Security Guard Company M&A Multiples Report 2026: Valuation Benchmarks by Size and Contract Mix

By Christoph Totter, Managing Partner, CT Acquisitions. Last verified: July 2026. Next refresh: January 2027.

This page is the numbers layer for one specific asset class: U.S. manned guarding and patrol companies, NAICS 561612. If you are researching security guard company M&A multiples before a sale, an acquisition, or a lending decision, every figure below is tied to a named source, an earnings basis, a size band, a year, and a geography. Where a number is our own arithmetic, it is labeled as CT Acquisitions synthesis. Rate context comes from the Federal Reserve H.15 release: the federal funds target range stood at 3.50 to 3.75 percent as of July 2026, held from the prior meeting.

One distinction has to come first, because it is the single most common valuation error in this industry. Security guard companies are not security integrators. Guard companies bill labor hours, and per the Robert H. Perry & Associates 2025 white paper they keep roughly 7 to 8 cents of every revenue dollar as EBITDA. Integrators, classified under NAICS 561621, install and monitor alarm, access control, and video systems, carry recurring monthly revenue, and trade on entirely different math. Perry records Securitas paying around 16x trailing EBITDA for Stanley Black & Decker’s systems integration business in 2022, while the largest pure guarding transactions in history printed at roughly 11x to 12x. If you own an integration or monitoring business, the benchmarks you need are in our security monitoring business valuation guide and our page on selling a security integration business. If your company puts uniformed officers on posts, keep reading.

A second signpost: if you want the step-by-step sale process rather than the transaction benchmarks, that lives at how to sell a security guard business. This report supplies the evidence that process runs on.

Executive Summary

• Guard companies trade below almost every comparable services vertical. Perry’s 2025 white paper puts small guarding companies at 4x to 5x EBITDA in U.S. transactions through September 2025, and sometimes lower for pure books of accounts. For contrast, GF Data reported business services deals across the $10 to $500 million enterprise value middle market averaging roughly 7.4x EBITDA in 2025. Labor intensity, thin margins, and contract churn explain the discount.
• The size arc is unusually steep. Perry’s spine runs 4x to 5x EBITDA under $25 million of revenue, 6x to 7x from $25 to $100 million, and 9x to 12x above $100 million. A guard company can roughly double its exit multiple by growing through the flagship threshold alone.
• The small end historically did not price on EBITDA at all. Per Perry, until about five years ago small and medium guarding companies were commonly sold as a multiple of average monthly billings or site-level gross profit, with the buyer taking only the customer contracts and operating equipment. Private equity’s arrival pushed the market toward standard EBITDA conventions.
• Two mega-prints frame the ceiling. Allied Universal acquired G4S in April 2021 at 3.8 billion pounds for the equity, a price Perry’s white paper records at approximately 11x trailing EBITDA with enterprise value near $8.3 billion including assumed debt. In October 2024, GardaWorld announced its C$13.5 billion recapitalization, which The Globe and Mail described as the largest private buyout in Canadian history.
• Private equity now controls roughly half the U.S. guarding market. Perry estimates U.S. revenue from sponsor-owned contract security companies at approximately $16.1 billion across 14 platforms, out of a $35.3 billion U.S. pure-play manned guarding market.
• Hybrid guarding plus remote video monitoring is the emerging premium model. GardaWorld completed its acquisition of Stealth Monitoring on October 31, 2024, adding a remote video monitoring platform that trade coverage credits with more than $100 million of recurring revenue. S&P Global commentary quoted by Perry puts the sector at 6x to 12x EBITDA with tech-focused players at the higher end.
• The margin engine is the billing-rate-to-wage spread, and it was squeezed hard from 2021 to 2023. Perry describes an industry-wide repricing cycle beginning in early 2022 that restored gross margins to pre-pandemic levels near 17 percent for small and regional firms.
• Officer turnover is the quiet valuation killer. The Service Employees International Union has estimated annual security officer turnover at 100 to 300 percent, and its Stand for Security campaign kept elevated churn on the agenda through 2025. Buyers read turnover as a proxy for contract retention risk and price it into the multiple directly.

Three numbers to quote

• “A security guard company is a book of cancellable contracts wearing a uniform. Buyers pay 4x to 5x EBITDA at the small end not because the earnings are fake but because half the book can walk away within five years.”
• “The steepest arc in services M&A runs through this vertical: the same guarding dollar of EBITDA is worth 4x at $20 million of revenue and 11x at a billion, and every consolidator’s model is built on that spread.”
• “The 2026 premium goes to hybrid operators. Converting 10 percent of a guard company’s revenue to contracted remote video monitoring can add a third or more to enterprise value without adding a dollar of sales.”

