Building Technology & Fire Safety

In brief: An owner-managed building services or fire safety business in the DACH region currently changes hands for 3.7-7.6x adjusted EBITDA, multi-trade businesses in the mid-cap class for up to 8.5x (based on DUB KMU-Multiples Q3/2026, rows skilled trades & construction and electrical engineering & automation, analysis SourcingClub). Buyers are PE-backed trade platforms, strategic groups such as Elevion and Caverion, and family offices. From preparation to closing, you should plan six to twelve months.

Market overview: building technology & fire safety in the DACH region

Building services in Germany generate around €90bn a year (BTGA spring report 2026, 08.04.2026). This figure counts the building services work itself. The association revenues of the individual trades are higher, because they cover the whole business, including trading, repairs and work outside building services: €88.2bn in the electrical trades and €59.1bn in the plumbing, heating and air conditioning (SHK) trade (ZVEH, 12.05.2026; ZVSHK, 04.05.2026). The €20bn quoted in many industry texts means something else again: the service potential for maintenance and servicing up to 2030, around a fifth of the market (building services market study, reported by buildingnet.de and majunke.com, 2026).

Underneath sits one of the most fragmented structures in the German Mittelstand. In 2025 the electrical trades counted exactly 49,113 businesses, 44,975 of them in electrical engineering, with 451,050 employees subject to social insurance (ZVEH, 12.05.2026). The SHK trade has around 48,000 businesses with 390,000 employees (ZVSHK, 04.05.2026). On average, that is eight to nine people per business. Across all trades, 1,038,126 businesses are entered in the trades register (ZDH, as of 2025).

Order books are weak in 2026. The ZDH economic report 1/2026 shows 75 percent capacity utilisation, 8.9 weeks of order backlog and a revenue indicator of minus 25 points. In the SHK trade, the order backlog fell to 11.5 weeks in early 2026, around four weeks below the previous year (ZVSHK via sht-online.de, 05.05.2026). The ZVSHK names investment restraint as the brake, not a lack of demand. The need is there in the existing building stock and will come back. The ZVEH expects revenue to grow by only 0.8 percent in 2026, mostly driven by prices, with its business climate index at the lowest level in more than 15 years.

Within the sector, the submarkets are moving apart. Heat pumps rose by 40 percent to 194,500 units in the first half of 2026 and, with a market share of more than 55 percent, overtook gas for the first time (BDH, 11.08.2026). Photovoltaics went the other way: minus 18 percent to 388,000 newly registered systems, and minus 48 percent for commercial rooftop systems of 100 to 750 kW (Bundesnetzagentur via Solarserver, 17.07.2026). Battery storage, by contrast, is growing strongly, large storage systems over 750 kWh by 161 percent. If your revenue depends heavily on residential PV, your buyer will see it immediately. If it depends on heat pumps, storage, commercial customers and maintenance, the buyer will see that too.

What the Building Modernisation Act has changed since July 2026

The Building Energy Act (Gebäudeenergiegesetz) no longer exists in this form. The Bundestag passed the new rules on 09.07.2026, they were promulgated on 28.07.2026, and the first provisions have applied since 29.07.2026. The law is now called the Building Modernisation Act, GModG for short (gmodg.bund.de; Federal Government, 29.07.2026). The 65 percent rule for renewable energy when replacing a heating system was dropped without replacement. In its place come technology openness and the bio ladder, with rising minimum shares of biogenic fuels for new gas and oil heating systems: ten percent from 2029, fifteen in 2030, thirty in 2035, sixty in 2040, and climate neutrality by 2045. Replacing a heating system is also no longer tied to municipal heat planning.

So the regulatory demand driver does not disappear, it moves. The GModG transposes the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive EPBD (2024/1275/EU): zero-emission buildings as the new-build standard from 2028 for public buildings and from 2030 for all buildings, staged minimum energy performance standards for non-residential buildings, and a solar obligation for new non-residential buildings from 2027 and for residential buildings from 2030. At the same time, heating subsidies were cut on 21.07.2026, and the maximum eligible costs for the first residential unit fell from €30,000 to €28,000 (Federal Government, 29.07.2026; ADAC, as of 29.07.2026). Businesses that are strong in non-residential construction and in renovating existing buildings gain from this shift.

