Kyalami Surface Business Plan — Executive Summary

A branded wrap, PPF and tint operator: two studios, 1,920 jobs a year and R42.0m FY32 revenue at a 20.5% margin.

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Executive Summary

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A capacity-constrained, cash-generative service business in a fragmented premium market, attractive on the base case, unforgiving if installer utilisation disappoints.

Kyalami Surface Company (Pty) Ltd is a proposed start-up that will build and operate premium automotive surface-protection studios in South Africa. The Company applies paint protection film (“PPF”), colour-change vinyl wrap, ceramic coatings and window film to high-value passenger vehicles, and provides livery and branding services to commercial fleets. The first studio will open in the Kyalami corridor in northern Johannesburg, the densest concentration of premium vehicle ownership in the country. A second studio will follow in Cape Town in month 22, subject to the first studio meeting defined performance conditions.

The opportunity

South Africa has a large and growing base of premium vehicles and a professional appearance-protection industry that has not organised itself. New vehicle sales grew roughly 13% in the first half of 2026 and passenger car sales exceeded 420,000 units in 2025, with imported premium models taking a rising share. The vehicles are arriving. What has not arrived is a credible branded operator: the professional channel is populated almost entirely by single-site independents whose quality is genuinely good but whose capacity, brand and commercial discipline are limited, alongside detailing franchises whose brands are stronger than their technical craft.

The Company’s proposition is not a new service. It is the industrialisation of an existing craft service: manufacturer-certified installation quality delivered at scale, with software-cut film patterns, a trained installer pipeline, a proper booking system and a brand that a customer spending R74,000 on a full-body PPF installation can trust.

Figure 1. Revenue builds from a capacity-driven engine, not from assumed growth rates

Revenue is derived as installer-hours multiplied by utilisation, allocated across a defined service mix and priced line by line. No growth percentage is assumed anywhere in the model.

The financial case

On the base case the Company reaches revenue of R42.0m in FY32 with an EBITDA margin of 20.5%, from a peak funding requirement of R16.6m. EBITDA turns positive in month 14. Cumulative EBITDA turns positive in month 35. The business generates cumulative operating cash flow of R12.6m over the five years, repays its debt in full and pays R3.5m of dividends in the final two years.

R42.0m

FY32 revenue

R8.6m

FY32 EBITDA

20.5%

FY32 EBITDA margin

Month 14

EBITDA break-even

R16.6m

Total funding

35.2%

Investor IRR

3.01x

Investor MOIC

59%

Break-even utilisation

Figure 2. EBITDA margin reaches 20.5%, but only once both studios are mature

The Year 3 margin compression is the Cape Town studio opening. It is a real cost of growth and is not netted out of the presentation.

What has to be true

The investment case rests on a small number of propositions. Each is testable, and each is stated here in the form in which it could fail.

Installer utilisation reaches and holds 76%. This is the single dominant variable in the model. At 59% utilisation the mature studio breaks even; at 58% the Year 5 EBITDA falls to R2.1m and the equity return is negative. Nothing else in the plan matters as much.
Certified installers can be recruited and trained at the rate assumed. The Company plans to reach 13 full-time-equivalent certified installers by Year 4. South Africa has, on management’s estimate, fewer than 300 installers capable of full-body PPF work to manufacturer standard. The Company must largely make its own.
Premium vehicle deliveries hold up. Appearance protection is a discretionary purchase attached to a discretionary purchase. It is doubly exposed to the consumer cycle.
The rand does not depreciate faster than prices can be reset. Film is entirely imported and USD-denominated. At 14% annual depreciation, unhedged beyond twelve months, Year 5 EBITDA falls from R8.6m to R3.7m.
Rework is contained below roughly 2.5% of revenue. A failed full-body installation destroys approximately R24,000 of film and 42 installer-hours, neither of which is recoverable.

The finding an investment committee should weigh first

The Company is a good operating business and a demanding investment. Return on capital employed does not exceed the 18.2% weighted average cost of capital until Year 4. The project-level net present value is positive but modest at R7.2m, and it is positive only because of the terminal value: on the five years of explicit cash flows alone, discounted at WACC, the project does not recover its capital.

This is a business whose value is created in Years 4 and 5 and realised on exit. An investor who cannot hold for the full period, or who requires a return before Year 4, should not participate.

Use of funds and structure

The Company seeks R11.5m of institutional equity in two tranches alongside R1.5m of founder equity and R3.6m of committed debt. The second equity tranche of R4.0m is released only on satisfaction of performance conditions tested in month 21. This is the principal downside control in the structure: if the first studio does not perform, roughly a third of the institutional commitment is never deployed and the Cape Town studio is not built.

Figure 3. Sources and uses reconcile at R16.6m

Working capital of R2.9m reflects a 72-day inventory cycle on imported film, partly offset by customer deposits.