Why Private Equity Is Paying Record Multiples for Fire and Security Businesses

Why Private Equity Is Paying Record Multiples for Fire and Security Businesses

James Dixey — Founder and Managing Director    ·    7 min read    ·    James Dixey Limited

The headline numbers being paid for UK fire and security businesses look high compared with most service sectors. They are. There are good structural reasons for that — and they tell the owner-manager something useful about what to do between now and a sale.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

•  PE-backed buy-and-build platforms drove around 70% of UK fire and security M&A in 2025 (Grant Thornton), against 46% across the wider facilities services market. The capital is concentrated and the demand is structural, not cyclical.

•  Median fire and security multiples have trended to roughly 9x EV/EBITDA (Wilson Partners). Sector-median sits in the 4–8x range; the premium segment — businesses above 60% recurring revenue, current accreditation, and £500k+ EBITDA — routinely clears 8–10x, with 11x reached in exceptional auction outcomes.

•  The arithmetic of what a buyer pays is driven by three variables: the proportion of revenue that is contracted maintenance rather than installation; the accreditation stack (BAFE, NSI, SSAIB and the relevant SP-schemes); and the strength of the second-tier management team.

•  Owners 18–24 months from a sale can move materially up the multiple curve by growing the recurring book, cleaning the accreditation file, and reducing founder dependence. The same business at 9x today is genuinely an 11x business in two years' time, in a number of cases.

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Where the multiples actually are

Let me start with the numbers, because the rest of the piece only makes sense once they are clear. The most recent sector commentary places the median UK fire and security transaction at around 9x EV/EBITDA, with listed comparable companies trading meaningfully below that — closer to 7x — and the best private deals reaching the low double digits. That is materially higher than the median UK service-business multiple, which still sits in the 5–7x range in most sectors.

The right way to read these numbers is by segment, not as a single line. Sector-median fire and security businesses — typical owner-managed operations with mixed installation and maintenance revenue, decent but not exceptional accreditation, and EBITDA below £500k — clear 4–8x. The premium segment — businesses with above-60% recurring revenue, a current accreditation stack, and £500k+ EBITDA — routinely trades at 8–10x. The headline 11x outcomes are reserved for businesses that are not just good but rare: passive fire specialists with FIRAS accreditation, security businesses with NSI Gold on long-dated public-sector framework contracts, hybrid F&S platforms with a credible second-tier management team and a clear acquisition pipeline of their own. Those are not most owner-managed businesses, but they exist, and the gap between an 8x outcome and an 11x outcome on a £1m EBITDA business is £3m of equity value.

The gap between an 8x outcome and an 11x outcome on a £1m EBITDA business is £3m of equity value. That is the difference an extra eighteen months of disciplined pre-sale work makes.

Why PE has decided this is its sector

Private equity drove around 70% of UK fire and security M&A in 2025, according to Grant Thornton's facilities services tracker, against 46% across the wider facilities services market. The pace has not slowed entering 2026. The reasons are now well-rehearsed in PE investment committees:

•   Structural demand growth. Building safety regulation has tightened materially since Grenfell, with the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Building Safety Act 2022 driving compliance investment that is non-discretionary rather than nice-to-have.

•   Recurring revenue mechanics. The typical mature fire and security business has a maintenance book with 80–90% annual renewal, which underpins buyout debt structures in a way installation revenue alone cannot.

•   Fragmentation. The UK fire and security market still has more than 2,000 active SMEs. A buy-and-build platform with disciplined acquisition origination can compound EBITDA materially faster than organic growth, and the supply of bolt-ons is genuinely deep at the £1–5m EBITDA range.

•   Margin scalability. National platforms can extract operational margin through procurement, fleet, technology and overhead consolidation in ways that single-region operators cannot. That margin uplift is the second-order driver behind the headline price.

Each of these arguments alone would justify a sector premium. The four operating together is why this is the most actively consolidated UK service market of the cycle, and why owner-managers with sensibly run businesses are receiving more inbound interest than ever before.

The active platforms — and what each one wants

Knowing which platforms are active, what they are buying, and what they have already bought is the single most useful input into an informed sale process. There are at least six platforms currently actively acquiring in UK fire and security at scale:

•   andwis Group (H.I.G. Capital). The most prolific UK F&S consolidator of the current cycle — 29 acquisitions since March 2023, including four in 2026 to date. National coverage across active fire, passive fire and security disciplines.

•   Ranger Fire & Security (Hyperion Equity Partners). 21 acquisitions since launch in February 2024 — including iFire (Scotland), Henderson Fire and Safety (Ireland) and FireCheck (North West) announced on 18 May 2026 — backed by a £150m Apera debt facility put in place in January 2026. Aggressive nationwide.

•   Obsequio Group (Warren Equity Partners). Acquired by WEP from Beech Tree Private Equity in October 2025, recapitalised at over £70m revenue and 630 staff, with Atlas World (Belfast) and PLP Fire Protection (Chatham) acquired alongside the recapitalisation. Growth pace expected to accelerate under the new sponsor.

