Will 2032 Games work make my business worth more?
Queensland is delivering a $7.1 billion venue program for the Brisbane 2032 Games. Whether that lifts your sale price depends on something owners get wrong.
General information only, not financial, legal or taxation advice. Tony Pope holds Queensland Office of Fair Trading licence 4963575.
The short version
- Games work can raise your revenue and lower your multiple at the same time, because revenue with a known end date gets discounted.
- What a buyer pays for is not the contract. It is the prequalification, accreditation, panel position and delivery capability that outlast it.
- Scaling up plant and people for finite work creates a cost base that has to be unwound afterwards, and buyers price that risk.
- One mega project at a large share of turnover is customer concentration, whoever the client is.
- If you are selling before 2032, position the capability. If you are selling after, start proving the business works without the Games now.
Queensland is delivering a $7.1 billion venue infrastructure program for the Brisbane 2032 Games, covering 17 new and upgraded venues from Cairns to Coolangatta, under the 2032 Delivery Plan released in March 2025 and procured through the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority.
Every business publication in the state has told you this is an opportunity. Almost none of them have told you what it does to what your business sells for, and the answer is not the one most owners assume.
The uncomfortable bit first
Buyers pay a multiple of normalised earnings. That multiple is a judgement about how much of the profit still exists in three years.
Games work has a finish date printed on it. A buyer looking at a business where a meaningful share of the profit comes from venue construction is not looking at your profit. They are looking at your profit minus the part that stops.
So it is entirely possible to have your best two years ever and find the multiple has gone backwards. Revenue up, price per dollar of earnings down. Owners find that genuinely hard to believe until they see it, and then they wish someone had said it earlier.
One mega project is still concentration
If a Games contract becomes a large share of your turnover, that is customer concentration, and it is priced the same way concentration is always priced. A buyer's financier does not care that the client is a government authority rather than a private developer. They care what happens to the revenue line when the job finishes.
There is a version of this that is worse. A business that turns down or lets go of its steady base work to service a big project has not diversified into the Games. It has swapped a durable revenue base for a finite one, and it will have to win the old work back at the exact moment everyone else is doing the same thing.
The scale up trap
This is the one that costs the most and gets noticed the least.
Winning significant venue work usually means more plant and more people. Both are easy to take on and hard to put down. Machines bought on finance in 2028 are still on finance in 2033. A crew you built up over four years is a crew you have to either keep busy or let go, and letting go has a cost in money and in reputation in a small industry.
A buyer looks at that cost base and asks a simple question. What does this business cost to run once the program winds down, and what does it earn then. If the honest answer is that the overhead was sized for work that no longer exists, they price it accordingly, or they walk.
What buyers will actually pay for
Here is the part worth acting on, because there genuinely is durable value in this and it is not the contract.
Prequalification and panel position. Getting onto a government or tier one panel takes time, documentation and a delivery record. It does not evaporate in 2033. A buyer acquiring a business that is already prequalified is buying a shortcut that would otherwise cost them years.
Accreditation and compliance standing. Whatever certifications the work required, they carry forward. So does a clean safety record built under scrutiny, and safety record is priced directly in civil and construction.
Systems built to win tenders. Most small operators cannot produce a compliant tender response. If Games work forced you to build that capability, you now have something most of your competitors do not, and it applies to every other large client in the state.
A team that has delivered to that standard. Not the headcount. The demonstrated ability to run work at that scale and documentation level.
A reference that opens doors. Having delivered on a nationally visible program is a credential with a long tail.
Every one of those survives the Games. That is the difference between capability and contract, and it is the difference a buyer pays for.
So when should you sell
Three positions, and the right one depends on your business rather than the calendar.
Selling before the program winds down. Usually the strongest option for anyone genuinely in this space. You are selling into demand, with the capability proven and the work still visible, to buyers who want exposure to the pipeline. The presentation writes itself if you have the panel positions and the systems to show.
Selling after. Harder than owners expect. Your Games revenue has ended and has to be explained in the accounts. Competitors who scaled up are frequently exiting at the same time, which lifts supply exactly when you do not want it. And a large program finishing tends to soften the sector behind it for a period.
Not in this space at all. Most Queensland businesses are not, and it changes nothing for them. A retail business in Bundaberg, a professional services firm in Cairns, a window furnishings operation on the Gold Coast. The pipeline is not going to lift you and there is no reason to time anything around it.
What I would do now
If your business could tender for this work and is not, look at that properly. Registrations of interest, expressions of interest and tenders are published by GIICA, and Business Queensland publishes guidance on preparing a compliant response. Forward work on the calendar is one of the few things that reliably moves a multiple.
If you are already doing it, keep the base business alive alongside it. Track and be able to show revenue split between Games and non Games work across three years, because that is the first split a buyer will ask for and having it ready changes the conversation. Be deliberate about what you buy and who you hire, and know what the overhead looks like on the other side.
And know your number before the decision matters. A market appraisal reviews the actual financials, the customer mix, the plant and finance position and how much of the business survives your departure, then tells you what it is worth as it stands and what would move it. It is free, it is confidential, and it commits you to nothing.
The Games are a real program with real money attached. Whether they make your business worth more depends entirely on whether you build something that outlasts them.
Common questions
Will the Brisbane 2032 Olympics increase the value of my business?
It can, but not simply because you win Games work. Buyers pay a multiple of normalised earnings, and they discount earnings that have a known end date. A business whose profit is largely Games project revenue may be worth less per dollar of profit than one with steady recurring work. What genuinely lifts value is the durable capability built along the way, including prequalification, accreditation, panel positions, systems and a delivery record.
Should I wait until after 2032 to sell my business?
Rarely, and only for specific reasons. Waiting means selling into a market where a large infrastructure program has just finished, where competitors who scaled up are also looking to exit, and where your own Games revenue has ended and has to be replaced in the accounts. If the only reason to wait is the Games, that is usually an argument for selling before them rather than after.
Is Olympics work good or bad for a business sale?
Both, depending on how it is handled. It is good if it funds capability that outlasts the program and if it sits alongside a diversified revenue base. It is a problem if the business restructures itself around finite work, takes on plant and staff that cannot be unwound, and ends up with one client at a large share of turnover and a hard finish date.
How do I get on the Brisbane 2032 procurement list?
The Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority procures the 17 new and upgraded venues and publishes registrations of interest, expressions of interest and tenders at giica.au/procurement. There is also an industry newsletter and a supplier portal through the organising committee. Business Queensland publishes guidance on preparing tender responses.
Keep reading
All notes on selling a business · All seller guides · What is my business worth?
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