienced operators as brokers. They offer a free valuation clarity call to help owners understand what their business is worth and how to increase its value before selling. Learn more at https://quietlight.com/This episode analyzes a non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) company in Alabama generating roughly $3M in revenue and about $376K in seller’s discretionary earnings, with an asking price between $1.0M and $1.4M. The business operates a fleet of specialized vehicles transporting patients to medical appointments under government and institutional contracts, including federal agreements that drive a significant portion of revenue.Key Highlights Section:- $3M revenue, ~$376K SDE, asking $1.0M–$1.4M (~3–4x multiple)- Recent financial volatility, including losses in prior year- Heavy reliance on government or Medicaid-related contracts- Asset-heavy model requiring fleet utilization discipline- Unanimous thumbs-down from hosts due to risk and data quality concernsSubscribe to  weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking hereDo you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show!Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations.For inquiries or suggestions, email us at [e-mail]

Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous. Today's deal is one that came through us through platform Deelonomy. It is a business broker site that does only good deal. So we dug into one. It was fascinating. It was in Alabama and it was a medical transportation business for non-emergency situations. And it turns out it was one of those deals where we had no argument whatsoever about how we felt about it. So stick around for the whole episode to see how we thought. Here's the episode. anonymous. We don't have 100% years anymore. I have thumbs downing on just the plus inventory loan. Hi, Heather here. When I'm not breaking down deals with these guys, I'm helping people get the

right SBA loans for their business acquisitions. Because when you're buying a business, the best financing isn't one size fits all. There's the best rate, fastest to close, the specific loan structure that you need, or a little of all of those things. That's why my company, Vizzo Business Capital, works with over 30 different lenders to find you the best funding in less time and with less friction so you can focus on the deal. Sign up for a free live Q&A session on SBA loans at VisoCAP.net, then click Zoom sign up in the top right corner. That's V-I-S-O-C-A-P. And click Zoom sign up. Oh, Heather, can we get a weather report from Southern California? Just depressed the rest of the world. It is sunny and beautiful. It is shorts and flip-flops weather

again. And it's the beginning of March. So we've had a very warm. winter, although we did get a lot of rain, but every time the rain clears out, it gets warm again. It's been really nice. So you've got to know me a bit. If I had to pick like HQ2 for the Gurdley family, would you recommend San Diego, O.C., or kind of L.A. Corps? What do you think, what it feels like a better vibe for me? And then same question for Mills. I feel like San Diego would be your best vibe. It's pretty laid back, beautiful, kind of chic as well. well, I like Orange County better. That's where I live. But that's because it's in between the two.

And, like, you can get to both relatively easy. I mean, our traffic is terrible, but you can get to both relatively easy from Orange County. But I think you're more of a San Diego guy. La Jolla. Yeah, do I have 10 million to drop on a house? I'll work on it. I feel like you do. So you need to go. Yeah, yeah. That's exactly what I was saying. And you just put off this, you know, I act like it, Michael. And when you talk about where should the Gurdly H.Q2 be? I've never said that about my family. Yeah.

Okay. Same question for Mills. You can't say Gardinia, okay? You're more like a long beach kind of guy. It's Gartina. I really enjoy my time in Costa Mesa. Oh, O.C. Yep.

Smart man. All right. On that note, I'm going to tell you the closest thing to Costa Mesa. an Alabama-based non-emergency medical transportation business. So it looks like this is our second deal on a me, deal in a row, a ladies and germ. It looks like another AI generated photo. I would agree with that. It looks like they're generating AI photos.

And we're not being sponsored, right? Correct. Right, so we can say whatever we want. We can say whatever we want. Everyone is a future sponsor. But we have a price. There is a price. where our criticism may be dialed back a little bit.

Everything is for sale. No, that's not criticism. That's, uh, we're, uh, commenting on their efficiency. Sponsorships are available. Contact your local sales room. Uh, all right. Alabama based non-emergency, emergency medical transportation business priced one million to one point four million located in Alabama.

It is in the healthcare medical social and social services industries. It does three million in revenue and there's an SDE of 376,000. And unlike the last deal on me deal, I didn't just stop the teaser. I actually clicked on the link. So, yay us. We're getting better. Good job. Thanks.

This Alabama-based non-emergency medical transportation company offers a multi-county operations, long-term health care, and federal contact cracks, and a fully remote 24-7 operating model. It is anchored by a high-volume federal agreement and supported by additional institutional and broker-based contracts. The business generates consistent contract-driven revenue while maintaining lean, staffing and efficient vehicle deployment. An experienced operation team

manages dispatch routing and hiring, enabling the owner to oversee finances and key relationships with minimal daily involvement. The company has significant growth through potential through new healthcare partnerships, additional federal opportunities, and deeper penetration into southern markets.

