This is an analysis of a publicly advertised business-for-sale listing, based solely on the figures the seller published on BizBuySell as of June 2026. We have no relationship with the seller or broker, we have not seen the books, and listings change or sell — treat this as a worked example of deal screening, not investment advice.
The listing
A car-hauling (vehicle transport) business listed on BizBuySell advertises three headline numbers:
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Asking price | $1,300,000 |
| Cash flow (SDE) | $400,000 |
| Asking multiple | 3.25× SDE |
| Operations | Fully remote |
For context, BizBuySell's Q1 2026 Insight Report puts the median US small-business sale at $350,000 with median cash flow of $165,256 and an average cash-flow multiple of 2.7× — so this is a larger-than-median deal asking a richer-than-median multiple.
What the engine says
We ran the listing through the GradeThisDeal calculator (US market, logistics sector, SBA 7(a) preset), entering only what the listing discloses and marking everything else unknown.
Scored on listed figures alone, the deal grades 65/100 — Favourable, with the $1.3M asking price sitting inside the engine's fair range of $1.06M–$1.58M (optimal $1.32M). The Monte Carlo median lands at $1.31M — the seller has priced this deal almost exactly at fair value.
The detail behind that:
- Valuation (15.8/25). 3.25× SDE against an SDE-adjusted logistics band of 2.6×–4.0× (mid 3.3×). Fair, not cheap. US trucking and logistics trades at a premium to Main Street averages — see our logistics multiples reference for the Singapore equivalent.
- Financing (DSCR 2.07×). At 90% SBA 7(a) leverage, $400K of cash flow covers debt service more than twice over. Anything above 1.5× clears most lenders' thresholds comfortably — this deal finances easily, which partly explains the full price. (Primer: DSCR explained.)
- Qualitative (10.5/30) — and this is the real story. The listing publishes nothing about customer concentration, driver/owner dependence, fleet age or books quality, so the engine substitutes conservative below-average assumptions for all of them and says so. Data confidence: 0 of 15 optional inputs known.
Why "65 with zero confidence" is the insight
A 65 scored blind is not the same as a 65 scored on a full CIM. Every unknown here was assumed against the deal — meaning the diligence questions below are pure upside if they come back clean, and disqualifying if they don't:
- Load sources. Car haulers often run on one or two broker boards or dealer relationships. If >30% of revenue comes from one source, that's the customer-concentration discount in action.
- Who dispatches? "Fully remote" usually means the owner is the dispatcher. If the owner works 50 hours a week brokering loads, a chunk of that $400K SDE is really a salary you'll pay someone — see owner dependence.
- Fleet age and capex. SDE adds back depreciation, but trucks genuinely wear out. A fleet needing $150K of replacements in two years makes the effective multiple meaningfully higher than 3.25×.
- Insurance trajectory. Commercial auto premiums have risen for years; ask for three years of policy history, not one.
Run the same numbers yourself — with your own assumptions filled in — using the free calculator. Two minutes of inputs reproduces everything above, and the score will move as you replace our conservative unknowns with real answers.
Methodology, weighting and sources: how GradeThisDeal scores a deal.