Franklin Square Capital Partners has provided a unitranche term loan to finance a dividend recapitalization of Dent Wizard International by H.I.G. Capital, which acquired the company in November 2010.
Dent Wizard offers a range of reconditioning services for vehicles, such as removing dents, dings, creases and hail damage from vehicles without affecting the original factory finish. Other services include bumper, scratch, wheel, leather and vinyl, and carpet and fabric repair services. Dent Wizard provides its services to car dealerships, automobile manufacturers, auto auctions, body shops and collision centers, rental car agencies, insurance companies, fleet owners and operators and individual vehicle owners. Dent Wizard was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton (www.dentwizard.com).
The unitranche financing was provided by three entities managed by Franklin Square and GSO Capital Partners: FS Investment Corporation, FS Investment Corporation II and FS Investment Corporation III. All three are business development companies (BDCs) which invest in the debt securities of private US middle market companies.
“Consistent with our prior experience, GSO and Franklin Square again delivered a timely financing solution tailored to meet our needs,” said Fraser Preston, Managing Director of H.I.G. “This commitment is a vote of confidence in Dent Wizard’s market position and positions the company to continue to pursue its numerous service and channel growth initiatives.”
Franklin Square, headquartered in Philadelphia, is a manager of alternative investment funds. The firm managed approximately $13.6 billion in assets as of September 30, 2014 (www.franklinsquare.com).
“We are pleased to have the opportunity to make this commitment to Dent Wizard and to work again with H.I.G. on this new direct origination,” said Michael Forman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FS Investment Corporation. “The scale of our platform gives us the ability to provide customized financing solutions to our clients and to support our portfolio companies as they develop and grow their businesses.”
H.I.G. Capital specializes in providing capital to small and medium-sized companies and invests in management-led buyouts and recapitalizations of manufacturing or service businesses. H.I.G. Capital has more than $17 billion of capital under management. The firm was founded in 1993 and is based in Miami with additional offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, San Francisco, London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro (www.higcapital.com).
© 2015 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 2-6-15