It is SBA loan eligible and they will seller finance. Financial snapshots include income of $2.7 million, 3 million, and 2.9 million in the trailing 12 months. Gross profit, wait a second. Yeah.

Okay. So anyway, I'm just going to skip to the net income, because whoever's putting this in is, well, this has got to be, gross profit cannot be higher than total revenue. Yeah, it is currently seen higher. So anyway, these people are selling drugs. All right. So in 2023, they lost $43,000. In 2024, they made $100,000.

$173,000. And in the trailing 12 months, they profited $254,000. Each year they have adbacks. And the main ad back is $120,000 in owners pay. And in the other years, it is some interest expense. So that means there. What do you think that is, Heather, net interest expense? Like they have That's a lot. That's a lot. It was zero. We didn't have it in the prior year. and then all of a sudden they've got $146,000. It could be that they financed some new vehicles for growth. I mean, they're not showing the growth yet, but maybe they went off.

I mean, it may be $146, on $3 million in revenue. Let's just call it $3 million in revenue. $146,000 just in interest expense. That's not principal in interest. That's not equipment purchases. That's just interest. Let's just do some math on that. That's $1,0.08 in debt if it was at,

8%. Yeah, it's like, it makes sense. Do you think it's possible that this business got bought recently? Oh. And now it's being resold? Could be. I've seen certain. I've definitely seen people who got an SBA loan, bought a business and they still have the SBA loan outstanding and they want to sell it. But I mean, that would have been just in the trailing 12. That would have just, because there was no interest prior. So could it be that someone bought it in 25 and already wants to sell it? Maybe. But still, it doesn't equate to enough of a principle, you know, this is, oh, yeah, it would. One point eight would mean they overpaid for it, though, because they're asking one to one point four. So that is an interesting question.

When you see that much interest, you kind of back into how much principle that would be, if the purchase price is less than what they owe some creditor, guess what, they can't sell because they will not be able to pay off the creditor with the proceeds, you know, just like buying a house that's underwater. If the lender doesn't want to let it go for less than it they're owed, you won't be able to close the deal. So that's a big question right there. How much do you owe?

What's it for? Just to see if the deal could go forward. Could be a typo, too. Yeah, there definitely is a accuracy gap here with these listings, which that's kind of important to do if you're a broker. I feel like sometimes these are, and I'm not saying this about deal on to me, But I've seen a lot of deal listing platforms that primarily scale through self-reporting. You know, somebody who wants to sell their business, they plug in a bunch of the information into kind of preset fields.

This description doesn't really read that way. It doesn't read like kind of for sale by owner. But it makes me wonder if maybe some of this was self-reported or just kind of, you know, keystroke error. I like the fact, I mean, I think this is a, it's a durable space, right? Non-emergency medical transport. People are living longer. They're aging in their home or in assisted living facilities. They need to be moved back and forth to doctor's appointments.

And ambulances are not the most efficient way to do that. And so just like this photo, this we think AI generated photo shows at the top, there's, you know, a transit ban with a lift. gate on the back that picks you up from your house or your nursing home in a wheelchair or however you may need to get around, takes you to the doctor's office for a couple hours and brings you back. They don't say anything in here. I mean, they say anchored by high volume federal agreement. The whole key to this space is who is paying, right? And if there is a Medicare, Medicaid, component to this, then you probably have a lot of hoops to jump through from a paperwork,

licensure, credentialing. Most likely, if there's a multi-year contract, which I haven't dealt with this directly, but probably going to lead to a stock purchase so that you can keep all those things in place. There's just a lot to wrap your arms around with something like this, and it's only doing $3 million in revenue. Right. And then, you know, lenders are going to look at something they call pay or risk, which is kind of going back to, okay, if it's Medicaid related, you know, however you're getting paid, is there any political risk to that program? Which Medicaid these days, yes, there is. You know, there's a lot of talk of cutting all kinds of that type of aid. So you've got that on top of the fact that you may sort of have a concentration

with the government. So that's tricky, tricky to navigate. If you don't have prior experience in health care and health care billing, this could be tough. The thing about this business that it ultimately comes down to is like asset efficiency and capacity utilization. You know, you could have a fleet of 50 of these and if only two of them are on the road at any given time, you're host. But it's also a balancing act because you're on call, you know, and you've got, to, they even mentioned 24-7 operating model, you probably have some visibility in the coming weeks of like, okay, you know, Fred goes to the doctor every other Tuesday for, you know, dialysis or something like that. So it's kind of scheduled out, as long as you know that you're

getting paid by the people who are actually footing the bill. But it's really, really difficult to right-size your fleet to demand because demand fluctuates. And you can't just add and subtract these highly specialized vehicles up and down each month. And so while there is some stability and durability, I think you could really get behind or you could get over, you know, over kind of staff from an asset standpoint, too much capacity really quickly. And then it's like really, really hard to undo. It got to wonder how much customer concentration they have with these deals. That's where my head goes. Wouldn't surprise me if this whole thing

is just tied together with two federal contracts and it also wouldn't surprise me if one of those is like one or both is like female or minority on business driven and you're just like okay. And next thing you know, somebody's cousin gets the contract after yours expires.