Succession pressure is the second driver, and it works differently from how it is usually told. Around 109,000 Mittelstand companies a year are looking for a successor by the end of 2029, while around 114,000 a year plan to close without a succession solution, which is one company in four (KfW Research No. 526, 09.01.2026). More than 2 million owners are 55 or older, and price expectations have risen by 34 percent since 2019. For the skilled trades, the ZDH cites 125,000 pending business successions over the next five years, although this is based on a special survey from 2020. How strongly the wave affects the Mittelstand is shown in the succession statistics for the DACH region (in German), and why private equity fills the gap in the analysis of succession in the Mittelstand (in German).

This page covers building services and fire safety as a trade, meaning design, installation, maintenance and inspection. The management of buildings and operator responsibility are covered under Facility Management, and technical services for industrial plants under Industrial Services.

Who is buying right now

The buyer landscape in the building services trade is no longer at an early stage. These are the main publicly documented names:

• Builtech Group (AUCTUS Capital Partners platform, part of VDK Groep since November 2025): The best documented building services roll-up in the DACH region. AUCTUS started in 2018 with a single Berlin trade business and acquired around 50 add-ons by 2025: more than 50 companies, more than 2,000 employees and more than €500m in total output at exit, from electrical and building automation through plumbing and heating to the building envelope (AUCTUS Capital Partners, auctus.com, 2025).
• VDK Groep (Netherlands): Acquired Builtech, announced on 27.11.2025. Combined, that is more than 150 companies, more than 7,000 employees and around €2bn in revenue in six countries. VDK states that it grows organically and through targeted acquisitions while preserving the identity of the businesses (VDK Groep, 27.11.2025).
• Elevion Group (ČEZ Group): Active buyer of mechanical and electrical building services. The group includes D-I-E Elektro AG and En.plus, among others. Most recent transactions: Techem Solutions, signed on 05.06.2026, and BTS Biogas on 13.07.2026 (ČEZ investor releases, cez.cz; Elevion newsroom).
• Caverion Deutschland: Steadily acquires small to medium-sized specialist businesses, exactly the size profile of the lower mid-market. S&A Schaltanlagenbau, Garbsen, 45 employees, as of 31.03.2026; Kees Klima- und Kältetechnik, Ronnenberg, around 40 employees, as of 31.05.2026. Caverion Deutschland generated around €416m in revenue in 2025 with about 2,000 employees (Caverion Deutschland, 27.02.2026).
• Apleona (owned by Bain Capital since 2025): Adjacent buyer for building services businesses. Bain Capital acquired Apleona from PAI Partners, announced on 14.02.2025 (Bain Capital, 14.02.2025). Apleona tops the Lünendonk 2026 list of facility service companies with around €3.2bn in revenue (Lünendonk, 2026).
• SPIE Germany Switzerland Austria: Second on the same Lünendonk list with just under €2.9bn in revenue, with growth explicitly driven by acquisitions as well (Lünendonk, 2026). SPIE tends to buy a small trade business indirectly, because its acquisitions usually happen one level above.
• Minimax Viking (ICG-backed): One of the large fire safety groups in the German market. ICG has held a clear majority since 2018 and moved the investment into a continuation structure in April 2025 (ICG Enterprise Trust, April 2025). Fire safety is therefore already being consolidated with PE money.
• Triton with KEENFINITY Group: Bosch sold its product business for security and communication technology, with around 4,300 employees, to Triton, closing on 30.06.2025 (Bosch Media Service; SecurityInfoWatch). This is the manufacturer and product level, not an installer, but it shows how deep PE penetration goes.

On top of this come regional strategics that broaden out around one trade, and family offices that see the sector as a long-term hold because of the recurring maintenance revenue. Which buyer type suits you depends on size, how you want to exit and your role in day-to-day operations. The differences are set out in the comparison PE investor vs. strategic buyer, and the market situation in 2026 in the DACH M&A trends (in German).

EBITDA multiples in the sector

The DUB KMU-Multiples have no separate row for building services. The two closest references are skilled trades & construction (micro cap 3.7-5.1x, small cap 4.4-5.8x, mid cap 5.6-6.8x EBITDA) and electrical engineering & automation (micro cap 4.2-6.0x, small cap 5.7-7.6x, mid cap 6.9-8.5x EBITDA), each based on DUB KMU-Multiples Q3/2026, analysis SourcingClub. The range in which building services businesses trade sits between these rows. For an owner-managed single business, the micro and small cap bands apply, together 3.7 to 7.6x. The size classes are based on revenue: micro cap below €5m, small cap €5m to €50m, mid cap above that.

