Selling a collision repair shop

Boyd Group, which operates as Gerber Collision & Glass in the U.S., puts the North American industry at roughly 30,000 repair locations and describes its own share as modest, even after passing 1,300 locations of its own¹. That fragmentation is the heart of the consolidation story. A group that adds shops in a market gains buying power on parts and paint, a deeper bench of technicians, and more to offer the insurers whose referral programs drive a large share of collision work.

Most buyers you will meet fall into a few groups:

• National consolidators. Boyd agreed in October 2025 to buy Joe Hudson's Collision Center, a 258-location operator across the Southeast, and has since completed the deal²¹. It still plans to buy single shops and small MSOs, and its 2025 acquisitions included four small multi-shop operators¹.
• Regional platforms backed by private equity. VIVE Collision reached 80 locations in September 2026 when it bought Joe DiIorio Auto Body, a family-owned shop in Homestead, Pennsylvania that dates to 1968⁷. Driving Force Collision, backed by TRP Capital, bought a three-shop operator in New York City and Long Island and a dealer group's collision center in Reading, Pennsylvania in May 2025¹¹.
• New platforms built around family groups. In February 2025 Trive Capital invested in Chilton Auto Body, a California business founded in 1969 that had grown to 20 shops and is known for electric vehicle repair⁸.
• Investors in the services around the shop. Rotunda Capital Partners acquired AirPro Diagnostics, a remote and on-site ADAS calibration provider, in February 2025¹⁰. The Riverside Company invested in Certified Collision Group, a membership network that links independent repairers with vendors and insurer programs, in January 2026⁹.

For a single shop, the likely path is an add-on. You join a group that already has management, estimating systems, parts contracts and insurer programs in place, and the buyer judges how well your shop will plug in. Location matters: a shop that fills a gap in a buyer's map gets more attention than one a mile from a shop they already own.

A larger MSO with its own leadership team, several locations and clean reporting can be a platform, meaning the first investment a private equity firm makes in the industry or in a region. Platforms draw a different kind of interest because the buyer is backing your team to run the next acquisitions. Expect more questions about management depth and systems, and a stronger case for keeping a stake.

You may also hear from buyers who are not consolidators: a neighboring independent, a dealer group or a key employee. Those deals can work well, but they tend to lean more on seller financing and less on cash at close.

A buyer's first question about a collision shop is where the cars come from. For most independents the answer is a mix of insurer direct repair programs (DRPs), dealer and fleet referrals, and customers who pick you on their own. Insurers can suggest shops, but in states such as Texas they cannot require a policyholder to use one from their list⁶. A buyer wants to understand both your insurer relationships and your reputation.

On DRPs, the questions are practical. Which carriers are you on, how long have you been on each, how do you rank on their scorecards, and what share of revenue does each one represent? Three or four carriers each sending a steady share is a stronger story than one carrier sending most of the work.

Beyond the referral mix, buyers look at the operating numbers they would track themselves:

• Cycle time, from keys in to keys back, and how it compares with what your insurer partners expect.
• Customer satisfaction (CSI) scores, ideally from the insurer or a third party rather than your own survey.
• Average repair order and how it has moved, separated from parts price increases where you can.
• Throughput and capacity: repair orders per week, labor hours billed per technician, bays, booths and how close you run to full.
• Gross margin by category: labor, parts, paint and materials, and sublet work such as calibrations.
• Technician headcount, tenure, pay plans and turnover, and how many carry current I-CAR or OEM training.
• The facility: square footage, paint booths and frame equipment, the age of major equipment, and whether you own or lease the building.

Today's vehicles carry cameras, radar and other sensors behind bumpers, grilles and windshields. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects repairs to take more time as technicians work around a growing number of these systems³. That is why certifications have moved from a badge in the lobby to something a buyer checks line by line.

I-CAR Gold Class is usually the first credential a buyer asks about. To earn it, a shop needs trained people in four roles (estimator, refinish, structural and non-structural), each at ProLevel 2 or higher, with the number of qualified people scaled to the size of the shop and annual training after that⁴. For 2026 renewals, a Gold Class shop that calibrates ADAS in-house must also list a trained ADAS technician on its roster⁴.

OEM certifications often build on Gold Class. Audi's collision repair program, for example, requires the Gold Class designation plus its own electric vehicle and ADAS courses⁵. Each automaker program adds its own equipment, training and facility requirements, and the payoff is access to repairs that uncertified shops cannot take on. Buyers notice: Driving Force pointed to the Tesla, Lucid and Rivian certified repair space it gained in a 2025 acquisition, and Trive's announcement described Chilton as the first Tesla-certified body shop¹¹⁸.

