Hanover Partners has completed the acquisition of the General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies’ line of communications test equipment and has formed Freedom Communication Technologies to run the acquired business. Partnering with Hanover Partners on this transaction are Tuckerman Capital and Mr. Ricardo Viloria, who becomes the chief executive office of the new platform.
Freedom Communication Technologies (FCT) is a designer, manufacturer, and marketer of test instrumentation analyzers for communication applications. The company’s multi-function test products are used to test radios, signals, and infrastructure of a land-mobile radio systems. Customers of FCT include first responders, utilities, railroads, military and governmental agencies, and other industrial and commercial users. FCT is headquartered east of Dallas in Kilgore, TX (www.freedomcte.com).
Mr. Viloria was previously the Director of Operations of General Dynamics C4 Systems from February 2011 to August 2013. “My team and I are excited to partner with Hanover and Tuckerman to build FCT into the leading developer of test analyzers for mission-critical communications markets,” said Mr. Viloria. “Our investors have decades of experience of growing small-to-medium sized engineered, proprietary product companies into larger organizations.” In addition to being the company’s CEO, Mr. Viloria is also a significant shareholder in FCT.
According to Andrew Ford, a Co-Founder and Principal with Hanover Partners, as the firm evaluated FCT three important investment considerations emerged. “In reviewing this investment, we were particularly impressed by three factors – Mr. Viloria and his management team’s track record at General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies; FCT’s engineering and product development expertise; and the company’s highly-scalable flagship R8000 hardware and software test analyzer system. We are excited to back Mr. Viloria’s vision and invest in FCT’s substantial growth opportunities.”
Hanover Partners acquires majority positions in lower middle-market companies that are active in the specialty equipment, industrial equipment, niche branded consumer products, and non-consumer software sectors. Typical targets will have enterprise values of $8 million to $60 million, revenues of at least $8 million, and adjusted EBIT of $1.5 million to $8 million. Hanover was founded in 1994 by John Palmer and Andrew Ford and has offices in the Portland suburb of Lake Oswego and in San Francisco (www.hanoverpartners.com).
Co-investing with Hanover Partners on this transaction is Tuckerman Capital. The firm invests in companies with enterprise values between $8 million and $30 million. Specific areas of interest include companies that manufacture highly-engineered, non-commodity products across a range of industries, as well as niche service and distribution businesses. FCT is Tuckerman’s nineteenth platform investment since the firm’s founding in 2001, and the fifth transaction in Tuckerman’s most recent fund, Tuckerman Capital IV, LP. Tuckerman Capital is based in Hanover, NH (www.tuckermancapital.com).
“The FCT investment marks the beginning of another significant chapter in our firm’s long history of partnering with the Hanover Partners team to build great specialty manufacturing companies,” said Nick Russell, Partner with Tuckerman Capital. “Our strategy is predicated on investing with value-added partners in support of talented management teams. We are extremely excited to be working with Hanover on this new investment and for the opportunity to support Mr. Viloria’s dynamic vision for continuing to build upon FCT’s already notable products and services in the mission-critical communications test equipment market.”
2015 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 5-8-15
