Car Wash Roll-Up Model

The operating engine starts with the site panel: opening sites plus acquisitions less closures define the annual average site count used across revenue and cost lines. Per-site revenue flows from three streams: membership (members per site times monthly plan price times twelve), retail washes (washes per day times operating days times ticket), and ancillary revenue as a percentage of wash revenue.

• Per-site revenue grows at a compounded rate. A vintage-weighted membership ramp factor holds new sites below mature penetration for a set period, reflecting the time needed to convert pay-per-wash customers.
• The model's illustrative defaults include 4–8 annual acquisitions, 1,800 members per site at $25 per month, 85 daily washes at $13, 8% ancillary, and 3% per-site growth.

Revenue builds by stream feed a P&L where site-level costs include labour, chemicals and water as a percentage of revenue, utilities, land lease, repairs and maintenance, and marketing as a percentage of revenue. Corporate overhead is modelled as a base amount plus a per-site add-on, capturing the shared platform drag as the panel grows.

• EBITDA is revenue less total operating expenses, and the model also deducts depreciation and amortisation, interest, and tax on positive EBIT only. Illustrative defaults show a thin initial EBITDA margin that expands as the membership base matures and the fixed corporate base spreads over more sites.
• The model includes a P&L identity check and tracks EBITDA margin and net margin.

Capital deployment starts with the initial platform purchase at Year 0: starting sites times trailing EBITDA times the entry multiple, split into platform equity and platform debt. Each year, acquisitions are funded by sponsor equity and acquisition debt.

• Interest accrues via PIK on the opening debt balance, and a cash sweep uses a percentage of platform free cash flow to pay down debt, capped so the balance cannot go negative. Cumulative equity is seeded from platform equity and grows with each acquisition.
• The model's illustrative defaults include an 8.0x entry multiple, $320k trailing EBITDA per acquired site, 50% sponsor equity, a 7% debt rate, and a 50% cash sweep. This structure underpins the multiple arbitrage thesis of buying single sites and exiting a scaled platform at 11.5x.

The returns view builds a sponsor equity cash flow: a Year 0 outflow for platform equity, annual acquisition equity outflows, platform free cash flow, and a Year 5 exit inflow. Exit enterprise value equals Year 5 EBITDA times the exit multiple.

• Net debt at exit is cumulative debt after the cash sweep, and equity proceeds are exit EV less net debt. The model calculates sponsor IRR, MOIC, blended entry multiple, and multiple arbitrage.
• The dashboard surfaces Year 5 revenue, EBITDA, EBITDA margin, site count, sponsor IRR, MOIC, exit enterprise value, and revenue mix by stream, with traffic-light formatting on margin and IRR KPI cards against assumed thresholds. Illustrative defaults show about 32% IRR and 2.3x MOIC, but these are model outputs, not market benchmarks.

Exit enterprise value = Year 5 EBITDA × the exit multipleCopy