M&A activity snapshot
Utility and telecom contractors are the most active part of this sector. Cascade Partners reports that utility infrastructure deal volume increased by ~11% year-over-year in 2025, with early 2026 activity showing sustained momentum. The demand behind it is large: investor-owned utilities plan to invest $1.4 trillion through 2030, after a record $204.1 billion of capex in 2025.
FMI sizes the U.S. utility services market at $214.0 billion in 2026, growing to more than $282.8 billion by 2030 at a 7.2% CAGR, across electricity, water, gas and fiber. The contractor base is still mostly small: Census counts 7,112 establishments in NAICS 237130 in 2023, and 5,101 of them, about 72% by Axia's arithmetic, had fewer than 20 employees.
The largest deals have been sponsor-to-sponsor trades and strategic purchases. The Sterling Group completed the sale of PowerGrid Services to Apollo in 2025. TPG and La Caisse agreed to acquire a majority interest in Pike Corporation, a grid contractor with approximately 12,000 employees; terms were not disclosed. Quanta paid approximately $1.54 billion upfront for Cupertino Electric.
Who is buying
Public specialty contractors. FMI says the sector's M&A activity is largely driven by Quanta, Dycom and MasTec. They buy crews, regional coverage and utility or carrier relationships.
Private equity. In broad construction services, Capstone reports that PE buyers led M&A for the first time in 2025, at 54.3% of sector transactions. In utility work, sponsors are both building platforms and selling them to larger funds, as the PowerGrid and Pike deals show.
Larger funds buying mature platforms. Apollo-managed hybrid funds agreed to acquire a majority stake in PowerGrid Services from its founding sponsor, and Sandbrook Capital, with funds managed by Blackstone Credit & Insurance, agreed to buy United Utility Services from Bernhard Capital Partners. Exits like these give smaller platforms a path to sell, which keeps them buying add-ons.
Propane and fuel consolidators. Propane follows a different model: public partnerships and utility-owned units buy local dealers one at a time. The ten largest retailers account for approximately 35% of U.S. retail propane sales, so fragmentation remains.
What buyers look for
Recurring, contracted work. Across utility and telecom services, buyers pay for master service agreements with utilities and carriers rather than one-off projects. In propane, the equivalent is company-owned tanks and automatic delivery.
Crews and safety. Labor is the binding constraint. BLS projects power-line installer employment to grow 10 percent from 2025 to 2035, with a median wage of $95,320. Buyers acquire trained crews and a safety record that utilities accept.
Exposure to funded demand. Buyers favor contractors tied to utility capex, data center load and carrier fiber programs. They discount revenue that depends on a single federal program or tax credit, such as BEAD broadband grants or residential solar credits.
Customer concentration. Utility and carrier customers are large, so concentration is normal, but buyers price it. The key questions are contract tenure, renewal history and whether the target is a prime contractor or a subcontractor.
What makes a strong company
Across the four subindustries, the businesses that draw the most interest typically show:
- Multi-year MSAs or delivery contracts with more than one large customer.
- A documented safety program with incident rates by year.
- Field leaders (foremen, dispatchers, drivers) who stay after the owner leaves.
- Owned specialty equipment with maintenance records.
- Revenue mix that does not depend on one federal program, storm season or tax credit.
- Clean licensing in every state served.
Valuation and deal structure
No public data provider reports a lower-middle-market EBITDA multiple for energy and infrastructure services as a sector. The verified reference points describe adjacent or broader markets:
- All-industry private benchmark. GF Data's PE-sponsored deals averaged 7.2x trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA in 2025. In H1 2025, $1 million to $5 million deals averaged about 5.5x and $10 million to $25 million deals 6.2x to 6.7x.
- Construction services. From 2018 to 2025, PE buyers paid an average of 10.6x EV/EBITDA versus 7.5x for strategics. This covers broad construction services, not utility work alone.
- Adjacent electrical deal. EMCOR acquired Miller Electric for $850.2 million, equivalent to 1.1x EV/Revenue and 10.6x EV/EBITDA.
- Public companies. Cascade's utility infrastructure public comparables traded at a median 20.3x EV/EBITDA in February 2026. Private lower-middle-market contractors do not get those multiples.
Deals in the sector commonly include earnouts and rollover equity. Quanta's Cupertino purchase carried a potential earnout payment of up to $200 million on top of the upfront price. Each subindustry page lists the deal structures documented for that vertical. Owners can test a range with the valuation tool; Axia does not value businesses or represent sellers.
Subindustries
The four verticals below have different buyers, demand drivers and data. Utility and fiber contracting are the most active M&A markets; solar and propane each have their own pattern.