GE Antares served as administrative agent on a $170 million US credit facility and $10 million Canadian credit facility supporting the acquisition by Olympus Partners of Innovative XCessories & Services (IXS), a provider of upfit services and accessories to the automotive aftermarket and original equipment manufacturers. GE Capital Markets served as joint lead arranger and joint bookrunner on these facilities. The seller of IXS was Graham Partners which first invested in the company in August 2005.
“GE Antares has been a trusted financing partner of Olympus for many years and their certainty of execution, speed to close and knowledge and experience in the automotive aftermarket made them an ideal lender for our acquisition of IXS,” said Jason Miller, principal at Olympus Partners.
IXS’ aftermarket division, operating under the brand Line-X, provides protective coatings for pick-up truck beds, with 465 franchise locations in the US and Canada and licensees in over 50 countries. Its OEM division, operating as Ground Effects, provides protective coatings for pick-up truck beds as well as a range of other upfit services and exterior accessories to automotive manufacturers through a network of 15 co-located facilities across North America. IXS has offices in Huntsville, AL; Winsor, ON; and Strasburg, OH (www.ixsllc.com).
“We’re thrilled to provide debt financing to Olympus in support of the IXS acquisition,” said Chet Zara, senior managing director of GE Antares. “There are many promising growth opportunities at IXS, and we look forward to supporting Olympus and management as the company expands.”
GE Antares is a unit of GE Capital with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Specializing in the middle market, GE Antares is a “one-stop” source for GE’s lending and other services to middle market private equity sponsors (www.geantares.com).
2014 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 9-17-14