Data basis: DUB KMU-Multiples (dub.de/kmu-multiples), Q3/2026, sectors skilled trades & construction and electrical engineering & automation, as there is no separate DUB row for building services; subsegment classification and analysis: SourcingClub. The EBITDA bands smooth out quarterly swings and are therefore not identical to the raw DUB values in every segment (methodology, in German). The first five rows stay within the micro and small cap bands; the platform row draws on the mid-cap bands of the same sectors. Full ranges by size class: EBITDA Multiples DACH.

The DUB values are the SME reference for owner-managed single businesses. What is paid above 8.5x are platform transactions with a strategic premium, and these are rarely published in the German building services market. Specialist M&A advisers report six to eight times EBIT for well-structured companies and estimate that financial investors were on the buyer side in around half of all recent building services transactions (Unternehmeredition with Walter Fries Corporate Finance, 13.07.2026). This is an estimate by market participants, not a collected statistic, and it is based on EBIT rather than EBITDA.

What raises the multiple and what lowers it

Valuation example: an electrical and SHK business with €8m revenue

A fictitious but typical example: a combined electrical and SHK business, €8.0m revenue, 45 employees, around 35 percent maintenance and service revenue, owner aged 61 and the only registered master craftsman. All business figures are assumed. The only real anchor is the multiple range based on DUB KMU-Multiples Q3/2026, analysis SourcingClub.

Step 1, starting EBITDA. €8.0m revenue at an 8.0 percent margin gives €640,000.

Step 2, normalisation. Managing director salary of €250,000 against €140,000 at market level, so plus €110,000. Private car and travel costs run through the company, plus €15,000. Rent paid for the owner's business property is €25,000 above market level, so plus €25,000. One-off legal costs from a closed construction lawsuit, plus €20,000. Total €170,000, adjusted EBITDA €810,000, which equals a 10.1 percent margin.

Step 3, multiple. As a small cap, the business sits between the two DUB reference rows: skilled trades & construction 4.4-5.8x, electrical engineering & automation 5.7-7.6x. The 35 percent maintenance share argues for the upper end of the trades row, the missing second master craftsman against the upper end of the electrical row. Applied: 5.5x.

Step 4, enterprise value. €810,000 times 5.5 gives an enterprise value of €4,455,000.

Step 5, bridge to equity value. On a cash and debt free basis: minus €600,000 bank loans, minus €350,000 lease liabilities for the vehicle fleet, plus €400,000 cash, giving €550,000 net financial debt. Working capital at a normal level. Equity value therefore around €3.9m.

Step 6, payment structure. 70 percent fixed at closing, around €2.73m. 15 percent as a vendor loan over three years, around €586,000. 15 percent earn-out over two years based on adjusted EBITDA, around €586,000, here also tied to the owner remaining available as registered operations manager for 18 months.

In this calculation, normalisation adds €170,000 of EBITDA and therefore around €935,000 of enterprise value. Half a multiple point, so 5.0x instead of 5.5x, costs around €405,000. Anyone who works on the second management layer and the maintenance share two years in advance is negotiating about exactly these amounts.

The sale process in the sector

Plan for six to twelve months from preparation to closing, more rather than less: Roland Berger reports stricter criteria and longer due diligence processes for 2026, which hit mid-market transactions in particular (23.07.2026).

The hard bottleneck in building services is the master craftsman requirement, and it is more than a detail. Electrical technicians, plumbers and heating engineers, and refrigeration engineers are licensed trades under Annex A of the German Crafts Code (HwO). Under Section 7 HwO, a business is only entered in the trades register if the operations manager meets the requirements. The decisive question in the deal is therefore: are you yourself the registered operations manager? If so, the trade licence depends on exactly the person who wants to exit, and once that person leaves, a new operations manager must be appointed without delay. A business with a second master craftsman is therefore the better sale case, not only operationally but also legally.

The structure question depends on this too. In an asset deal, the registration in the trades register does not transfer, and the buyer needs its own registration with its own operations manager. In a share deal, the legal entity and therefore the registration remain. This is one of the reasons why buyers prefer a share deal for well-established trade businesses.

What the buyer checks first is not the order backlog but the contract base: how many maintenance and service contracts, which terms, which notice periods, which price adjustment clauses, and how high the renewal rate is. Contracts with a change of control clause become a negotiation topic of their own, because they may become terminable when ownership changes. The certifications belong on the table just as early: DIN 14675 for fire alarm systems, VdS approval as an installer, WHG specialist business, F-gas expertise and registration in the grid operator's installer directory. Many of these are tied to named people, not to the company.