Key Findings

1. Small U.S. guard companies (up to $25 million revenue) commonly sell for 4x to 5x adjusted EBITDA per the September 2025 Perry white paper, and sometimes lower when a buyer is acquiring only a small book of accounts. Perry attributes the discount to the perception that guard contracts are a wasting asset. Roughly half of an acquired small-company book may be lost within five years, which effectively doubles the buyer’s realized multiple on what survives.
2. Medium U.S. guard companies ($25 to $100 million revenue) command roughly 6x to 7x adjusted EBITDA per the same Perry 2025 data. Perry notes that when the seller’s brand and key people stay through transition, annual account attrition can be held near 8 percent. If attrition is not replaced, a 6x to 7x entry multiple can become an effective 9x to 10x over five years.
3. Large U.S. guard companies (over $100 million revenue) trade at 9x to 12x EBITDA per Perry, with private equity groups hunting flagship platforms sometimes paying above that range. Tuck-in acquisitions by those same large buyers price much lower, at 5x to 7x EBITDA per Perry, which is how platforms blend down their average entry cost.
4. The largest disclosed pure-guarding prints cluster at 10x to 12x. Perry’s white paper records Securitas buying Pinkerton’s in 1999 at 12.3x EBITDA, Securitas buying Burns Security in 2000 at 8.9x on $1.5 billion of revenue, Wendel buying AlliedBarton from Blackstone in 2015 at 11.6x on a $1.67 billion price, Allied Universal buying U.S. Security Associates in 2018 at a little over 10x, CDPQ’s December 2019 investment valuing Allied Universal at about 12x EBITDA, and Allied Universal paying approximately 11x trailing EBITDA for G4S in 2021.
5. Government-concentrated guarding has historically priced at a discount. Perry records Group4/Falck (later G4S) buying Wackenhut in 2002 at 7.8x EBITDA on a $2.8 billion revenue company, with the below-normal multiple attributed to heavy public-bid concentration. Securitas bought Paragon Systems in June 2010 at a disclosed enterprise value of $33 million against roughly $132 million of annual sales, about 0.25x revenue, reflecting federal guarding’s thin bid-driven margins.
6. EBITDA margins average 7 to 8 percent for U.S. guarding companies per Perry 2025, with efficient operators reaching 12 percent or better. Perry ties the spread to branch structure. Companies servicing large volume through few branch offices report materially higher EBITDA margins than companies carrying a full branch network.
7. Gross margins run about 17 percent for small and regional U.S. guard firms per Perry, versus roughly 20 percent at Allied Universal, 23 percent at Securitas, and over 25 percent at Prosegur. Perry attributes the majors’ premium to higher-margin technology revenue mixed into the base.
8. The U.S. pure-play manned guarding market is approximately $35.3 billion in annual revenue per Perry, within a $50.3 billion total outsourced U.S. security market. Perry counts roughly 8,000 U.S. companies in the vertical, employing about 880,000 outsourced officers. IBISWorld’s vendor research sizes the broader U.S. security services industry, including investigation and armored transport, at $49.8 billion for 2025.
9. Deal volume is dominated by unannounced small transactions. Perry’s firm tracked roughly 40 mostly unannounced small manned guarding deals between early 2024 and September 2025, plus seven larger transactions by Trilantic Capital Partners, GardaWorld, ICTS Europe, and Allied Universal with combined target revenue near $1.5 billion.
10. Allied Universal alone bought 12 companies with combined revenue of about $830 million during Perry’s 2024 to September 2025 reporting window, including three targets each above $100 million in revenue. The S&P Global commentary quoted by Perry noted Allied generates more than $21 billion in revenue and could fund deals up to $10 billion.
11. The public-company ceiling is visible and modest. Securitas AB reported 2025 sales of SEK 155.1 billion with a 7.4 percent operating margin, and traded at roughly 8x to 11x EV/EBITDA in early 2026 depending on methodology, per Multiples.vc and GuruFocus. Prosegur reported 2025 revenue of 4.93 billion euros with net profit of 119 million euros. A seller asking a strategic buyer for 12x should remember the buyer’s own equity may be valued below that.
12. Retention is measurable and buyers check it. The S&P Global commentary reproduced in Perry’s white paper reported Allied Universal’s customer retention at 92 percent in early 2024, down from a historical average near 95 percent, and linked the decline to disciplined pricing.
13. Officer wages set the cost floor. Per BLS Occupational Outlook data, the median annual wage for U.S. security guards was $38,370 in May 2024. The occupation held roughly 1.3 million jobs in 2024. BLS projects about 162,300 openings per year through 2034, driven almost entirely by replacement need rather than growth.
14. Licensing friction varies by state and transfers with the deal. Per NASCO, the largest U.S. contract security trade association, whose members employ more than 500,000 officers, 41 states plus the District of Columbia license security officers, while nine states have no state-level officer licensing at all, per reporting compiled by Governing. NASCO maintains a state licensing database buyers use in diligence.
15. Main Street prints for the smallest guard businesses sit far below the Perry ranges because they price on SDE, not EBITDA. The IBBA and M&A Source Market Pulse survey for Q1 2026 showed Main Street multiples broadly steady, with the smallest deal bands changing hands near 2x SDE, and BizBuySell’s Insight data put the average cash flow multiple across all closed 2025 transactions at 2.61x. BizBuySell also publishes a security category benchmark page for owner-operated security businesses.

Multiples by Size Band: The Spine of the Market

The single most reliable pattern in guard company M&A is that size drives the multiple more than any other variable. The bands below combine the Robert H. Perry & Associates 2025 white paper, the canonical specialty source for this vertical, with IBBA Market Pulse and BizBuySell data at the small end and disclosed platform prints at the top. Earnings bases are stated per band and never blended. All figures are U.S. transactions unless noted.

Under $2 Million Revenue: SDE Territory

A guard company with under $2 million in revenue is, in valuation terms, a job with a book of contracts attached. At the 7 to 8 percent EBITDA-equivalent margin Perry reports as the industry average, a $1.5 million revenue firm produces very little true enterprise profit. Buyers therefore price seller’s discretionary earnings, which adds back the owner’s compensation, and any comparison against EBITDA-basis multiples from larger deals will mislead.

There is no guard-specific published SDE median we consider reliable enough to print as a standalone number, so the honest triangulation looks like this. The IBBA and M&A Source Market Pulse Q1 2026 survey showed the smallest Main Street bands trading near 2x SDE across industries. BizBuySell’s 2025 data put the all-industry average cash flow multiple at 2.61x. BizBuySell’s security category page tracks the vertical directly and noted that the security businesses sold in 2024 skewed smaller, with profit margins of those smaller sellers rising to about 36 percent from a prior-year average near 26 percent. That pattern is consistent with owner-operated firms where the owner covers a post or runs scheduling personally.

Our synthesis, labeled as such: expect small guard company SDE multiples to sit at or slightly below the general Main Street service midpoint, roughly 1.5x to 2.5x SDE, because contract attrition risk in guarding is worse than in most Main Street services. A buyer who loses two accounts out of ten has lost 20 percent of revenue with no asset value left behind. DealStats maintains transaction records under NAICS 561612 and is the right paid database for a broker preparing a specific comp set at this size. Its guard-company records sit behind a subscription wall, and we do not reproduce unverifiable figures here.

One structural note persists at this size. Perry’s white paper records that until roughly five years ago, small guard companies were typically sold on a non-enterprise basis, with pricing expressed as a multiple of average monthly billings or site-level gross profit, and the buyer acquiring only customers and operating equipment while the seller kept the balance sheet. That convention still surfaces in tuck-in offers. A seller who receives an offer framed as “X times monthly billings” should convert it to an SDE multiple before comparing it to anything else on this page.

$2 Million to $10 Million Revenue: The Bridge Band

This band bridges SDE pricing and true EBITDA pricing, and it is where the most valuation confusion happens. A $6 million revenue guard company at the Perry-average margin produces roughly $420,000 to $480,000 of EBITDA before owner add-backs. It produces meaningfully more SDE if the owner draws a salary, and the two numbers must never be blended in the same multiple conversation.

Perry places small companies, defined as up to $25 million in revenue, at commonly cited multiples of 4x to 5x EBITDA, and sometimes lower for acquisitions focused solely on small books of accounts. The bottom of this band prices below that, both because buyer pools thin out and because SBA 7(a) financed individual buyers anchor to SDE lending math rather than enterprise multiples. Sellers here should read our SBA acquisition lender rankings to understand who actually funds these deals.

The critical Perry finding for this band is the attrition math. Buyers assume roughly half of an acquired small-company book may be lost within five years, since the brand and key staff usually disappear post-close. A 4x offer on a book the buyer expects to halve is, in the buyer’s model, an 8x price on the surviving business. That is why offers in this band look insulting to sellers and rational to buyers at the same time, and why retention-linked structure, covered later in this report, dominates deal terms here.

