Quad-C has acquired SEI Group, an installer of residential building products for builders and general contractors, from Narrow Gauge Capital.
SEI Group installs fiberglass and spray foam insulation, gutters, garage doors, fireplaces, house-wraps, door hardware, and mailboxes at single-family and multi-family residential construction projects throughout the Southeast including Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
The company, based northeast of Atlanta in Doraville, Georgia, was founded in 2008 by Matt Hopkins and Eric Cunningham and has more than 200 employees.
Quad-C partnered on this acquisition with insulation industry executives Joe Carrington and Sean Cusack who have joined the company as CEO and CFO, respectively. Mr. Carrington was formerly the CEO of Service Partners, one of the largest distributors of insulation in the US, from 1998 to 2004. After Service Partners, he was the Executive Vice President-Insulation for Masco and has been on the board of directors of SEI since 2016. Mr. Cusack had multiple roles at Service Partners for more than 17 years including president, chief financial officer and chief people officer.
Narrow Gauge acquired SEI Group in May 2016 with Siguler Guff and Goldman Sachs as co-investors.
“Since our partnership with the SEI team in 2016, the company has made terrific strides,” said Adam Doctoroff, a partner at Narrow Gauge. “Through five strategic acquisitions, SEI has grown from a single location in Atlanta to a footprint across the Southeastern US. We are grateful to the team for their hard work in building the business and wish them great success as they embark upon the next stage of their expansion strategy.”
SEI’s most recent add-on was the October 2020 buy of American Residential Products, a Florida-based installer of insulation, shower surrounds, closet shelving, and mirrors for single-family and multi-family residential construction markets in Florida.
Quad-C intends to continue SEI’s consolidation strategy to build a national installer of insulation and specialty building products. Building products is a specific sector of focus for Quad-C and the buy of SEI is the firm’s eleventh investment in the sector and second investment in the insulation segment specifically. Back in 1998, Quad-C partnered with the founders of Service Partners to build, through acquisition, the largest residential fiberglass insulation distributor in the United States.
“We are excited to partner with Quad-C to execute on the growth strategy at SEI,” said Mr. Carrington. “We believe there is tremendous opportunity to accelerate our growth by acquiring successful and well-managed companies who share our commitment to maintaining an entrepreneurial culture. We believe that Quad-C’s commitment to grow the company, coupled with the firm’s acumen, experience and relationships within the building products industry make Quad-C the ideal partner for SEI.”
“We view SEI as an ideal platform to build a national business,” said Matt Trotta, a vice president at Quad-C. “We are excited to have the opportunity to partner with the SEI team to execute on our collective strategy and build a leading national installer of insulation and specialty building products.”
Quad-C invests from $35 million to $125 million of equity in companies with enterprise values of $75 million to $400 million. Sectors of interest include business services, consumer, general industrial, healthcare, specialty distribution and transportation and logistics. Quad-C was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Boston-based Narrow Gauge Capital was formed in March 2015 by a group of professionals who previously invested with Monitor Clipper Partners. Narrow Gauge invests from $20 million to $75 million of equity in transactions where an existing founder or family retains a meaningful ownership stake. Specific sectors of interest include health care services, financial services technology, building products, distribution and logistics.
Croft & Bender was the financial advisor to SEI on this transaction.
© 2021 Private Equity Professional | March 16, 2021
