New Mountain Capital has acquired Profile Products, a maker of specialty agriscience materials, from Incline Equity.
Profile Products is a provider of mulch and additives, engineered soils, soil conditioners, turf reinforcement mats, and vegetative establishment blankets which are used in the sports fields, golf courses, waste management, civil and private construction, horticulture and energy sectors.
Profile’s products allow its customers – architects, land planners, contractors, developers and municipalities – to improve yields, reduce costs, improve root development and water retention, and achieve environmental goals. Profile is led by CEO Jim Tanner and is headquartered near Chicago in Buffalo Grove, Illinois.
“I want to thank my team for their hard work and support in continuing to build this great company,” said Mr. Tanner. “While I’m extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished, we know there is considerable runway ahead of us and we are excited to partner with New Mountain, a like-minded, growth-oriented investor, who will support our vision for accelerated growth and the broadening of our solution portfolio.”
“Through its track record of innovation, Profile has established itself as a dynamic leader in the green technology and horticulture markets,” said Harris Kealey, a managing director at New Mountain. “We believe Profile is positioned to benefit from favorable macro trends and will continue to take share in its end markets due to its products’ superior performance, cost position, and environmentally sustainable attributes.”
Pittsburgh-based Incline Equity acquired Profile Products in December 2018 and closed three add-on acquisitions including the erosion control and seed businesses of Washington-based HydroStraw (February 2020); Sunterra, a Manitoba-based provider of Canadian sphagnum peat moss (December 2020); and Florikan, a Florida-based provider of controlled release fertilizers (October 2021). Some of Florikan’s fertilizer technologies have been utilized on the international space station (ISS).
“We are incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished with Jim and the Profile team,” said Joseph Choorapuzha, a partner at Incline. “We more than doubled the size of the business through investing in operations to drive organic growth as well as completing three strategic acquisitions.’
“Profile quickly emerged to us as a uniquely attractive platform in both the agriscience and environmental sustainability sectors that New Mountain knows extremely well,” said Gandharv Bedi, a director at New Mountain. “We are excited to partner with Jim and his team to support Profile in its next phase of growth and look forward to investing towards continued product innovation, substantial capacity expansion, and strategic acquisitions to further expand Profile’s value proposition for the horticulture and environmental solutions end markets.”
New Mountain is an industry generalist and invests between $100 million and $500 million per transaction in companies with enterprise values typically between $100 million and $1 billion. The firm, founded in 2000 and headquartered in New York City, has 175 investment professionals and staff and now manages over $35 billion in aggregate assets in private equity, credit, net lease real estate and public equity funds.
In January 2021, New Mountain closed two new private equity funds with $10.2 billion in total capital commitments. The two funds include its flagship fund, New Mountain Partners VI LP, with $9.6 billion of capital, and the firm’s first non-control private equity fund, Strategic Equity Fund I LP with $640 million of capital.
Incline Equity was formed in 2011 and is led by its senior partners, Jack Glover, Justin Bertram, and Leon Rubinov. In January 2020, Incline closed its fifth fund, Incline Equity Partners V LP, with $1.2 billion of capital. Incline invests in growing companies with enterprise values of $25 million to $750 million.
Harris Williams was the financial advisor to Profile Products. The firm’s transaction team was led by Managing Director Tim Webb, Director John Lautemann, Vice President Chuck Walter, Associate Matt Crisafi and Associate Nick Kron.
“It was a pleasure working with management and Incline on this transaction, and we are excited to see Profile continue to grow and evolve under New Mountain’s ownership,” said Mr. Webb. “As the industry leader across a range of green solutions, Jim Tanner and team have truly built a best-in-class platform with multiple avenues for growth.”
Harris Williams provides a range of advisory services across numerous industry groups and geographies and is a subsidiary of publicly traded PNC Financial Services Group (NYSE: PNC).
© 2021 Private Equity Professional | November 19, 2021
