Antares Capital and American Capital were co-lead arrangers of a $170 million unitranche facility to support the acquisition of Kele, a portfolio company of CHS Capital, by Snow Phipps Group. Antares Capital acted as the Agent on this financing.
Kele supplies control products including pressure controls, sensors, and valves that are used in commercial and industrial buildings to detect and transmit information such as room temperature and humidity to building HVAC controllers. Kele has more than 108,000 SKUs. The company was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Memphis (www.kele.com).
“We’re thrilled to be lead arranger of this financing for Snow Phipps, continuing our decade-long relationship with Kele,” said Douglas Cannaliato, Senior Managing Director at Antares Capital. “We have a lot of confidence in management and a history of successful partnering with Snow Phipps.”
Snow Phipps makes control investments in companies primarily located in North America with enterprise values ranging from $100 million to $500 million that require equity investments ranging from $40 million to $100 million. The firm has $1.5 billion of assets under management and was co-founded by Ian Snow and Ogden Phipps in April 2005. Snow Phipps is headquartered in New York (www.snowphipps.com).
“We appreciate the efforts of both the Antares and American Capital teams to support us in our acquisition of Kele,” said Sean Epps, a Partner at Snow Phipps. “We have enjoyed a long term relationship with Antares and are benefitting from a new relationship with American Capital and look forward to shared success and partnership with both in the future.”
“We are delighted to have closed our second transaction with Snow Phipps in the last twelve months and were glad to partner with Antares to provide a joint execution,” said Ryan Brauns, Managing Director and Head of Sponsor Finance at American Capital.
Antares Capital is a provider of debt and equity financing for middle-market, private equity-backed transactions. Antares was sold by GE Capital in August 2015 to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Antares has provided more than $120 billion in financing over the past five years and has offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Norwalk (Connecticut) and Toronto. Antares’ new website is presently under construction but when it becomes available the web address is www.antares.com.
American Capital (NASDAQ: ACAS) is a publicly traded private equity firm and asset manager that originates, underwrites and manages investments of $10 million to $750 million in lower and middle market private equity, leveraged finance, real estate and structured products. Founded in 1986, American Capital has $80 billion in total assets under management and has eight offices in the US, Europe and Asia. The firm is headquartered in Bethesda (www.AmericanCapital.com).
© 2015 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 11-10-15
