Wafra Partners has sold Century Fire Protection to publicly-traded FirstService Corporation. Wafra acquired Century in January 2007.
Century designs, fabricates, installs, maintains, repairs, monitors and inspects fire protection products for commercial, residential, industrial and institutional customers. The company had revenues in 2015 of approximately $93 million. Century has approximately 600 employees and operates out of 12 offices in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. The company is headquartered near Atlanta in Duluth, GA (www.centuryfp.com).
“We were pleased to have had the opportunity to work closely with management in order to transition Century from primarily a Georgia-centric, provider of installation services to the largest, independent full service fire protection company in the Southeast,” said Michael Goodman, a Managing Director at Wafra.
During the term of its ownership Wafra worked with the management of Century to add new services and close on three add-on acquisitions. “Through the addition of various service capabilities and three accretive acquisitions, Century is now a rapidly growing company that has diversified toward recurring, higher-margin work on existing facilities, expanded into new end markets and geographies, and added the sales, estimation, accounting and operational personnel necessary to support an end-to-end platform,” added Mr. Goodman.
Wafra invests up to $30 million of equity per transaction in middle market companies based in North America that have enterprise values between $20 million and $150 million. Typical investments have revenue of $20 million or more and EBITDA of $4 million or more. Sectors of interest include consumer products, outsourced business services, niche manufacturing, and consumer-driven services. The firm is based in New York (www.wafrapartners.com).
“Wafra Partners has been an ideal partner,” said Scott Tutterow, CEO and founder of Century Fire. “They provided management with the strategic resources and capital necessary to help us achieve our strategic and financial goals. Wafra was flexible and stuck with us during some difficult times. As a result of our collaborative relationship, we are now in a position to further accelerate growth with the support of our new partners.”
FirstService Corporation (TSX and NASDAQ: FSV) provides outsourced property services to the commercial and residential property sectors. The company had $1.3 billion in annual revenues in 2015 and has approximately 16,000 employees. FirstService is headquartered in Toronto (www.firstservice.com).
© 2016 Private Equity Professional • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 4-14-16
