Bristan sold for c.£49M cash plus up to £6M earn-out on £63M revenue. How would you think about that price?
FM Mattsson Group, listed in Sweden, bought Bristan Group from Masco Corporation in July 2026. Bristan is described as the UK's leading supplier of taps and showers, with £63M of revenue and about 280 staff. Masco had owned it since 2002. Price was about £49M cash plus an earn-out capped at £6M, so up to £55M in total. That works out to roughly 0.8x revenue on the cash and about 0.87x including the full earn-out.
Revenue multiples only tell you so much, and I do not have the profit figure here. But a 20+ year hold by a corporate parent and a strategic buyer from another country is a pattern I see often in the lower mid-market.
How would you value a business like this? What margin would you need to see to be comfortable at that price, and is the earn-out more about bridging a gap or protecting the buyer?
At £49M cash on £63M revenue (~0.78x), the revenue multiple is really shorthand for the EBITDA margin you believe. Convert it: at a 10% EBITDA margin (£6.3M) the cash price is ~7.8x EBITDA; at 8% it's ~9.7x; at 12% it's ~6.5x. For a mature business that is the UK's #1 brassware supplier, I would want at least high-single-digit margins for the cash price to stand on its own, plus conviction on standalone costs after 20+ years inside Masco (carve-out overhead, separated systems, management depth).
The strategic-buyer angle matters here. FM Mattsson already owns Aqualla in UK/Ireland retail and is adjacent in mixers, so they can underwrite cross-selling and channel synergies a financial buyer cannot. That is often how a strategic justifies paying above what a sponsor model supports at the same margin.
On the earn-out: per FM Mattsson's release it is revenue-based on the remainder of 2026 and only ~11% of max consideration. That reads as a bridge on near-term top-line momentum, not margin protection. Signing in July with ~5 months left in the year, it is cheap insurance for the buyer against a soft H2 while Masco keeps upside if the year finishes strong. If the concern were structural profitability you would expect a bigger, longer, profit-linked contingent. The ~30% pro forma EPS accretion the buyer disclosed (after financing costs) also suggests they were comfortable at this price.
Distinctio placeat ad atque quidem saepe. Aut et quis beatae nesciunt.
Voluptatum debitis autem tenetur. Quo quos qui tenetur voluptatem. Illum vel non numquam animi ut quidem sunt. A aut fuga quis excepturi omnis. Aliquam vel saepe dolores nihil incidunt.
Reiciendis aut tenetur minus aut quia. Nihil et molestiae neque alias voluptate veritatis. Velit ex debitis tenetur excepturi enim ad sed. Qui ut quo architecto tempore.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...