Two further points come up regularly. Warranty and defect liability last longer and cost more than in most service sectors, so buyers check open cases, provisions and the rework history; this leads to warranties and a retention in the purchase agreement. And the business property usually stays with the owner and is tied in through a lease; if the rent is above or below market level, this has to be corrected in the EBITDA normalisation.

Typical deal structures

The following ranges are typical market orders of magnitude for the DACH lower mid-market, not a collected statistic (analysis: SourcingClub). The quoted shares come from the source named.

Purchase price mechanics. The usual basis is cash and debt free: financial debt is deducted from the enterprise value, cash is added, and working capital is reconciled against a normal level. The working capital definition in particular is prone to disputes in building services, because work in progress and advance payments fluctuate strongly.

Fixed purchase price at closing. In the lower mid-market typically 60 to 80 percent. The stronger the second management layer and the higher the maintenance share, the further up this range.

Earn-out. 10 to 25 percent of the purchase price over one to three years, linked to EBITDA or revenue. 43 percent of the PE firms surveyed use earn-outs in more than half of their transactions (Rödl & Partner, Private Equity Study 2026). In building services, the earn-out is often also tied to you staying on board as registered operations manager.

Vendor loan. 10 to 20 percent of the purchase price, term of two to five years, often subordinated to the acquisition financing. It is gaining importance because banks are cautious about financing trade businesses and 70 percent of PE firms name price expectations as the biggest obstacle (Rödl & Partner, Private Equity Study 2026).

Warranty retention. 5 to 15 percent for 12 to 24 months, in building services mainly to cover warranty risks from completed projects.

Reinvestment. 5 to 25 percent in the platform rather than in your own business, the classic way to share in the second value increase. The share of PE firms that only seek majority stakes fell from 77 percent in 2025 to 54 percent in 2026 (Rödl & Partner, Private Equity Study 2026).

Platform or add-on. Platform candidates typically have €15m to €60m in revenue with a multi-trade set-up and their own management layer, add-ons €1m to €10m with a clear regional or technical position. The valuation difference is real, but it stays within the DUB range from micro cap to mid cap.

For PE investors: the buy-and-build thesis in brief

The sector delivers the classic ingredients of a buy-and-build thesis (in German) with rare clarity: around 49,113 electrical trade businesses and around 48,000 SHK businesses with an average of eight to nine employees (ZVEH and ZVSHK, 2026), legally required inspection and maintenance cycles as recurring revenue, and a demographic wave of sellers with more than 2 million owners aged 55 and over (KfW Research No. 526, 09.01.2026). The skills shortage acts as a consolidation driver, because larger groups can offer recruiting, training and career paths better than the single business.

Two consolidation patterns dominate. Trade extension, where an electrical business acquires an SHK or refrigeration business to offer design and execution from one source. And regional densification of several businesses in the same trade in neighbouring catchment areas. Builtech shows both in one case, and according to AUCTUS the businesses were approached through targeted direct outreach and personal visits.

The market environment has become tighter. In DACH, 557 PE transactions with a volume of €88.3bn were still counted in 2025 (PwC Private Equity Trend Report 2026). In H1 2026 there were 204, around 15 percent fewer than a year earlier (Roland Berger, 23.07.2026). 62 percent of firms plan only one or two new investments for 2026, and 46 percent cite the limited availability of suitable target companies as an obstacle (Rödl & Partner, Private Equity Study 2026). So the bottleneck is not capital but qualified targets that are reached before the competitor gets there. How this groundwork works is set out under What is deal origination and For Investors.

From my sourcing work

When I look at businesses in this sector, the same question almost always decides price and willingness to talk: what keeps running if the owner is no longer there tomorrow? In building services, this question is asked twice, once operationally through estimating and site management, and once legally through the registration in the trades register. I also see that many owners underestimate their own maintenance base, because in daily work it stays invisible next to the project business, while for a buyer it is the predictable part of the result. And I see that conversations almost never fail on price, but on a lack of preparation: figures that have not yet been adjusted, certificates tied to one person, a business property whose arrangement is still open. These things can be sorted out two to three years before a sale, not afterwards.

If you are thinking about handing over your business, whether in two years or only in five, an early, non-binding look at value and the buyer landscape is worth it. From the first assessment to a confidential buyer match, the support is discreet and without time pressure.