You have probably spent twenty years or more building your NDT company. You trained technicians all the way up to Level III, the most senior inspector certification, held by the people qualified to write your inspection procedures and sign off the results. You earned approvals that took years to win, and you kept refineries, power plants and aircraft operators coming back for every shutdown and every audit. When you sell, we want you to get a great outcome for all of that work.
Your outcome depends on who bids for your firm, and the range is wide. Since 2015, 174 NDT and welding inspection companies have been acquired worldwide, by 100 different buyers. Where terms were published, they sold at a median of 10.0x EBITDA (6 deals), meaning ten times one year of EBITDA, and 1.6x revenue (10 deals). The size of those deals varies even more: the middle half of the 32 deals with a published value ran from about $4.4M to about $189M. This page shows you what moves a firm up that range, and who the buyers are.
The figures cover firms like yours, whose main business is non-destructive testing, welding inspection or materials integrity inspection. If most of your work is broader asset integrity inspection, our asset integrity inspection valuation page is the closer match.
NDT Deal Multiples Compared With the Wider TIC Market
First, how buyers value a firm. They take one of your yearly figures and multiply it. The usual one is EBITDA, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization: your operating profit with depreciation and amortization added back. Buyers adjust it for one-off costs and for the owner’s own pay and perks. At 10.0x, a firm with $2M of adjusted EBITDA would be valued at $20M. The other is revenue: at 1.6x, a firm with $10M of sales would be valued at $16M. The result is the enterprise value (EV), the value of the whole business. If the firm has debt, it is paid off from that figure, and you receive what is left for your shares.
The short version: NDT sells at about the same multiples as inspection as a whole, a little above all TIC deals on EBITDA and a little below on revenue. Of the 174 deals, 32 disclose a value, and with company filings and announcements we could calculate an EV/EBITDA multiple for 6 and an EV/Revenue multiple for 10. Read the medians as a guide, since a single deal can move them.
| NDT services | All inspection | All TIC (Aventis database) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median EV/EBITDA | 10.0x (6 deals) | 9.5x (25 deals) | 9.9x (54 deals) |
| Median EV/Revenue | 1.6x (10 deals) | 1.6x (63 deals) | 1.8x (142 deals) |
| Median deal size | $14.2M (32 deals) | $15.0M (127 deals) | $13.4M (282 deals) |
For the other inspection trades, see our inspection company valuations.
Deal Size and the Multiple
Deal size moves the multiple. Across all TIC deals with a published EBITDA multiple, the median rises from 8.0x for deals under $50M to 12.2x for deals of $500M and over. NDT has too few published multiples to split by size, so the chart shows all TIC and marks where the NDT median sits.
The NDT median of 10.0x comes from six deals, all worth $55M or more, and it sits where all TIC deals of that size sit. Most NDT deals are much smaller: 17 of the 32 with a published value were under $20M, and none of those 17 published an EBITDA multiple.
What does that mean for you? If your adjusted EBITDA is under about $6M, your firm is likely to sell for under $50M, and the 8.0x median of that band is a closer guide than the 10.0x headline. Between about $6M and $11M of EBITDA, the 9.1x of the next band is the better reference. A firm moves up its range when several buyers bid at the same time, on the same information, and on the drivers in the next section, above all several senior certified (Level III) inspectors and a high share of contracted revenue.
We track every NDT acquisition since 2015, 174 deals by 100 different buyers, so we know which buyers fit a firm like yours and what they have paid.
What is your firm worth?
Send us three numbers: revenue, EBITDA and revenue growth rate. Within two working days we show you in confidence how your firm measures up against 174 NDT deals, which buyer groups have acquired firms like yours, and how any offer you hold compares with what they paid where terms are published.
Request your valuation assessment or email the numbers to marcin.majewski@aventis-advisors.com.
What Drives an NDT Valuation
When a buyer sits down with your numbers, these are the things that move the offer. Most take a year or two to put in order, so they are worth starting on well before a sale.