ADAS calibration is a related question. Some shops calibrate in-house with targets and scan tools; others send the work to a dealer or to a remote or on-site calibration provider such as AirPro¹⁰. What a buyer wants to see is that every required scan and calibration is done, documented and billed, because a missed calibration is a liability and an unbilled one is lost margin.

Some pressure on value comes from outside the shop. Boyd estimated that repairable claims fell 9 to 10 percent in the first quarter of 2025, with the decline easing to 2 to 4 percent by the fourth quarter¹. If your revenue dipped in a soft stretch, be ready to show that your share held up and how the shop is trending now.

Most problems, though, are not surprises to the owner. They are things you have lived with for years that a buyer is seeing for the first time:

• One insurer doing most of the work. If a single DRP drives a large share of revenue, a buyer will ask what happens if that carrier changes its program, or its view of your shop, after the sale. Expect that risk to show up in the price or the structure.
• An owner who is the shop. If you write the big estimates, hold the adjuster relationships and settle every supplement, the buyer is buying you, and you are the one leaving.
• No certifications, or lapsed ones. A shop without Gold Class or any OEM program may be shut out of the work a consolidator values most, and a lapsed credential raises questions about how the shop is run.
• Aging equipment. An old booth, an outdated frame system or no calibration capability means money the buyer must spend after closing, and they will take it off what they pay.
• A thin technician bench. Two or three key technicians near retirement, or likely to leave with a new owner, is a real risk. BLS projects about 13,900 openings a year for body and glass repairers through 2035, most of them to replace people leaving the trade³.
• Messy books. Cash jobs, personal expenses run through the shop, or repair orders that do not tie to the financial statements slow diligence and wear down trust.
• Facility problems. A short lease, a landlord who will not consent to a transfer, or open questions about paint and solvent handling can delay a closing or end it.

Real estate is usually the first fork in the road. Some buyers will buy the building, while many would rather lease and put their capital into the shop. If you own the property, you can sell it with the business, sell it to a separate investor in a sale-leaseback, or keep it and become the buyer's landlord. Either way, the lease terms (market rent, a long initial term, renewal options) matter to the buyer almost as much as the price, because the certifications, booths and frame equipment are tied to that building.

The name on the building is the next question. Some groups move acquired shops to their own brand and systems quickly. In its full-year 2025 results, released in March 2026, Boyd reported that about 44 percent of the Joe Hudson's locations had already been converted to its systems and branding¹. Others lead with continuity: VIVE presented the Joe DiIorio shop as carrying on with its local team, now under the VIVE banner⁷.

Earnouts and holdbacks appear when part of the value depends on something not yet proven under new ownership, such as keeping a DRP, holding cycle time or a new location ramping up. Keep the measures simple, inside your control and short. Rollover equity, where you keep a minority stake in the buyer's company, is more common in platform and larger MSO deals; when Rotunda invested in AirPro, for example, the existing management kept a meaningful ownership stake¹⁰.

Finally, your team and your role. Most buyers will ask you to stay through a transition, ideally in a defined role with a defined end date. They will also want a plan for keeping technicians, estimators and the front office. BLS notes that most shops pay body repairers partly on an incentive basis, a set amount for each task on top of base pay³. Changing that plan after a sale is one of the fastest ways to lose people, so ask every buyer how they will handle it.

The best preparation also makes the shop run better if you never sell. If you run several locations, do this shop by shop, since buyers will compare them with each other.

• Gather every DRP agreement, the latest scorecard from each carrier and two or three years of history on cycle time, CSI and severity. Note any program you lost or left, and why.
• Build a certification file: Gold Class status and renewal date, each OEM program with its requirements and expiration, welding certifications, and the named technicians each one depends on⁴.
• Set up a monthly KPI report from your shop management system: repair orders, average repair order, labor hours per technician, gross margin by category and work in process.
• Clean up the financials. Have statements reviewed by an outside accountant, separate personal expenses, and make sure repair orders, the management system and the books tell the same story.
• Document the team: roles, tenure, pay plans and training. Identify who could run the shop day to day without you, and give that person room to do it.
• List major equipment with age, condition and replacement plans for booths, frame systems, welders and calibration tools.
• Decide what you want to do with the real estate, and if you lease, talk to your landlord about term and transfer rights before a buyer does.