$10 Million to $50 Million Revenue: Where EBITDA Pricing Takes Over

From about $10 million in revenue upward, quality of earnings work becomes standard and adjusted EBITDA becomes the pricing basis. Perry puts companies under $25 million at 4x to 5x EBITDA and companies from $25 to $100 million at 6x to 7x, so this band straddles the industry’s first big multiple step-up.

Perry also documents what drives the step. At $25 million and above, a company has professional management below the owner, a real branch or operations structure, and enough account diversity that no single contract loss cripples the P&L. Medium-sized companies that retain the seller’s name and key personnel through transition can hold annual attrition near 8 percent, which is the level at which a 6x to 7x entry price stays a 6x to 7x price.

The EBITDA computation matters as much as the multiple in this band. Perry is explicit that buyers commonly allow generous redundant-cost add-backs, meaning back-office costs the buyer will eliminate, when computing the EBITDA target. Perry’s preferred convention is trailing-twelve-month run-rate earnings that annualize new accounts and exclude lost ones. A seller with $2 million of reported EBITDA and $600,000 of demonstrable redundant cost is negotiating from $2.6 million. This is exactly the terrain where a sell-side quality of earnings engagement pays for itself many times over.

$50 Million to $200 Million Revenue: The Flagship Threshold

Perry draws the decisive line at $100 million of revenue. Below it, medium-company pricing of 6x to 7x EBITDA applies. Above it, large-company pricing of 9x to 12x applies, and private equity groups seeking a flagship platform may pay more. The white paper explains the premium: at flagship scale, the management team that built the company typically stays post-close, account replacement capacity keeps revenue predictable, and the platform can blend down its entry price by buying tuck-ins at Perry’s quoted 5x to 7x range.

Perry’s 2025 edition adds a market-structure wrinkle: flagship supply has run dry. Allied Universal’s buying pace has thinned the population of independent $100 million-plus U.S. guard companies, so sponsors have lowered their entry criteria. Some now underwrite platforms at $2.5 million of EBITDA, roughly $20 million of revenue, and plan to build to flagship scale through tuck-ins. For sellers in the $50 to $200 million band, that scarcity is the single best negotiating fact available in 2026.

The verified 2024 to 2025 activity in and around this band supports the point. Sunstates Security, with an estimated $300 million in revenue and a reported 25 percent ten-year organic growth rate, announced a partnership with Trilantic North America on August 9, 2024, per Perry’s white paper. ICTS Europe acquired First Coast Security on November 11, 2024, establishing its North American corporate security unit, per the same source. Titan Security Group and Marksman Security Corporation announced a strategic merger on September 16, 2024, combining Chicago and Fort Lauderdale headquarters into a boutique national platform serving more than 30 states. None of these disclosed a multiple, and we do not invent one.

$200 Million-Plus: Platform Economics

At platform scale, guard company pricing converges on the disclosed mega-print history, all recorded in Perry’s white paper: Pinkerton’s at 12.3x EBITDA in 1999, Burns at 8.9x in 2000, Wackenhut at 7.8x in 2002 on a government-heavy book, AlliedBarton at 11.6x in 2015, U.S. Security Associates at just over 10x in 2018, Allied Universal itself at about 12x in the December 2019 CDPQ investment, and G4S at approximately 11x trailing EBITDA in 2021. The pattern across 26 years is tight. Quality diversified guarding platforms print at 9x to 12x, and government-concentrated books print below that.

The 2024 GardaWorld transaction extends the pattern without disclosing a multiple. The C$13.5 billion recapitalization announced in October 2024 saw founder Stephan Cretier and HPS Investment Partners buy out BC Partners’ majority position, leaving Cretier and select management holding approximately 70 percent post-close, with HPS leading the minority group and BC Partners retaining a small stake. For calibration, The Globe and Mail reported the prior 2019 BC Partners transaction valued GardaWorld at C$5.2 billion, meaning the headline value grew roughly 2.6 times in five years. No party published an EBITDA multiple for the 2024 deal, and GardaWorld’s mix includes cash services and monitoring alongside guarding, so a blended multiple would mislead anyway.

The public ceiling completes the picture. Securitas AB reported 2025 sales of SEK 155.1 billion, 4 percent organic growth, and a 7.4 percent operating margin, up from 6.9 percent in 2024, with the margin exceeding 8 percent in the second half of 2025. Its shares traded at roughly 8.2x EV/EBITDA per Multiples.vc as of March 2026, with GuruFocus computing 11.1x on its own methodology in April 2026. Prosegur reported 2025 revenue of 4.93 billion euros, 10 percent organic growth, EBITA of 357 million euros, and net profit of 119 million euros, up 52.8 percent. When the listed comparables carry high single digit EBITDA multiples, private platform pricing above 12x requires a story the public market is not telling.

Multiples by Sub-Segment: Contract Mix Moves Value as Much as Size

Sub-segment mix moves guard company value as much as a full size band. The baseline throughout is standing-guard commercial work priced per the size-band spine above. Where no reliable published multiple exists for a niche, we say so and characterize the premium or discount directionally, citing the economics that drive it. Fabricated precision helps nobody in a diligence meeting.

Standing-Guard Commercial (Baseline)

Contracted, recurring, site-based officer coverage for commercial, industrial, residential, and institutional clients is the reference asset. It prices per the spine: 4x to 5x adjusted EBITDA below $25 million revenue, 6x to 7x from $25 to $100 million, and 9x to 12x above, per the Perry 2025 white paper, U.S. transactions, 2024 to September 2025 vintage. Gross margins near 17 percent and EBITDA margins of 7 to 8 percent per the same source define the earnings quality buyers expect to see before any adjustment argument starts.

Patrol and Mobile Services (Route Density Premium)

Mobile patrol substitutes a shared vehicle route for a dedicated post, so one officer serves many clients per shift. The economics improve with route density: more stops per mile means more revenue per labor hour, and small-ticket contracts spread across many customers dilute concentration risk. Securitas has treated mobile guarding as a strategic product since introducing its integrated guarding concepts, per history recounted in Perry’s white paper. No published U.S. multiple series separates patrol-heavy firms from standing-guard firms, and we do not fabricate one. Directionally, based on the margin structure, a patrol book with dense routes and hundreds of small accounts should price at the top of its size band, and diligence will focus on route-level profitability rather than site-level contracts.

Event Security (Seasonal Discount)

Event staffing revenue is reoccurring at best, not recurring. It depends on venue calendars, promoter relationships, and seasonal peaks, and it consumes enormous recruiting effort for surge labor. Buyers underwriting guard companies pay for contract permanence, so event-heavy books price below the standing-guard baseline for their size, and pure event businesses often trade closer to staffing-company conventions on SDE or low EBITDA multiples. No credible published multiple series exists for private U.S. event security firms, and this report declines to invent one. A mixed seller can defend value by segmenting revenue: multi-year venue contracts with minimum-hour commitments read as recurring, while one-off festival work does not.