Your senior certified inspectors
Buyers pay for technicians who can sign off an inspection. NDT certification has three levels, under ISO 9712, PCN and the ASNT schemes. Level III is the top one: the person who writes and approves procedures, interprets the codes and trains and examines the Level I and II technicians. If you are the only Level III, or one or two people hold the key certifications and the customer relationships, a buyer sees key-person risk and prices it in. Expect the first questions to be how many Level IIs and IIIs you have per method, whether the training records are in order and how long technicians stay.
Accreditations and customer approvals
Nadcap, ISO/IEC 17025, aviation approvals such as EASA Part 145 or FAA repair-station certificates, nuclear qualifications and customer-specific approvals take years to earn, and they keep competitors out of your work. They only add value if they move with the business, so settle early whether the sale is of shares or assets and which approvals need re-auditing after a change of owner.
Where your revenue comes from
Buyers split oil and gas in two. Work tied to drilling and new wells follows the budgets of oil producers, and buyers discount it. Refinery and petrochemical inspection is steadier, because pressure equipment must be inspected at set intervals whatever the oil price, under national pressure equipment rules and inspection codes such as API 510, 570 and 653. Revenue that leans on plant shutdowns still swings from year to year. Buyers pay more for power, nuclear, aerospace, infrastructure and renewables. Have your revenue split by end market and by contracted against shutdown work for the last three years ready, and show which way it is moving.
Contracted work against call-outs
Multi-year framework and service contracts, long-term inspection programs and teams based at a customer’s site are worth more than shutdown and call-out work that has to be won again every season. Show the split, and which customers have renewed for how long.
Advanced methods and data
Phased array, TOFD, digital radiography, automated scanning, drones and in-line inspection, plus inspection data that customers can log in to see, all lift a firm above general NDT. Show which methods you offer, the revenue each brings in and how many technicians are certified in it.
Safety record and prequalification
Many plants only let in contractors with a clean safety record and a current contractor prequalification. A strong record protects revenue; a weak one shrinks the list of buyers. Keep your safety statistics and prequalification certificates ready for the first information request.
How we present all this to buyers
Buyers pay for what they can see and check. A large part of our work in a sale is showing the business as strongly as the facts allow: the certified headcount and senior (Level III) inspectors by method, the approvals and their change-of-owner terms, and the split of contracted against call-out revenue. We deal with weak spots before a buyer finds them and uses them to talk the offer down.
Who Is Buying NDT Companies
Buying in NDT is spread thin, which is good news for you: 100 different buyers made the 174 acquisitions, and the five most active made 34 of them between them. The five also show the two kinds of buyer you will meet. Applied Technical Services, Phenna and TÜV Austria buy across the whole TIC market, while Mistras made 9 of its 10 TIC acquisitions in NDT, and Acuren 7 of its 14.
| Buyer | Headquarters | Ownership | NDT deals | Other TIC deals | Total TIC deals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mistras Group | US | Listed (H.I.G. Capital takeover agreed 2026, pending) | 9 | 1 | 10 |
| Acuren (now TIC Solutions) | US / Canada | Listed (NYSE: TIC) since 2024; merged with NV5 in 2025 | 7 | 7 | 14 |
| Applied Technical Services | US | Part of SGS since 2026 (Odyssey-backed 2021 to 2026) | 7 | 36 | 43 |
| TÜV Austria | Austria | Strategic | 6 | 37 | 43 |
| Phenna Group | UK | PE-backed (Oakley Capital since 2022) | 5 | 97 | 102 |
Private equity has become the larger buyer. Private equity firms and the companies they own made 43% of NDT acquisitions in 2015 to 2020 and 57% since 2021, and 12 of the 18 deals in 2025. Deal numbers rose too, from 80 in the six years to 2020 to 94 since. Two of the five most active buyers in the table are private equity-backed or were when they bought: Acuren, listed since 2024, and Phenna, backed by Oakley Capital since 2022.
The buyers reach well beyond any one country. The 174 targets were spread across 26 countries: 86 in North America, 66 in Europe (46 on the continent and 20 in the UK and Ireland), and 22 in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
If a buyer approaches you, it is most likely a private equity-backed platform looking for an add-on, or a TIC group adding capacity, approvals or a region. The two pay for different things and expect different things from you after closing; see strategic vs financial buyers.
