Carousel Capital's sixth investment fund has acquired a significant ownership interest in Quality Automotive Services, LLC (“QAS”), a leading franchisee in the Valvoline Instant Oil Change (“VIOC”) system with locations across the Southeast and Midwest. VIOC is the second-largest quick lube operator in the United States, offering superior customer service utilizing Valvoline's product portfolio to deliver quick, easy and trusted preventive maintenance to its consumers.
Founded in 2001 and based in Charlotte, NC, QAS’ Founder and President, Andrew Slattery, had grown the franchise from a single location to 78 stores, spanning seven states. At that time QAS was the fourth-largest and fastest growing VIOC franchisee in the United States. Since Carousel’s initial investment, QAS has expanded its development territory via the acquisitions of Superior Lube, Inc. and SteelToe Group, LLC with operations and development rights to South Carolina, Georgia, Western Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. Through these acquisitions, and the continued execution of QAS’ established M&A and greenfield expansion strategy, QAS now operates 114 stores across 11 states and is VIOC’s third-largest franchisee.
Matt McKeown, CEO of QAS, said “We are excited to have accelerated the execution of our strategic plan so quickly after partnering with Carousel. Their extensive experience partnering with market-leading multi-location automotive service platforms has been invaluable in helping to take QAS’ growth trajectory to the next level.”
“We are impressed with the great job that Andrew Slattery and Matt McKeown have done in building the fastest-growing franchisee within the best-in-class VIOC system. VIOC is a people-first, results-driven organization and has an extraordinary track record of results — traits Carousel Capital shares with the brand. The VIOC SuperPro operating model and its ability to leverage data and technology has helped to deliver 15 years of same store sales growth,” said Peter Clark, a Partner of Carousel.
“Given our nearly 20 years of experience across five platform investments in automotive aftermarket services, we could not be more proud to be a part of VIOC’s bright future,” said Jason Schmidly, a Managing Partner of Carousel.
The transaction was funded with equity from Carousel Capital’s sixth fund. Senior debt financing was provided by Antares Capital. K&L Gates LLP served as legal advisor.