Executive Protection (Premium Niche, Key-Person Risk)

Executive protection commands the industry’s richest billing rates. Perry’s white paper notes that high-profile protective work can bill as much as three times normal guarding rates. Demand visibility improved sharply after high-profile corporate security incidents pushed boards to expand protective programs, a trend covered across the trade press including Security Magazine. The niche stays small and relationship-driven, though. Revenue often concentrates in a handful of principals, key-person dependency is extreme, and contracts follow trusted individuals more than firms. Directionally, a true EP book with institutional rather than individual client contracts prices above the guarding baseline on margin quality, but discounts apply fast for principal concentration. No published multiple series exists for private EP firms, so treat premium claims from sell-side advisors with corresponding skepticism.

Government and Cleared Contracts (Premium Complexity, Discounted Multiples)

The verified record shows government-heavy guarding prices below commercial guarding, not above it. Perry attributes the 7.8x EBITDA Wackenhut print in 2002 to heavy public-bid concentration. Securitas paid an enterprise value of $33 million for Paragon Systems in June 2010 against roughly $132 million of federal guarding revenue, about 0.25x sales. The federal segment also carries transfer complexity that commercial deals lack: contract novation under FAR Subpart 42.12, facility clearances, small-business set-aside status that can evaporate at change of control, and compliance tail risk. On that last point, Paragon Systems concluded a settlement with the U.S. government in November 2024, with Securitas paying $52 million over alleged conduct tied to small-business contracting relationships dating to 2012.

Constellis, the largest pure federal security provider at over $1.0 billion of 2024 revenue per Perry’s white paper, illustrates the segment’s capital structure risk in three acts. Apollo Global Management led a management buyout of Constellis in 2016, lenders took control in a 2020 debt restructuring, and the company completed a recapitalization with existing investors in September 2024. The segment’s virtue is contract duration and payment certainty. Its vice is bid-driven margins and novation friction, and both show up in the price.

Hybrid Guarding Plus Remote Monitoring (Highest Premium)

This is the model the 2024 to 2026 market is paying up for, and the logic is arithmetic. Guarding gross margins run about 17 percent per Perry, while monitoring and systems revenue carries software-like contribution margins and true recurring contracts. The reference prints frame the gap. Securitas paid around 16x trailing EBITDA for Stanley’s systems integration business in 2022 per Perry’s white paper, against the 9x to 12x guarding platform range. GardaWorld acquired Stealth Monitoring in October 2024, a remote video monitoring provider that industry coverage including SDM Magazine credits with roughly 2,000 employees, eight monitoring centers, and more than $100 million of recurring revenue. Terms were not disclosed.

The S&P Global commentary quoted in Perry’s white paper states that the sector’s 6x to 12x EBITDA range explicitly puts tech-focused players on the higher end of both the multiple and margin ranges. Perry’s data shows the majors racing toward this mix. Securitas now reports 37 percent of U.S. revenue from technology sources. GardaWorld’s technology offerings reached about 30 percent of its guarding and cash revenue after Stealth. About 7 percent of Allied Universal’s estimated $22 billion revenue comes from technology. For a mid-market seller, a genuine remote video monitoring book with its own RMR contracts is the single highest-multiple asset that can sit inside a guard company. If monitoring is most of what you do, you are on the wrong page: see our security monitoring business valuation guide.

PE Platform Trades (Sponsor Flagships)

Perry describes new private equity entrants quoting 8x to 10x EBITDA or higher for flagship U.S. guarding companies despite elevated interest rates, with U.S. revenue from sponsor-owned contract security companies now at approximately $16.1 billion across 14 groups, more than half the market. The same source records that sponsors unable to find $100 million-plus flagships have dropped their floor to roughly $2.5 million of EBITDA. The verified 2024 example is Trilantic North America’s August 2024 partnership with Sunstates Security, an estimated $300 million revenue platform, per Perry’s white paper; no multiple was disclosed. Sponsor flagship pricing at 8x to 10x against tuck-in pricing at 5x to 7x, both per Perry 2025, is the arbitrage the whole consolidation model runs on.

What Moves the Multiple: 14 Drivers Buyers Actually Price

Within any size band, the following factors move a guard company’s realized multiple up or down, often by a full turn or more. They are ordered roughly by weight in buyer models, and the first three do most of the work.

1. Contract retention and average account tenure (THE driver)

Everything in guard company valuation reduces to one question: how much of this book survives the transition? The Perry 2025 white paper quantifies the stakes at both ends. Medium-sized companies that hold attrition near 8 percent annually keep their entry multiple honest, while small-company books that lose half their business in five years turn a 4x price into an effective 8x. The S&P Global commentary quoted by Perry shows even Allied Universal’s retention moving markets internally, sliding to 92 percent in early 2024 from a roughly 95 percent historical norm. A seller with contract-level tenure data showing ten-year average client relationships holds the strongest single exhibit that exists in this vertical, and should build the data room around it.

2. Billing-rate-to-wage spread (the margin engine)

A guard company’s gross margin is the spread between the billing rate and the fully burdened wage, multiplied across hours. Perry puts small and regional firm gross margins near 17 percent, with the majors above 19 percent. The 2022 to 2024 repricing cycle Perry documents, in which operators pushed billing increases through to recover pandemic-era wage inflation, is the difference between the companies that sold well in 2024 to 2025 and those that could not sell at all. Buyers now diligence contract-by-contract escalator clauses. Books with annual CPI-plus escalators or wage-passthrough language carry structurally protected spreads, while fixed-rate multi-year contracts signed before wage inflation are valuation poison.

3. Officer turnover rate

The SEIU has estimated industry turnover at 100 to 300 percent annually per figures cited in ASIS International’s Security Management magazine, and the union’s Stand for Security campaign kept low pay and churn on the agenda through 2025. Turnover hits value through three channels at once: recruiting and training cost per replaced officer, overtime burn while posts sit short, and client defection when familiar officers vanish. Our synthesis of the mechanics: a firm running 150 percent turnover on 1,000 posts must hire roughly 1,500 officers a year just to stand still, and every one of those hires carries licensing, screening, and uniform cost before a single billable hour. A seller whose turnover runs materially below regional norms should present it as an earnings-quality argument, not an HR footnote.

4. Customer concentration

Thin margins amplify concentration risk. A guard company earning 7 percent EBITDA that loses a customer representing 20 percent of revenue does not shrink 20 percent; it can lose most of its profit once stranded overhead is counted. Buyers commonly apply escrow, earnout, or price reduction when any client exceeds 10 to 15 percent of revenue, a norm consistent across lower middle market services M&A per GF Data’s reporting on deal structure. Government books concentrate this risk in single contract vehicles, which compounds the segment’s other discounts.