A Buyer Has Approached You? We Get You a Great Outcome
Many owners hear from a buyer before they have decided to sell, and often it is only an email about “exploring a partnership” or a request for an introductory call. That is the moment to talk to us, before you reply. The approach comes on the buyer’s timetable, with one offer on the table, and an owner who answers it alone is negotiating with one party. One buyer’s offer tells you what that buyer would like to pay. Offers from several buyers, made at the same time on the same information, tell you what the business is worth. We get you those offers by running a competitive sale process. Here is what we do.
We bring several buyers to the table at once. A TIC group filling a gap in its methods and a private equity platform building a group will value the same firm differently. When their offers arrive in the same week, you see what the market will pay.
We set the terms of the process for you. Together we decide the timetable, what each buyer sees and the date offers are due, so the value comes from competing offers and the first buyer’s opening figure stops being the reference point.
We negotiate every term while there are alternatives. How much is paid at closing, any later payment tied to results, and what the buyer expects from you and your senior inspectors after the sale all change what the deal is worth to you, and each moves most while a second buyer is still in the process.
We get the business ready before the first call. Certification records for each method, the change-of-owner terms of every approval, the revenue split by end market and the renewal dates of your main contracts. Buyers pay for what they can verify, so we prepare all of it with you before any buyer is contacted.
Why NDT Owners Work With Us
We advise owners on sales with typical enterprise values between $5M and $100M, as partners of the Globalscope network. We also advise serial acquirers, which is how we know the way their offers are built and where they leave room.
Recent transactions
- Advice to Apave on its acquisitions of ISOCERT and De Duurzame Adviseurs.
- Sale of CKSource, the rich-text editor developer, to PSG via Tiugo Technologies, after a global process that drew several letters of intent.
- Advice to Visma on its acquisition of SaldeoSMART.
“We were impressed with Marcin’s negotiating skills and Aventis’ ability to make things happen.”
Sindre Talleraas Holen, M&A Director, Visma
“Aventis Advisors did the heavy lifting so that our management team could stay focused on our business.”
Wiktor Walc, President, CKSource
Before you reply to a buyer
Send us three numbers: revenue, EBITDA and revenue growth rate. Within two working days we show you in confidence how your firm measures up against 174 NDT deals, which buyer groups have acquired firms like yours, and how any offer you hold compares with what they paid where terms are published.
Talk to Us
If you own an NDT or welding inspection business, talk to us before you reply to an approach, agree a price or sign a letter of intent. We prepare the business, approach the TIC groups and private equity platforms most likely to pay for your methods, approvals and end markets, bring their offers to a single deadline and negotiate the terms through to closing. Write to us at marcin.majewski@aventis-advisors.com. The first conversation is confidential. For more on how we work, see our M&A advisory for TIC companies.
Methodology
The figures cover majority acquisitions of companies whose main business is NDT, welding inspection or materials integrity inspection, worldwide, since January 2015. NDT equipment makers, and firms where NDT is a minor line inside a maintenance or engineering business, are excluded.
The deals come from the Aventis Advisors TIC deal database, which combines Mergermarket with acquirer announcements and our own research. EV/EBITDA and EV/Revenue use enterprise value (EV), which is equity value plus net debt; EBITDA is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization. Median deal size uses EV where disclosed, otherwise the disclosed deal value, which is the consideration for the stake acquired; stakes of 51% to 99% count only where an EV is stated. Distressed sales, and multiples outside 1x to 60x EBITDA or 0.05x to 20x revenue, are excluded from the multiples. Most private deals close at undisclosed values, so the deals with a published figure are a small sample. Medians are shown where at least five deals disclose the figure, and ranges where at least ten do. EV/EBITDA is shown where the multiple or the EBITDA was published by the buyer, the seller, filings or a reputable data source; EBITDA derived from a stated margin is excluded. Each deal is counted under the buyer’s group at the time of the deal, and private equity buyers are private equity firms and the companies they owned then. All TIC combines the inspection, testing laboratory and certification deals on our pages, 2,841 since 2015.
