The Mid-Market Multiple Report.

Key findings

The number behind the headlines

Ask what a company is worth and you will hear a rule of thumb. Five times. Six times. Whatever the last dinner-party exit went for. The published deal data tells a more useful story: across private equity sponsored mid-market transactions of $10m to $500m, the average price held around 7.3x trailing EBITDA through 2025, barely moving while deal volumes cooled.

That stability is the most underrated fact in the market. Sellers waiting for a hot window, and buyers waiting for distress, both sat out a year in which good companies kept clearing at full prices. The market pays for quality through every cycle; it just gets quieter about it.

The size premium, in one chart

The single biggest driver of the multiple is not the sector, the story, or the adviser. It is size. The same quality of business commands a step up in price at every tier of scale:

Average TEV/EBITDA by total enterprise value tier. Source: GF Data (an ACG company), published averages of PE-sponsored transactions, through Q3 2025; sub-$10m estimated from the reported gap below the $10–25m tier.

Why does a dollar of EBITDA cost more in a bigger company? Because risk falls as scale rises: deeper management, less customer concentration, more resilient cash flow, cheaper debt, and a wider pool of buyers able to write the cheque. Institutional capital competes hardest above $50m, and competition is what sets price.

For an owner, the implication is strategic, not academic. A company growing from $3m to $6m of EBITDA does not double in value; it nearly triples, because the earnings grow and the multiple re-rates at the same time. Growing into the next tier before selling is often the highest-return decision available, and it is exactly the work of value creation and exit readiness.

The sector spread

Within the same market, the spread between sectors ran to nearly two full turns in the first half of 2025:

Average TEV/EBITDA by sector, 1H 2025 prints. Source: GF Data, as publicly reported.

The pattern is not fashion; it is economics. Buyers pay up for revenue that repeats without being re-sold: healthcare's contracted, demographically anchored demand, and the recurring service relationships of business services. They discount cyclicality and project risk, which is what holds manufacturing prints lower even for excellent businesses.

The honest read for owners in lower-multiple sectors: your sector's average is not your ceiling. Within every sector, the top quartile trades like the sector above it, and the drivers are the same everywhere: recurring share, concentration, owner independence, and margin durability.

What this means if you are selling

Three things we would tell any owner reading this data.

First, know your tier before you negotiate. A buyer will anchor you to your current tier; your job, and your adviser's, is to evidence the path to the next one. The difference is not marginal: between tiers it is commonly worth more than every other negotiation point combined.

Illustrative: the earnings double and the multiple re-rates to the next size tier at the same time.

Second, verified earnings are cheap money. The data shows sellers who arrived with their quality of earnings done achieved roughly 0.4x more. On $5m of EBITDA that is $2m, for a piece of preparation that costs a fraction of it.

Third, averages are for markets, not for companies. Every figure above is the mean of hundreds of deals. Your number is set by a competitive process among the buyers who want what you have built. The data tells you the playing field; it does not play the game.

Method: all figures are published averages from GF Data (an ACG company) covering private equity sponsored transactions of $10m to $500m total enterprise value, through Q3 2025, as publicly reported. Averages of completed deals are context, not a valuation of any specific company. This report is refreshed as new quarterly prints are published.