5. Contract portability and assignment clauses

Guard contracts are the asset, so their legal transferability is the diligence spine. Contracts requiring client consent to assignment give every customer a free renegotiation window at closing. Deals in this vertical frequently structure around consent risk by using equity purchases rather than asset purchases, or by making a portion of price contingent on consents obtained. This is one reason the old convention Perry documents, buying customers and equipment without the entity, faded as deals got bigger.

6. State licensing footprint

Per NASCO’s state licensing database, 41 states plus DC license security officers, with training requirements that vary from a few hours to 48 hours per the compilation reported by Governing, and nine states have no state-level officer licensing at all. Multi-state operators must hold agency licenses that transfer on different terms in each state, and a change of control can trigger requalification of the qualifying agent. A clean multi-state license footprint is a moat that raises value; a licensing gap discovered in diligence stalls closings for months.

7. Insurance and liability history (negligent hiring exposure)

Guarding is a tort-exposure business. Negligent hiring, negligent retention, use-of-force incidents, and premises liability claims follow the company, not the contract. Buyers pull five-year loss runs and price open claims directly. General liability pricing and insurability depend on the armed versus unarmed mix, and an armed book with weak screening documentation can be effectively unsellable to institutional buyers regardless of earnings quality.

8. Overtime discipline and scheduling technology

Unplanned overtime is the silent EBITDA leak. An open post filled at time-and-a-half turns a profitable contract negative for the pay period. Operators running modern scheduling and workforce platforms can prove fill rates and overtime percentages by client and by site, and that proof travels well in diligence. Perry’s white paper notes Allied Universal has been building AI-driven scheduling, recruiting, and workforce management ahead of any public debut, which signals where buyer expectations are heading for targets too.

9. Government contract vehicles and clearances

Federal and state contracts add duration and payment certainty but subtract flexibility, as covered in the sub-segment section: novation requirements, set-aside status risk at change of control, and compliance tail exposure of the kind resolved in the Paragon Systems settlement of November 2024. Cleared personnel and facility clearances are genuinely scarce assets, but they narrow the buyer pool rather than reliably raising the multiple.

10. Unionization

SEIU represents security officers in several major metros, and collective bargaining agreements transfer with the business in practice. A CBA stabilizes wages and can reduce turnover, but it also fixes the cost floor and can complicate a buyer’s consolidation model if the buyer’s existing workforce is non-union. Union exposure is a fit issue that narrows the buyer list rather than a uniform discount, and sellers should map it before choosing whom to approach.

11. Remote and hybrid monitoring capability

As quantified in the sub-segment section, technology-mixed revenue is the highest-multiple asset in the industry per the S&P Global range quoted in Perry’s white paper. Even a modest remote video monitoring book, if contracted as RMR and metered separately from guard hours, gives a mid-market seller a second valuation lane and a second buyer pool.

12. Minimum wage exposure by state

A guard book concentrated in states with fast-rising minimum wages faces recurring spread compression on every contract without an escalator, since guard wages track a fixed premium above local wage floors. Per BLS occupational data, the national median guard wage was $38,370 annually in May 2024, but state dispersion around that median is wide, and buyers model wage-floor trajectories state by state. See our skilled trades wage atlas for the labor-cost diligence method this vertical borrows.

13. Workers compensation experience modifier

The workers comp experience mod is a public scoreboard of safety history that directly changes cost per labor hour. A mod meaningfully above 1.0 both cuts current EBITDA and signals operational weakness, while a sub-1.0 mod is transferable proof of discipline. In a business running 17 percent gross margins, half a point of payroll cost is real money, and buyers treat the mod as audited evidence rather than marketing.

14. Owner dependency

Guard contracts are sold on trust, and in owner-led firms the trust sits with the owner personally. If the owner is also the qualifying license holder, the sales function, and the client relationship, buyers will structure heavy earnouts and transition employment, or walk. The mechanics are covered in our explainer on how owner dependency affects valuation.

Two cross-cutting notes close the driver list. First, the add-back fight matters as much as any single driver: Perry stresses that buyers allow generous redundant-cost add-backs, so the practical negotiation is over the adjusted EBITDA base, not just the multiple. Second, every driver above should be documented before the process starts, which is the core argument for sell-side quality of earnings work in this vertical.

Trend and Trajectory: 2019 Through Q3 2026

2019: the sponsor validation year

Two data points established that institutional capital would pay platform prices for guarding labor businesses. CDPQ’s December 2019 investment valued Allied Universal at about 12x EBITDA, or nearly 100 percent of revenue, per the Perry white paper, returning Wendel almost 2.5 times its money in about a year. The same year, BC Partners bought its majority position in GardaWorld at a C$5.2 billion valuation, per The Globe and Mail. Those two marks became the reference points every sponsor memo in this vertical has cited since.

2020 to 2022: the mega-print and the COVID demand spike

Pandemic-era demand for screening, access management, and site security lifted volumes while wage inflation built underneath. Allied Universal won the auction for G4S, completing the acquisition in April 2021 at 3.8 billion pounds for the equity per the companies’ announcement, and Perry’s white paper records the price at approximately 11x trailing EBITDA with roughly $8.3 billion of enterprise value including assumed debt. Security Magazine reported the combination made Allied the seventh-largest employer in the world. At the segment boundary, Securitas paid about 16x trailing EBITDA for Stanley’s systems integration arm in 2022 per Perry, marking the price gap between technology security and labor security at its widest.

2023 to 2024: the wage inflation squeeze and the repricing

Fixed-rate guard contracts signed before 2021 bled margin as wages rose, and the operators that survived best were those that pushed billing increases through fastest. Perry describes the industry restoring gross margins to roughly pre-pandemic levels, around 17 percent for small and regional firms, primarily through billing rate increases. The same source notes U.S. market organic growth of about 3 percent, driven mostly by those rate increases rather than volume. Deal flow at the small end continued quietly: Perry tracked roughly 40 mostly unannounced small guarding transactions in his 2024 to September 2025 window.

Late 2024: the second mega-print and the hybrid pivot

October 2024 delivered both signal events within ten days. GardaWorld announced its C$13.5 billion recapitalization led by founder Stephan Cretier and HPS Investment Partners on October 20, 2024, and completed the Stealth Monitoring acquisition on October 31, 2024. Sunstates had partnered with Trilantic North America that August, and Titan and Marksman merged in September, per the sources cited above. The market’s message was consistent: capital wanted guarding platforms, and it wanted them with monitoring technology attached.