This government contracting world is just, and I don't use the C word but it's just so corrupt. right? It's just like so much cronyism. I mean, if you, if I work with companies that are selling to the government right now and doing stuff and like the new regime came in and they're like, okay, all of our friends are getting the contracts now. Thanks for being here, right? And it's just like a different, that's the game you're waiting into. And it, it, I wonder if somebody who bought this business did it with an SBA loan and then they've had a conversation with the local procurement office for Medicare or whatever. And they're like, okay. congratulations. Unlikely you're going to win this bid when it comes up again next year.

This episode of Acquisitions Anonymous is brought to you by Quiet Light brokerage. And I'm sitting here to tell you I have both sold businesses with Quiet Light and bought businesses from Quiet Light. And in my opinion, they are extremely high quality people, very, very rigorous and they're really straight shooters. One of the things that differentiates Quiet Light is every single broker at Quiet Light has been an operator. They have been an operator of an active business and they have sold it. Many of them have also bought businesses.

So they really understand what it means to be in the seller's seat and how important that is to you. And they also really understand what it means to be in the buyer's seat. So they don't BS you, but they really do know how buyers think. All of the transactions I did with Quietlight. In fact, one of them, they took over a sale process that another broker had not been able to get done. And they got it done for me inside of 90 days. So I've had very positive personal experiences with Quietlight. And I do recommend them wholeheartedly to a lot of people.

And now they're sponsor of the podcast. So one thing you can get for free is if you head over to Quietlight.com, they will do a valuation clarity call with you, which is not a sales call. They're not pushy people. They'll just kind of tell you, hey, here's what your business is probably worth. And here are a few things you could do to make it worth more. And hey, maybe don't sell it right now. Do these things.

Come back to us in six months and you'll get a much better multiple. So if you're thinking about selling your business or you're thinking about buying a business, especially in the e-commerce space where they're very, very strong. I've been doing this for over a decade. Go check out Quietlight brokerage over at Quietlight.com. Or if they're serving nursing homes that are Medicaid patients mainly, this is what I imagine because it's non-emergency medical. I think a lot of it is that type of, that's kind of facilities that they tend to serve. that is getting cut. That kind of Medicaid is getting cut.

So it couldn't just be simply that it's getting cut out of the budget or there's a good likelihood of it, a risk of it, that this owner is concerned about, maybe. So what do we like about this? I mean, the demand. The AI picture was nice. The demand is always going to be there. It's just a matter of who's actually going to service that demand,

who's going to pay them. and, you know, how consistent is that? It seems like you could be left holding a fleet full of vehicles and no demand in many, many conceivable scenarios. And the contracts have just whist away. You would rather be an emergency transport, right? That's where the money gets made here. I don't talk to you, but it's better than this. Yeah, I've never looked at ambulance businesses.

But then you have a different staffing dilemma and you've got to hire EMTs, which, I think are more difficult to staff. You know, this isn't somebody who needs a, you know, class A CDL license or something like that to drive one of these vans. Okay. Somebody talked me into buying this. Yeah, maybe the bull case is you sign the NDA and you find out that, you know,

this is a set aside contract. There is some female-owned, minority-owned service-disabled, veteran-owned component to this that maybe they've just scratched the surface or is untapped. I just think about how do you navigate these contracts in Alabama, where it is probably very obscure and opaque, and you don't really know the other side of this, your total outsider.

I think you would have to have somebody who's already familiar with this market, understands the contract dynamics, knows the payer risk. This is like a tuck-in. That's what this screams to me as a tuck-in. Yeah. I mean, if you believed that the T-T-M-SDE of 370 to 400 was sustainable, which I'm not sure I would, but if you could get behind it and you believe that, it could qualify for an SBA loan, you know, around that, you know, that's consistent with what they're asking for this business.

So, I mean, it could be financeable, but you'd have to really do your diligence on the pro forma. This is more of like a revenue visibility, not a historic. And I think a lot of people get caught up in the historical, even though that's not great here either. I was going to say, not that long ago, this business was making $20,000 a year net. Yeah, right. So it doesn't even have a good look back. But what you really care about is the look forward. And if, you know, if you could get behind that, then it's probably a fair valuation.

