CIVC Partners has sold Yellowstone Landscape to Harvest Partners. CIVC acquired a majority equity interest in the company in January 2015 from Gridiron Capital.
Yellowstone is a provider of commercial landscape services to over 5,000 customers throughout the Southern and Southwestern United States, including corporate campuses, resorts and hotels, homeowners’ associations, multi-family communities, schools, hospitals, and municipalities. Yellowstone is the fifth largest landscaping company in the US in 2018 according to Lawn & Landscape Magazine’s Top 100.
Yellowstone’s services include landscape design, installation, and maintenance; irrigation installation and repair; and tree care services. The company, with annual revenues of just over $230 million, is headquartered in Bunnell, FL and has 40 branches across Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
CIVC was active during its ownership term and invested in Yellowstone’s sales team, management and reporting systems, and safety systems. The company also closed several add-on acquisitions including the 2019 buy of Somerset Landscape & Maintenance, a $32-million revenue company based in Chandler, AZ, from Palo Alto, CA-based Tregaron Capital; and the 2018 buy of Palm Beach, FL-based Leaderscape.
“The CIVC team have been outstanding partners and colleagues,” said Tim Portland, CEO of Yellowstone. “They provided timely, sound, and helpful guidance to our team as we navigated the challenges that come with rapid growth and brought their experience with expanding facility service businesses to bear on our behalf.”
“CIVC is proud to have been a part of Yellowstone’s fantastic success over the past four and a half years, during which time we entered several new geographies and drove strong earnings gains,” said John Compall, a partner at CIVC. “We expect continued success for Yellowstone and Harvest as they continue to build and grow the business.”
Chicago-based CIVC invests from $15 million to $80 million in US or Canadian-based companies that have EBITDA from $4 million to $20 million. Sectors of interest include utility and infrastructure services; facility services; transportation and logistics; outsourced business services; environmental services; IT services; healthcare services; software and technology-enabled services; and financial services. The firm is currently investing from its fifth fund, CIVC Partners Fund V LP, which closed at its hard cap of $400 million in May 2017.
The sale of Yellowstone is a continuation of CIVC’s success in the facility services industry. Current and previous investments include KPA Services, a Lafayette, CO-based provider of environmental, health and safety software and onsite audit services (acquired in 2014); and The Brickman Group, a Gaithersburg, MD-based provider of commercial landscape maintenance services (acquired in 1998 and sold in 2007 to Leonard Green); and Kellermeyer Building Services, a Maumee, OH-based provider of contract janitorial cleaning services (acquired in 2001 and sold in 2007 to Key Principal Partners – now Cyprium Partners).
Harris Williams was the financial adviser to CIVC and Yellowstone on this transaction. The Harris Williams’ team was led by Brian Lucas, Taylor Morris and Maury Nolen of the firm’s business services group and John Neuner of the firm’s consumer group. “We believe Harvest Partners will be a terrific new partner as Yellowstone seeks to continue to execute on its strategic growth plan through both organic means and accretive M&A,” said Mr. Neuner.
Harvest Partners invests in companies that have from $100 million to $1 billion in revenue and $20 million to $100 million in EBITDA. Sectors of interest include business services, consumer services, healthcare services, industrial services, manufacturing and distribution. The firm was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in New York.
© 2019 Private Equity Professional | November 4, 2019