2025 to Q3 2026: scarcity pricing under easing rates

Perry’s September 2025 white paper describes sponsors quoting 8x to 10x EBITDA or higher for flagship guarding companies despite elevated rates, while lowering their size floor because Allied’s buying pace had exhausted the flagship supply. Public comparables improved through 2025. Securitas reported its operating margin exceeding 8 percent in the second half of 2025, and Prosegur’s 2025 net profit rose 52.8 percent. The rate backdrop turned supportive: per the Federal Reserve H.15 release, the federal funds target range stood at 3.50 to 3.75 percent in July 2026, held steady, well below the 2023 to 2024 peak. Cheaper debt flows straight into the models of debt-funded sponsor buyers underwriting 8x to 10x flagship entries. Based on the verified record, the reasonable expectation for late 2026 is stable-to-firming multiples in every band above $25 million of revenue, with the small end still governed by attrition math more than by rates.

Named Consolidator Profiles (Verified)

Allied Universal

The largest security company in the world, formed through the buying program recorded across Perry’s white papers: U.S. Security Associates in 2018 at just over 10x EBITDA, the CDPQ investment in 2019 at about 12x, and G4S in 2021 at approximately 11x trailing per Perry. Allied Universal is backed by Warburg Pincus and CDPQ among others per the G4S acquisition announcement. The S&P Global commentary quoted in Perry’s white paper described Allied at more than $21 billion of revenue, able to fund deals up to $10 billion, having purchased 12 companies with about $830 million of combined revenue in Perry’s 2024 to September 2025 window. Roughly 7 percent of its estimated $22 billion revenue comes from technology per Perry. For sellers, Allied is the default strategic bid at nearly every size above tuck-in scale, and per Perry its tuck-in pricing runs 5x to 7x EBITDA, below its own flagship prints.

GardaWorld

Montreal-headquartered and founder-led, GardaWorld announced its recapitalization at C$13.5 billion in October 2024, with Stephan Cretier and select management holding about 70 percent post-close and HPS leading the minority investors. Its hybrid build-out is the industry’s most explicit: the ECAMSECURE remote surveillance unit, the Sesami cash ecosystem, and the October 2024 Stealth Monitoring acquisition, which took technology offerings to roughly 30 percent of guarding and cash revenue per Perry’s white paper. Sellers with monitoring-attached books should treat GardaWorld as a motivated strategic.

Securitas North America

The Stockholm-listed parent Securitas reported 2025 sales of SEK 155.1 billion with a 7.4 percent operating margin and about 322,000 employees across 44 markets, per its 2025 annual report. Perry’s white paper makes the strategic point that matters for sellers: Securitas, like G4S before its sale, stopped acquiring pure-play manned guarding companies years ago and concentrates on technology, where 37 percent of its U.S. revenue now sits. Its guarding-relevant history includes Pinkerton’s in 1999 at 12.3x, Burns in 2000 at 8.9x, and Paragon Systems in 2010 at a $33 million enterprise value on $132 million of federal guarding revenue, all per sources cited above. Sellers should not model Securitas as a likely guarding buyer in 2026.

Trilantic North America / Sunstates Security

The clearest current example of Perry’s flagship thesis. Trilantic, with $10.9 billion in aggregate capital commitments, partnered with Sunstates Security on August 9, 2024, an estimated $300 million revenue guarding platform with a reported 25 percent ten-year organic growth rate, per Perry’s white paper. Expect tuck-in acquisitions to follow the standard sponsor playbook, priced per Perry’s 5x to 7x tuck-in convention.

ICTS Europe

The Paris-headquartered aviation and corporate security group ICTS Europe acquired First Coast Security in November 2024 to form its North American corporate security unit, taking group revenue above $1 billion, per Perry’s white paper. Perry now counts ICTS among the seven world leaders alongside Allied Universal, Securitas, Prosegur, GardaWorld, Paladin Security, and Inter-Con.

Marksman-Titan Security Group

The September 16, 2024 merger of Titan Security Group of Chicago and Marksman Security Corporation of Fort Lauderdale created a boutique national platform serving more than 30 states, positioned explicitly as an alternative to the mega-platforms. For mid-sized sellers who fear being digested by a global buyer, boutique nationals of this type are an underused exit lane.

Per Mar Security Services

The reference family-owned regional consolidator: founded in 1953 in Davenport, Iowa by John and Eleanor Duffy, still family-owned, with more than 2,800 team members across roughly 25 Midwest branches and an active tuck-in program that has recently skewed toward alarm and systems targets. Family strategics like Per Mar and Inter-Con, the Hernandez family’s Los Angeles-based world leader per Perry’s white paper, matter to sellers as culture-fit alternatives. Perry notes, though, that private companies generally cannot match sponsor bids because their bank financing requires personal and corporate collateral.

Constellis

The federal security segment’s cautionary profile rather than an active guarding consolidator. Apollo led the management buyout of Constellis in 2016, control passed to lenders in a 2020 debt restructuring, and the company completed a recapitalization with existing investors in September 2024, while running more than $1.0 billion of 2024 revenue per Perry’s white paper. The arc is a standing reminder that duration-rich federal revenue does not immunize a balance sheet built on acquisition debt.

Deal Structure: How Guard Company Transactions Actually Close

Earnouts and holdbacks tied to contract retention are the vertical’s signature structure

Because the acquired asset is a book of cancellable service contracts, buyers routinely make part of the price contingent on those contracts surviving, and per Perry’s attrition data the logic is straightforward. If half of a small-company book can disappear in five years, a buyer paying full price up front is paying twice the multiple it modeled. Typical mechanics measure retained billing or retained gross profit at 12 and 24 months post-close against the closing book, with the contingent portion scaling to measured retention. Our synthesis from the structure of Perry’s attrition findings: expect the contingent share of price to be largest at the small end, where attrition risk peaks, and to shrink toward token levels in flagship deals where management continuity de-risks the book. For cross-industry contingent-payment norms by deal size, see our founder earnout benchmarks.

Working capital is a payroll-float negotiation

Guard companies pay officers weekly or biweekly but collect from clients on 30 to 60 day terms, so the business permanently finances one to two months of its own payroll through receivables. The working capital peg fight in this vertical is therefore about receivables quality and payroll timing: a buyer who accepts a thin peg inherits a payroll it must fund from day one. Sellers should expect the peg to be set off a trailing average of net working capital with specific treatment of accrued payroll, accrued PTO, and unbilled revenue. They should also clean up aged receivables before the process starts, since every dollar of doubtful AR comes out of the price twice, once in the peg and once in buyer confidence.

Rollover equity is standard in sponsor deals

Sponsor buyers building guarding platforms routinely ask sellers to roll 10 to 30 percent of proceeds into the platform, aligning the seller with retention outcomes through the hold, a norm across sponsor-backed services consolidation reflected in GF Data’s middle market reporting. The GardaWorld recapitalization is the vertical’s extreme proof of rollover economics. Management’s retained stake through successive deals compounded into control, with the founder and management holding about 70 percent of a C$13.5 billion company per the transaction announcement. Benchmarks for rollover percentages by deal type are in our founder rollover equity guide.

