The Sterling Group has acquired two industrial cleaning and maintenance companies with the simultaneous buys of North American Industrial Services and Evergreen Industrial Services. Together, these companies will have approximately $200 million in annual revenue and a service area that spreads throughout North America.
North American Industrial Services (NAIS) provides high pressure and high volume water-blasting; vacuum truck services; grit blasting; surface preparation; explosives services; tank and vessel cleaning; boiler cleaning; pipe cleaning and restoration; hydro-demolition; and hydro-excavation. NAIS has 23 locations and services companies in the Northeast, Midwest, and Rocky Mountain regions. The company was founded in 1983 as H2O Technologies and today is headquartered north of Albany in Ballston Spa, NY (www.naisinc.com).
Evergreen Industrial Services provides many of the same services as NAIs including vapor control and degassing; tank cleaning; high pressure water-blasting; vacuum truck services; hydro-excavation; grit blasting; and waste processing and minimization. Evergreen primarily serves the petrochemical, refining, and midstream energy end markets. The company has nine locations in Texas, Louisiana and California and is headquartered near Houston in LaPorte, TX (www.evergreenes.com).
Mark Neas, the former president of Brand Energy Solutions, a provider of services to the energy, industrial and infrastructure markets, has been named by Sterling as the CEO of the new platform. Brand Energy Solutions was acquired by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice in September 2013 from First Reserve. Phil Hawk, the former CEO and current Executive Chairman of TEAM (NYSE: TISI) – a provider of specialty industrial services (inspection, evaluation and repair) – has been named Executive Chairman of the new platform.
NAIS founders, Frank and Tim Zilka, and Evergreen founder Jon Hodges will continue to run their businesses and have reinvested in the new platform under Sterling ownership. Both NAIS and Evergreen will continue to operate under their current trade names. The name of Sterling’s new platform has not yet been announced.
“Frank and Tim Zilka and Jon Hodges have built exceptional businesses that will be even stronger as one organization,” said Kevin Garland, a Partner at The Sterling Group. “Together, with the addition of several tenured industry executives, we will execute on our collective vision to continue to grow organically and into new markets, offering an expanded ability to serve the new company’s diverse customer base across the United States.”
The Sterling Group targets controlling interests in manufacturing, industrial services and distribution companies that have enterprise values from $100 million to $500 million. The firm emphasizes an operational approach in partnership with management teams to grow and improve the companies it acquires. Sterling was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Houston (www.sterling-group.com).
© 2016 Private Equity Professional • 6-22-16
