CIVC Partners has sold Peak Utility Services Group to ORIX Capital Partners. CIVC acquired Peak (previously Track Utilities) in June 2014.
Peak is a provider of utility services to the natural gas, telecom, and electric utility markets in the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West regions of the United States. The company provides a suite of services for the recurring repair, replacement, maintenance, and installation of natural gas, aerial and underground telecom, and overhead and underground electric infrastructure.
Peak currently operates through three subsidiaries: Track Utilities, based in Meridian, ID, is a provider of electric and telecommunications infrastructure services; Sitewise Corporation, based in Wheat Ridge, CO, is a provider of maintenance and construction services for natural gas utility owners (Sitewise was acquired by Peak in April 2016); and Kelly Cable, based in Albuquerque, NM, provides aerial and underground construction services to telecom and electric utility owners in New Mexico (Kelly was acquired by Peak in July 2017). Collectively, the company has 22 locations and nearly 1,000 employees with a headquarters in Meridian, ID (www.peakusg.com).
During CIVC’s ownership term, Peak’s headcount increased from just over 200 employees in 2014 to nearly 1,000 at the time of the sale and EBITDA more than tripled in under four years. “The Peak management team has done an exceptional job creating a leading utility services platform with a strong track record of success,” said John Compall, a partner at CIVC. “It has been a pleasure working with them and we are excited to follow the continued growth of the platform.”
CIVC invests from $15 million to $85 million in companies that have at least $5 million of EBITDA. Sectors of interest include business services and financial services. Since 1989, CIVC has invested $1.5 billion in 61 platform companies and is currently investing through its fifth fund, CIVC Partners Fund V LP, which closed at its hard cap of $400 million in May 2017. CIVC is headquartered in Chicago (www.civc.com).
“The CIVC team was instrumental in our ability to scale the Peak platform to where it is today,” said Lee Wilkerson, Senior Corporate Advisor and former CEO of Peak. “We relied heavily on their deep knowledge of the utility services industry.”
ORIX Capital Partners, the buyer of Peak, invests from $75 million to $200 million of equity per transaction in North America based middle-market companies that are active in the business services, infrastructure services and industrials sectors. New York-based ORIX Capital Partners is a business unit of ORIX USA, a Dallas-based financial services firm. Its parent company, ORIX Corporation, is a Tokyo-based, publicly owned financial services company with operations in 38 countries and regions worldwide (www.orixcapitalpartners.com).
Harris Williams & Co. (www.harriswilliams.com) was the financial adviser to Peak and Kirkland & Ellis (www.kirkland.com) provided legal services.
© 2018 Private Equity Professional | June 29, 2018