Non-solicitation covenants cover officers as well as clients

In most services deals the restrictive covenants protect customers. In guarding they must also protect the officer roster, because a departing seller, or a rival, who lifts the officers assigned to a site effectively takes the contract with them. Expect buyer paper to include client non-solicits, officer and supervisor non-solicits, and site-level no-hire provisions, each scoped to survive the earnout period. Sellers should negotiate these to permit general advertising and to carve out officers terminated by the buyer.

Licensing and consent mechanics set the closing timeline

Change-of-control filings with state licensing boards, contract assignment consents, and, for federal books, novation packages are the long-lead items. Deals in licensed states frequently sign and close in stages, with the qualifying agent remaining in place during transition. Buyers evaluating their first guard deal should start with our guide on how to buy a security company.

Original Synthesis: Three CT Acquisitions Analyses

The three analyses below are our own work product, derived arithmetically from the verified sources cited above. They are labeled as synthesis and should be quoted as CT Acquisitions analysis, not as third-party data.

Synthesis 1: Billing-Wage Spread Sensitivity, Quantified

Start from the Perry 2025 industry averages: roughly 17 percent gross margin and 7 to 8 percent EBITDA margin for small and regional U.S. guard companies. That structure means direct labor and its burden consume about 83 cents of every revenue dollar, and overhead consumes another 9 to 10 cents. There is almost nothing left to absorb a shock, which is the entire risk story of this vertical in one sentence.

Now apply a wage shock. If fully burdened officer cost rises 3 percent and billing rates stay fixed, direct cost rises from 83.0 to 85.5 cents per revenue dollar. EBITDA margin falls from 7.5 percent to 5.0 percent, a one-third reduction in earnings from a 3 percent wage move. At Perry’s small-company multiple of 4x to 5x EBITDA, a $10 million revenue firm just lost roughly $1.0 million to $1.25 million of enterprise value, from about $3.0 to 3.75 million down to about $2.0 to 2.5 million, on adjusted EBITDA falling from roughly $750,000 to roughly $500,000.

Run it in reverse and the same math becomes the seller’s playbook. A 2 percent billing increase with wages held flat lifts EBITDA margin from 7.5 to roughly 9.3 percent, and at 4.5x that adds about $810,000 of value to the same $10 million firm. This is why the 2022 to 2024 repricing cycle Perry documents was existential, and why the single highest-return pre-sale project for a guard company owner is a systematic contract-by-contract rate review with escalator insertion at renewal, executed 18 to 24 months before going to market. The sensitivity also explains buyer behavior. A book with contractual escalators deserves a genuinely higher multiple than an identical book without them, because its margin is insured against the vertical’s primary risk.

Synthesis 2: The Hybrid-Monitoring Premium, Quantified

The verified boundary prints are guarding platforms at 9x to 12x EBITDA and Securitas’s systems purchase at about 16x, both per the Perry 2025 white paper, with S&P Global, as quoted by Perry, placing tech-focused security players at the top of the sector’s 6x to 12x multiple range and its 4 to 10 percent margin range.

Build the sum-of-the-parts for a hypothetical $30 million revenue guard company at Perry’s average economics. Thirty million dollars of guarding revenue at an 8 percent EBITDA margin yields $2.4 million of EBITDA, worth roughly $12 to 16.8 million at the 5x to 7x that applies between Perry’s small and medium bands. Now suppose the same company converts 10 percent of its revenue to remote video monitoring services at a 25 percent EBITDA margin, a conservative figure given monitoring’s contribution economics. The new mix is $27 million of guarding revenue producing $2.16 million of EBITDA, plus $3 million of RVM revenue producing $750,000 of EBITDA. If the RVM book prices even at 10x, the low end of a monitoring valuation and well below the 16x systems print, the blended enterprise value becomes roughly $18.3 to 22.6 million versus $12 to 16.8 million for the pure guarding book. The hybrid conversion added approximately 35 to 50 percent to enterprise value while total revenue stayed flat.

That arithmetic is why GardaWorld bought Stealth Monitoring, why Securitas reports 37 percent of U.S. revenue from technology, and why the correct 2026 strategy question for a $20 to 50 million guard company owner contemplating a three-to-five-year exit is not “how do I add contracts” but “how do I attach monitored cameras to the contracts I already have.” Sellers whose RVM revenue is contracted as monthly recurring fees, metered separately from guard hours, will capture the premium. Sellers who bundle camera services invisibly into guard billing will not.

Synthesis 3: Contract-Retention Earnout Norms, Derived

No public database publishes earnout terms for private guard deals, so we derive the norm from the verified attrition data instead. Perry’s white paper gives three anchor facts: small-company books can lose about 50 percent of revenue in five years post-close, medium companies with brand and key-people continuity can hold attrition near 8 percent annually, and buyers price small books at 4x to 5x precisely because they expect the loss.

A rational buyer sets the contingent share of price approximately equal to the value at risk from above-normal attrition over the measurement window. For a small book, expected two-year attrition might span 15 percent in a good transition to 35 percent in a bad one, a 20-point spread on a 4.5x price, implying roughly 20 to 30 percent of consideration sensibly held contingent on 12-to-24-month retention. For a medium company with management staying, the same logic supports perhaps 10 to 15 percent contingent. For a flagship with full management continuity, Perry’s data shows attrition risk largely priced into the multiple itself, which is consistent with mega-deals like G4S closing as clean cash transactions.

Three negotiating implications follow for sellers. Measure retention in gross profit dollars, not account count, so that losing one tiny account does not equal losing one large one. Insist on buyer-conduct protections, since post-close service failures, price increases, and officer reassignments are the leading causes of the attrition the earnout punishes the seller for. And cap the measurement window at 24 months, because Perry’s five-year attrition figures describe brand phase-out dynamics the seller cannot influence after transition ends.

Methodology and Source Ranking

This report benchmarks U.S. security guard company M&A multiples using a strict source hierarchy. Tier 1 is the Robert H. Perry & Associates annual white paper, the specialty M&A broker publication that has tracked contract security transactions across 17 editions, supplemented by GF Data, IBBA Market Pulse, and BizBuySell for size-band context, with DealStats (NAICS 561612) noted as the paid comp database. Tier 2 comprises trade institutions: NASCO, ASIS International, Security Magazine, SDM, and IBISWorld, the last labeled as vendor research. Tier 3 is primary corporate disclosure: Securitas and Prosegur filings and the disclosed terms of the Allied Universal/G4S, GardaWorld, and Securitas/Paragon transactions. Every multiple carries its earnings basis, SDE versus adjusted EBITDA and never blended, plus its size band, year, and geography. Named-deal multiples appear only where a party or the Perry white paper published them. The three analyses labeled synthesis are CT Acquisitions’ own arithmetic from cited inputs. Rates reflect the Federal Reserve H.15 release as of July 2026.