•   New Path Fire & Security (Duke Capital). Seven acquisitions since the 2022 partnership, operating from Southampton across the South of England and London. Smaller but disciplined.

•   Checkmate Fire (IK Partners). The UK's largest passive fire specialist, transacted from YFM to IK Partners in March 2024. The platform play in passive fire, with FIRAS accreditation and a strong London commercial book.

•   Several others. EA-RS (Rockpool), Marlowe Fire & Security, Walker Fire, Spy Alarms (Phoenix), and at least two new platforms in formation that we are tracking.

For an owner-manager looking at the buyer universe, this is the practical point: there is not one buyer for your business, there are six to ten. The right process puts you in front of all of them simultaneously under NDA. That is what creates the competitive tension that moves the multiple from sector-median to premium.

The three variables that determine where in the range you land

Multiples in fire and security are not a black box. The three variables that drive where a particular business lands within the 4–11x range are predictable, measurable, and largely within the owner's control over an 18–24 month horizon.

Variable one: recurring revenue mix

The single most-watched number in any F&S transaction is the proportion of revenue that is contracted maintenance rather than project installation. A business with 60% maintenance revenue and a 90% renewal rate trades at a meaningfully different multiple to the same business with 30% maintenance revenue and an unclear renewal pattern, even with identical EBITDA. The arithmetic is simple: maintenance revenue is annuitised, predictable, and supports debt; installation revenue is lumpy, project-led, and discounted in any buyer model. Every pound of additional contracted maintenance revenue, in our experience, is worth several times its face value at exit.

Variable two: the accreditation stack

Accreditation is the moat buyers cannot easily build themselves. NSI Gold and SSAIB at the top of the security side; BAFE — particularly SP203-1 for fire detection and alarm installation — for the active fire side; FIRAS and IFC for passive fire; ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001 across the board. Buyers walking into a process check every certificate, every audit history, every recorded non-conformance. A clean accreditation record genuinely is the moat. A patchy one will cost you money — sometimes through indemnity rather than headline price reduction, but always somewhere.

Variable three: founder dependence

The platform buyer's underwriting case is almost always built on the assumption that the acquired business will continue to perform under the platform's management. A business that runs entirely through the founder's relationships, sales pipeline and operational decisions is a difficult business for a platform to integrate, and the price reflects that. A credible second-tier management team — operations director, sales director, technical director who can each hold their own without daily founder input — moves a business meaningfully up the multiple curve.

What this means if you are 18 months from a sale

The structural argument matters. The named-platform argument matters. But if you are sitting on a business worth £2–10m of enterprise value today and thinking about a sale in 18 to 24 months, the practical question is which of the three variables above will move the needle most for your specific business.

In our experience, the highest-return work for most owner-managers in this window is growing the contracted recurring maintenance book, followed by cleaning the accreditation file, then strengthening the second tier of management. A business that grows its maintenance book from 35% to 55% of revenue over 18 months, holds renewal rates above 85%, and keeps its accreditation file clean will move from the 5–6x sector-median range to the 8–10x premium range. That is not a marginal improvement — on a business with £750k of EBITDA, it is the difference between a £4m sale and a £6.5m sale.

The work to do is unglamorous and mechanical. Audit the customer book. Identify the maintenance contracts that are sitting on annual rolling terms and convert them to multi-year. Strengthen the accreditation file and pre-empt the buyer's audit before they instruct one. Document the operations so the business is provably running through the team rather than the founder. None of this is rocket science. Most owners do not do it because they do not have an exit calendar yet — and the work feels less urgent than the trading week ahead. The owners who do it are the ones who clear the top of the range.

Related: The structural consolidation argument in more detail — and what it means for the next eighteen months.  (/insights/fire-security-market-consolidating-owners-on-the-fence)

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SOURCES

[1] Grant Thornton facilities services M&A tracker (2025): PE buyer share at 70% in UK fire and security, against 46% across the wider facilities services market. Tracker references and segment commentary public.

[2] Wilson Partners sector commentary (2025): median UK fire and security transaction multiple of approximately 9x EV/EBITDA; listed comparable cohort trading at approximately 7.4x.

[3] Platform acquisition counts and ownership: andwis Group (29 since March 2023, per PE Hub coverage of Senseco Systems April 2026 acquisition), Ranger Fire & Security (21 since February 2024 — three further deals announced 18 May 2026; £150m Apera debt facility January 2026; Hyperion Equity Partners news page and trade-press coverage), Obsequio Group (acquired by Warren Equity Partners from Beech Tree Private Equity, October 2025, per Beech Tree PE press release), New Path Fire & Security (Duke Capital backing since 2022), Checkmate Fire (YFM to IK Partners, March 2024). All cross-referenced against trade press and platform disclosures 2024–2026.

James Dixey Limited — Specialist M&A for regulated, owner-managed businesses in Care, Education, Fire & Security and Other Regulated Services.