Street-Furniture Business Valuations in 2025
- Richard Matthews
- Jul 3
- 3 min read
If you sell Street-Furniture such as bollards, benches, shelters or cycle racks, you’ve probably heard stories of “6-times EBITDA” deals. Headlines like that make the rounds, but they rarely survive a close look at the fine print. Here’s a realistic, no-nonsense framework for pricing an Australian outdoor- and streetscape-furniture business today.
1. Current Market Pulse
Size Tier (A$) Typical Multiple* When You’ll Break the Ceiling
< 1 m EBITDA / SDE 3.0 – 4.0× Sticky council contracts + 25 % + gross margin
1 – 3 m EBITDA 3.8 – 4.8× Proprietary designs, R&D pipeline, 80 % repeat revenue
3 – 5 m EBITDA 4.2 – 5.2× National footprint, capacity headroom, documented ESG edge
> 5 m EBITDA 4.8 – 5.8× PE appetite, multi-year framework agreements, < 35 % customer concentration
*Multiples reflect enterprise value on normalised EBITDA (clean of owner perks, one-offs and related-party rent). Sources are aggregated, anonymised deal data from 60+ Australian manufacturing and industrial-services transactions closed between 2022-H1 2025.
Reality check: Numbers above assume average risk. High cap-ex drag, razor-thin margins or tender-to-tender sales cycles can still push you down to the low-3× band.
2. Why 6× Happens (and Why It Usually Doesn’t)
Contracted Cashflow – Councils locking you in for three-plus years.
Defensible IP – Patented extrusion profiles or exclusive compliance certifications.
Margin & Mix – Gross margin > 25 % sustained across five years.
Zero Cap-Ex Catch-Up – A plant running at 60 % capacity with no immediate spend required.
Strip any of these away and the multiple deflates quickly. Most small-cap (< A$5 m EBITDA) deals that flash “6×” in the press include an earn-out or seller finance that rolls part of that multiple into a contingent payment.
3. Macro Tailwinds Still Favour Sellers
Global street-furniture market valued at US $5.6 bn in 2024, projected 6.7 % CAGR to 2034.
Australian furniture market (all segments) forecast ~6 % CAGR to 2030, driven by population growth and urban-renewal budgets.
Government infrastructure grants and Main-Street revitalisation schemes underpin steady municipal demand.
These tailwinds don’t justify inflated multiples on their own, but they do prop up buyer conviction—key to trading at the upper end of each band.
4. Five Levers That Lift Your Price
Lever Typical Uplift Broker’s Tip
Multi-year supply panels +0.5 – 1.0× Bundle contract novation clauses into the deal to ease buyer nerves.
Design IP & certifications +0.3 – 0.8× Document patents, BOMs and compliance files in the data room.
Customer & SKU diversification +0.2 – 0.5× No single client > 20 % of revenue signals resilience.
Lean working-capital cycle +0.1 – 0.3× Prove you collect within 45 days and carry minimal stock.
Management depth +0.2 – 0.4× Show at least two senior leaders who stay post-sale.
5. Quick Illustrative Valuation
Example: A NSW manufacturer supplying shelters, bins and bollards
Normalised EBITDA: A$2.4 m
70 % revenue under three-year council contracts
Gross margin 26 %, cap-ex light
Indicative multiple: 4.6 × (mid-band)
Enterprise value: 2.4 m × 4.6 ≈ A$11.0 m
Deal may include 10 % seller note and a working-capital peg, trimming day-one cash to ~A$9.5 m.
6. Preparing for the Upper Quartile
Lock renewals now – Re-sign key councils at least 12 months ahead of a sale.
Map IP clearly – Patents, dies, CAD files and AS/NZS compliance docs.
Normalise EBIT – Strip directors’ cars, one-off tender costs, non-recurring COVID subsidies.
Stress-test working-cap – Keep WIP low, speed up receivables.
Plan 12-month runway – Deals take 7-13 months; cash buffers stop forced discounting.
7. Bottom Line
For most street-furniture makers under A$5 m EBITDA, a 3.8 – 5.2× reality band applies in 2025. Breaking past 5× isn’t a myth—it just demands proof of contracted revenue, defendable IP and capital-light growth. Get those ducks lined up, and even the skeptics who scoff at “over-5×” headlines will sharpen their pencils.
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