A park owner offers equity instead of cash for a season maintenance contract

A grounds and small systems maintenance contractor gets asked by a 90 site park about two hours from a national forest to bid the whole season, April through October: mowing, pedestal repairs, septic pumping coordination, bathhouse upkeep, pool inspections. A season bid of 64k is thin but workable if the crew is already routed nearby three days a week. The owner counters with 4 percent of the entity instead of the check. His P&L shows 780k gross last season, a 47 percent expense ratio, so roughly 413k NOI on his numbers. 4 percent of that is around 16k a year if it holds, against 64k of cash given up now. The equity may well be worth more over ten years on paper. The hard part is that a 4 percent holder typically has no control, no say on distributions, and payroll still going out weekly in a business where 70 percent of revenue lands in four months. An undisclosed note on the property, if one exists, changes the math further and is worth seeing before agreeing to anything. A reasonable middle path is countering at half cash, half equity, which preserves cash flow for payroll while still taking a position in the upside, rather than choosing all one way or the other.