But I think you got a lot of diligence to do to get behind that. Yeah, maybe best case scenario, this is like value at real estate where somebody bought it. there was like a very short duration on the contracts, just like a vacant building. And then they renew the contracts, essentially signing a really long-term, amazing lease, and then they're just flipping out of it because there's a lot of residual value there now. I think that's the best case scenario. Other than that, there's no case scenario. Is that where we're at?

I think so. I think you'd hope for it, but man, this is just a tough business. I gotta say too, when you, like, in the first 60 seconds of looking at a teaser, and I'm sorry, I'm just piling on now, but when there's like substantial egregious errors in the reported financials where gross profit is higher than total income, it makes it hard to justify spending more time on it. Because you kind of look at it and go, like, I don't even, I mean, I could get really excited about something I see and it could be totally irrelevant. Yeah. I mean it does tie into just a good leadership lesson, right, and business operating lesson for me, right? It's like one of the first things I'll do when I go visit a business is just look at the level of cleanliness and tidiness and tidiness and the place and level of attention to detail. And people don't think about how the lack of it really sends a message to your employees and to your customers about what you tolerate in your culture.

and when there's dirt everywhere and the vehicles have trash in them. I used to drive my drivers crazy when I was a CEO being like, get your trash out of our truck and it needs to be cleaned. And if it's not clean, you need to tell me so we can make time for it. Because it was just that important.

How was I going to know they were changing the oil on time if they couldn't pick up the fillet of fish wrapper from the foot well? So I think that's in your marketing, that's important too. Now, I'm also the guy who writes tweets with spelling errors in them. And also yesterday, I recorded an entire YouTube video with a bugger hanging out of my nose. So that's what's going on here. So do as I say, not how I do.

I think, you know, I think this is interesting. And if you're trying to get reps and look at things, this is like you need, you need to go down the rabbit, you know, the rabbit hole on this and, and explore things like this to figure out why it's probably not something that you want to own long term. If you're doing a thesis-driven approach, are you looking at non-emergency medical transportation as a category if you're not already in it? I don't think so. Yeah. I don't know anybody that drives a Ferrari that does not emergency medical transportation. That's kind of a bad sign. That's how you decide. It is the girly rule of if I have to pick one thing to know, I look at what kind of car the seller owns. And if they're driving a 2017 Subaru Outback,

I run the other way. But anyway, just kidding. Well, it's kind of like, Isn't that what you drive? It is what I drive. Thanks for the show. But it's also a huge tell. We have one of the things people get wrong is there's just like idea that I think people want to be in recurring revenue services businesses, low capics, all this kind of stuff. So they think naturally that being in the pool maintenance business is better than being in the

pool construction business. And it turns out that's one of the businesses where being in maintenance is actually much worse than being in their construction. And you can tell the people that own the pool construction companies, they drive up to the country club and fancy lexuses and maybacks right and the people that own the the guy that cleans our pool i'm surprised that his truck gets here sometimes right that's the that's the difference of the two and so you can't tell a lot by what the owners are driving like it tells you how the business is doing yeah on site is that i would always ask you know about like just trying to get to know a seller

but like even just little things like you know what types of vacations do they take do they take vacations. Can you be away from the business for two beats? But if they're like, you know, yeah, we go to our beach house. Okay, ding, ding, ding, they have a beach house. Like that, you know, or we go, you know, we take month long trips to Europe, you know, and a place that we have fractional ownership in. Like, you know, it just tells you a lot versus we, I had this business we looked at one time that was reportedly doing six million dollars a year in EBITDA, but they had a tax lien for three million dollars. And it's like, did you actually do six million in EBITDA for multiple years. Why would you have a multi-year lien accumulating on the business if you actually were distributing

free cash flow, you know? There are clues. There are clues. All right. On that note, would you, would you guys like to rate this meeting, Heather? Or this, not to me, rate the, I thought there's an EOS meeting for some of the, this meeting. This meeting is terrible. That's an L-10. Yeah.

One out of ten, thank you. How would you write this deal? I'm a thumbs down on the deal. I don't like the customer concentration, and I'm worried that the cash flow is not stable enough. Yeah, this business sucks. Mills over to you. Yeah, I'm also thumbs down.

As much as I want to be contrarian in this moment and be like, I'm doing it. Usually this is where I'm like, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to do a reality TV show called Alabama Medical Transpo. And then they will get all these customers. But I don't even know how that would fix this. deal. I think it's just such a crappy business to be in. On that note, if you enjoyed this episode, don't tell anybody about it.

We don't want him to know. Please tell a friend about it. Open up your phone right now, find a friend in your address book you think would enjoy this episode the most, and send a link to them and say, please listen to this and then tell them to take you to Chili's for dinner. All right. Thank you very much. We'll catch you next time.