Maurice Thomas·April 1, 2024

Rather Than Retire, Buy a Business | Maurice Thomas Interview

Maurice Thomas, a former CPA and 20-year financial-services veteran who later built and ran a 60-person gaming-technology field-services company, found himself involuntarily semi-retired at 62 after his firm's anchor client contract fell through just before COVID. Rather than retire, he discovered acquisition entrepreneurship through Walker Deibel's Acquisition Lab and, partnering with a longtime colleague, closed on Mainline Electrical, a 34-year-old Orlando-area electrical contractor serving high-end custom home builders, for roughly 4x SDE (SDE near $1M) using an SBA 7(a) loan, personal equity, and a seller note. The business was almost purely new-construction with little recurring service revenue, which Maurice viewed as opportunity rather than red flag, planning to diversify into residential and possibly commercial service work. Eighteen months in, the deal has been a smooth, low-drama transition with a cooperative seller, but the company's biggest constraint has been the tight labor market, particularly finding experienced lead electricians rather than helpers, which has slowed both growth and the buildout of the service line. Maurice, now 65 and running the company with a partner based remotely in Dallas, emphasizes self-knowledge, a disciplined target statement, and people-first core values as the keys to a search and integration that he describes as far smoother than many of his peers'.

Deal facts

multiple: just under 4x SDE
sde ebitda: SDE almost $1 million (2021 figure, used since the 3-year average was distorted by COVID)
revenue: approximately $4.5-5 million topline at acquisition
financing structure: SBA 7(a) loan + personal equity + seller note
notes: Business (Mainline Electrical) founded in 1988, bought in 2022 with about 30-35 employees, mostly high-end custom home new-construction electrical work in the Orlando/Central Florida area; grown to about 50 employees ~18 months post-close, though growth has been mostly in helper-level labor rather than experienced lead electricians.

Why this business

Maurice was 62 and involuntarily semi-retired after his gaming-technology field-services company lost its anchor client just before COVID. He didn't want to fully retire, discovered acquisition entrepreneurship through Entrepreneurs' Organization contacts and Walker Deibel's book, and went through Deibel's Acquisition Lab. He and his longtime business partner (a former colleague of ~9-10 years) built a target statement calling for an old-school service business (not internet-based) in the trades with SDE of $750k-$1m, geography-agnostic since Maurice is unattached. Mainline Electrical appealed because it had a strong reputation with high-end custom home builders, was almost entirely new-construction (heavy on project revenue, light on recurring service revenue), which he saw as an opportunity rather than a flaw, and because his decades running a service-dispatch ('guys and trucks') business in gaming technology gave him directly transferable skills even without any electrical trade background.

What's working

Directly transferable service-business operating experience (built and ran a 60-person field-services company previously) let him run the electrical business without being an electrician himself
Strong existing reputation with high-end custom home builders in the Orlando/Central Florida market gave a built-in, low-competition niche with almost no direct competitors
Smooth, collaborative transition with the seller/founder, who remains a friend, informal advisor, and even a fellow contractor on some projects
Culture-building via inclusion (e.g., adopting an employee's idea to start using Slack), coaching young/inexperienced management staff, and simple unifying slogans ('the book of Gilly') to align staff around core values
Long-standing, complementary partnership with his business partner (COO, based remotely in Dallas) built on ~20 years of prior working history and aligned values
Clear target statement from the Acquisition Lab sped up the search and made brokers/lenders take them seriously

What's hard

Tight labor market has been the single biggest challenge, especially finding experienced lead electricians/journeymen versus easier-to-find helpers
Grew headcount from ~30-35 to ~50 but the growth has been mostly at the helper level, not the lead-electrician level that actually drives new business capacity
Higher employee turnover than desired
Early in the search they lost a business they liked to a competing buyer by over-analyzing and moving too slowly, which taught them to distinguish pre-LOI 'must-know' questions from post-LOI diligence questions
Electrical licensing is granted county-by-county in Florida (with reciprocity over time), constraining geographic expansion until their master electrician meets time requirements for a state license
Deliberately holding back on aggressively marketing for new business because they are still building service delivery capacity (need more trained lead electricians first)

Notable quotes

he hit me between the eyes with the question that sold me and he said Maurice I know you want to grow this business but what about the people that are here how do you feel about the people that are here what do you plan on doing with the people that are here

I am not an electrician I'm a businessman ... I don't need to be an electrician ... I'm going to have my lane and I'm going to lean on everybody else who's responsible for their lane to do what they need to do and if we all manage our lanes we're going to be okay

we learned the importance of distinguishing between critical questions and critical data to make the determination as to whether or not you wanted to submit a letter of intent versus information that could be gathered and evaluated post LOI during the due diligence phase

our religion is the book of Gilly and in the book of Gilly we only have two commandments commandment number one take care of our customers commandment number two take care of ourselves