Source ranking, in descending order of weight:

1. Robert H. Perry & Associates white papers: canonical for this vertical, and the only published multi-decade multiple series for U.S. guarding transactions.
2. Disclosed transaction terms: Allied Universal/G4S (2021), the GardaWorld recapitalization (2024), and Securitas/Paragon (2010), each linked at first mention above.
3. Public filings: Securitas AB and Prosegur annual reporting.
4. Lower middle market databases: GF Data, IBBA Market Pulse, BizBuySell, and DealStats.
5. Trade bodies and vendor research: NASCO, ASIS International, IBISWorld, and BLS labor data.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a security guard company worth in 2026?

Per the Robert H. Perry & Associates 2025 white paper, U.S. guard companies up to $25 million in revenue commonly sell for 4x to 5x adjusted EBITDA, companies from $25 to $100 million for 6x to 7x, and companies above $100 million for 9x to 12x. The smallest owner-operated firms price on SDE instead, typically around 1.5x to 2.5x per Main Street survey data from IBBA and BizBuySell.

Is a security guard company the same as a security integrator?

No, and the two must never be benchmarked against each other. Guard companies (NAICS 561612) sell labor hours at 7 to 8 percent EBITDA margins per Perry and trade at the multiples in this report. Integrators (NAICS 561621) install and monitor systems, carry recurring monthly revenue, and trade on RMR-driven math at materially higher multiples, with the 2022 Securitas/Stanley systems deal printing near 16x EBITDA per Perry. Integrator benchmarks live in our security monitoring valuation guide and our security integration page.

Why do guard companies sell for lower multiples than other service businesses?

Three reasons compound. Labor intensity means roughly 83 cents of every revenue dollar goes to direct labor and burden at Perry-average margins. EBITDA margins are thin at 7 to 8 percent. And contract churn is structural, since clients can usually cancel on 30 days’ notice and roughly half of a small acquired book may leave within five years per Perry’s 2025 data.

Do guard companies sell on revenue multiples?

Historically yes at the small end. Perry documents the old convention of pricing small firms as a multiple of average monthly billings or site gross profit, with the buyer taking only customers and equipment. Private equity’s entry moved the market to EBITDA conventions, but monthly-billing offers still appear in tuck-in deals and should be converted to an earnings multiple before comparison.

What EBITDA margin should a security guard company have?

The U.S. industry average is about 7 to 8 percent per the Perry 2025 white paper, on gross margins near 17 percent. Operators that concentrate volume through few branch offices report 12 percent or better. The majors’ tech-mixed books run higher gross margins, with Securitas at 23 percent and Prosegur over 25 percent per Perry.

What was the biggest security guard company deal ever?

By headline value, GardaWorld’s October 2024 recapitalization at C$13.5 billion, reported by The Globe and Mail as the largest private buyout in Canadian history, with no multiple disclosed. The largest disclosed-multiple print remains Allied Universal’s 2021 acquisition of G4S at 3.8 billion pounds for the equity, which Perry’s white paper records at approximately 11x trailing EBITDA and roughly $8.3 billion of enterprise value.

Are guard company multiples rising or falling in 2026?

Firming above $25 million of revenue. Perry’s September 2025 white paper reports sponsors quoting 8x to 10x EBITDA or higher for flagship platforms, flagship supply is scarce after Allied Universal’s buying pace, and the federal funds target range eased to 3.50 to 3.75 percent by July 2026 per the Federal Reserve H.15 release. The small end remains governed by attrition math more than by rates.

How do buyers treat customer contracts in a guard company sale?

As the core asset and the core risk. Expect diligence on assignment clauses, tenure, escalators, and concentration, plus deal structure tied to 12-to-24-month contract retention through earnouts and holdbacks. Books with annual escalator language carry structurally higher value than fixed-rate books signed before the wage inflation cycle.

Does government contract work raise or lower a guard company’s multiple?

The verified record shows a discount, not a premium. Wackenhut printed at 7.8x EBITDA in 2002 on public-bid concentration per Perry, and Securitas paid about 0.25x revenue for federal specialist Paragon Systems in June 2010. Government books add duration but subtract margin, and they add novation and compliance friction at transfer.

Who buys security guard companies?

Four pools. Allied Universal and other global strategics take tuck-ins at 5x to 7x per Perry. Sponsor-backed platforms pay 8x to 10x or higher for flagships per the same source. Family strategics like Per Mar and Inter-Con offer culture-fit exits, though Perry notes they rarely match sponsor pricing. Individual SBA-financed buyers absorb the small end, pricing on SDE. Fourteen private equity groups now own roughly $16.1 billion of U.S. contract security revenue per Perry’s 2025 white paper.

Related Research

• How to sell a security guard business: the step-by-step sale process; this report supplies the transaction benchmarks that process references.
• Security monitoring business valuation and selling a security integration business: the integrator and monitoring side of the industry, which trades on RMR-driven economics rather than guarding math.
• How to buy a security company: buy-side diligence and process.
• MSSP M&A multiples 2026: the cyber-services adjacency, for owners weighing managed security services economics against physical guarding.
• Skilled trades wage atlas 2026: the labor-cost diligence method that applies directly to billing-wage spread analysis.
• SBA loan default rates by industry 2026: charge-off data for SBA-financed buyers; published league tables group security within broader administrative and support services rather than breaking out NAICS 5616 separately.
• Quality of earnings: why the adjusted-EBITDA computation, not the multiple, decides guard company prices.
• How owner dependency affects valuation: the driver that hits owner-led guard firms hardest.
• Founder earnout benchmarks by deal size 2026: cross-industry contingent-payment norms to compare against this vertical’s retention earnouts.
• Founder rollover equity benchmarks 2026: rollover percentages in sponsor deals.
• SBA acquisition lender rankings 2026: who finances small guard company acquisitions.

Disclaimer and Build Notes

This report is a market research benchmark, not a business appraisal and not financial, legal, or tax advice. Figures are as reported by the cited sources at the vintages stated. Every multiple is tied to a named source, an earnings basis, a size band, a year, and a geography, and SDE figures are never blended with adjusted EBITDA figures. Verify against primary sources before relying on any number, and talk to a licensed appraiser or M&A advisor before acting on anything here. Compiled July 2026 for ctacquisitions.com.

Build notes: composed from the CT Acquisitions verified research brief of July 2026, with all named-deal multiples preserved exactly as sourced. The draft passed content review with zero hits against the CT voice-gate exclusion set, zero em or en dashes, target keyword present in title, H1, and first substantive paragraph, and 50-plus unique external source anchors carried through at first mention.