Carousel Capital announced today that its fourth fund has successfully exited its investment in Pye-Barker Fire & Safety (“Pye-Barker" or “the Company”), one of the largest providers of route-based fire protection services in the United States. Leonard Green & Partners (“LGP”), a private equity firm based in Los Angeles, California, will partner with the Company moving forward. Carousel Capital, which invested in Pye-Barker in 2016, will remain a minority investor in the company.
Founded in 1946 in Atlanta, Georgia, Pye-Barker Fire & Safety provides fire protection services to businesses across the United States. The Company offers monitoring, inspection, maintenance and repair of fire detection and suppression products. During its partnership with Carousel Capital, Pye-Barker executed 35 add-on acquisitions while maintaining strong organic same-branch-sales growth. The Company maintained a disciplined approach to growth and focused on highly recurring, route-based services while establishing best practices across acquired branches to drive sustained performance improvements and increased operational efficiency. Pye-Barker significantly extended its geographic footprint and scale which in turn vastly expanded its total addressable market. These efforts allowed the Company to increase revenue and EBITDA more than fivefold during its partnership with Carousel.
“Carousel has been a great financial partner for Pye-Barker,” said Bart Proctor, CEO of Pye-Barker. “Their experience and history in route-based services and buy-and-build growth strategies enhanced their ability to provide apt strategic guidance to maximize long-term value of the business. We are very thankful for our partnership, enjoyed the working relationship enabled by their culture and appreciated their emphasis on developing rapport with management.”
Charles Grigg, Managing Partner of Carousel Capital, said, “We are grateful for our partnership with Bart and the rest of the management team, and we are very pleased with our investment in Pye-Barker. Their leadership and acumen have allowed the business to grow into a nationwide platform. Carousel Capital wishes Pye-Barker and Leonard Green continued success, and we are happy to continue as investors in the Company.”
Piper Jaffray acted as financial advisor and K&L Gates acted as legal advisor to Pye-Barker and Carousel Capital.
