Kent & Tamarack helps owners of Loveland trade and service companies sell when they are ready, to a buyer they choose. If you run a plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, landscaping, fabrication or other service company between Berthoud and south Fort Collins, the first conversation is private and free. You do not have to know anything about selling a business to start.
Loveland is a city of about 81,000 people that still feels like a small town in the ways that matter to an owner. People know your truck. They know your kids. That is a good thing for your reputation and a hard thing when you want to sell without talk.
Three different Lovelands
Owners who have worked here for years know that Loveland is really three markets inside one city line.
The older town along the Big Thompson
Loveland was founded in 1877 along the Colorado Central Railroad, near where it crossed the Big Thompson River. For the first half of the 20th century it lived on farming, mostly sugar beets and cherries. The Great Western Sugar Company opened a factory here in 1901, and it ran for decades. The older homes and shops near downtown come from that time, and they keep plumbers, electricians and roofers busy with repair and update work.
The US 34 gateway to the mountains
Highway 34 runs west from Loveland through the canyon to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Loveland gets a lot of summer traffic from it. Many Loveland trade companies take jobs in the canyon and in Estes Park, where cabins, lodges and short-term rentals need service and the building season is short.
The east side along I-25
The city spread east to take in the interchange of I-25 and US 34, and that area has become one of the main commercial hubs of Northern Colorado. The Centerra development, built by McWhinney, holds shopping, offices, a medical center and an industrial park. McWhinney said in 2022 that its six Centerra industrial buildings, more than 650,000 square feet, were fully occupied, and the park sits next to the Northern Colorado Regional Airport.
A company that works in all three has a wide customer base. A company that works in only one should know which one, because a buyer will ask.
A strong place for shops that make things
Loveland is not only a service town. A 2025 labor market profile published by Larimer County looked at job postings in Northern Colorado. It found that Loveland had a larger share of postings than Fort Collins for fabrication and production technology manufacturing jobs: 31 percent of the region's postings, against 28 percent for Fort Collins.
That fits what you see driving around east and north Loveland: machine shops, welding and fabrication shops, sheet metal shops, sign makers and small manufacturers. Many of them are owner-run companies with a handful of skilled people and a building full of equipment.
Selling a shop like this is a little different from selling a service company. A buyer looks harder at:
- The age and condition of your machines, and whether any need replacing soon.
- Whether a few large customers make up most of your sales.
- Whether your best machinist or welder will stay after the sale.
- The building, which may be worth as much as the business, or more.
If you own your building, you have choices. You can sell it with the company, keep it and collect rent, or sell it separately later. With industrial space near I-25 in demand, the building can make a real difference to what you walk away with. We look at each choice with your accountant before any buyer sees a number.
What a buyer sees in a Loveland service company
Loveland and Fort Collins have grown toward each other for years, and the federal government counts them as one metro area. A buyer from Denver may treat them as one market. You know they are not. Loveland homes, crews and customers have their own habits, and a good buyer will want to understand them.
A buyer will want to know:
- Your share of repeat customers. Maintenance plans, property managers and homeowners who call you every year are the base of the value.
- The canyon and mountain work. It pays well, but it brings longer drives and weather days. We show it separately so a buyer understands it.
- Your seasons. Summer tourist traffic, spring landscaping and the first cold snap all move the numbers, and a buyer who only knows city books can misread a slow month. We explain the full year.
- Any one-time spikes. If storm, hail or flood repair gave you a big year, a buyer will treat it as one-time work. It is better to say so up front than to have it come out during the buyer's review.
Who buys in Loveland
The buyer for your company could come from several places.
A Fort Collins or Longmont company may want a Loveland branch. Loveland sits between them, close to I-25 and US 287, and a branch here can reach a wide area in under an hour.
A local competitor may want your customers and crew. That can be a good fit, but you have to decide carefully how much they see and when.
An individual buyer may want to move to Loveland and buy a working business. These buyers often use a bank loan and care a great deal about whether the company runs without the owner.
Your own manager or a family member may want to buy. Those deals often include payments to you over a few years, and we help you set terms you are comfortable with.
Keeping your name out of it
In Loveland, the people at the supply counter, your subs and half your customers know each other. That makes privacy the first job. Early buyers see a description of the company with no name and no address. A buyer only learns who you are after signing a confidentiality agreement and showing they have the money to close. We talk with you on your cell, after hours if that suits you. Your crew hears when you decide.
The steps
A sale goes through four steps: a private first call, an honest price range with the reasons, a quiet search for the right buyer, and a clean close with your accountant and attorney. You can read how each step works here. Owners in nearby towns can see our pages for Fort Collins, Johnstown and all of Northern Colorado.
Call when you are ready
You can call before you have decided anything. Many owners start a year or two before they want to step back, so they have time to fix what a buyer will notice. The founder picks up at (983) 900-6537. Tell us about your company and what you want after the sale, and we will tell you plainly what we see.