Nautic Partners has agreed to acquire Vallen Distribution from the Sonepar Group.
Vallen provides maintenance, repair, and operating products to customers in the aerospace, automotive, heavy equipment, marine, petrochemical and transportation industries. The company’s products include abrasives, chemicals and adhesives, cutting tools, machine tool accessories, paints and tapes, safety, and workholding items.
Vallen also provides technical services including safety equipment inspection, maintenance, and certification. Vallen is led by CEO Chuck Delph and is headquartered in the Charlotte suburb of Belmont, North Carolina.
“This partnership with Nautic marks an exciting new chapter for Vallen, with a focus on accelerating performance while continuing to provide our customers the excellent service, solutions, and products they expect,” said Mr. Delph. “We are eager to move forward with Nautic’s support enhancing our strong relationships with customers, suppliers, and our Vallen team.”
Sonepar is a business-to-business distributor of electrical, industrial and safety products and services. Founded in 1969, the Paris, France-based company is family-owned and provides a variety of products including power distribution, industrial controls, automation, renewable energy, HVAC, cables, wires, lighting, safety equipment to a worldwide customer base.
Sonepar acquired Vallen, then operating as Hagemeyer North America, in March 2008 from Rexel, a Paris-based electrical products distributor. In 2016, Sonepar rebranded Hagemeyer North America as Vallen Distribution. Hagemeyer had owned the Vallen name since it acquired the Houston-based safety products distributor in 1999.
“Vallen is led by Chuck Delph and a deep management team. We are excited about Chuck and the team’s ability to accelerate the business’ growth trajectory in the coming years and are thrilled to partner with them to support the company’s future efforts,” said Chris Pierce, a managing director of Nautic. “Additionally, we are excited to add another industrial distribution investment to our portfolio, as well as to lean on our prior experience with corporate carveouts to help Vallen successfully transition to a standalone organization.”
Providence, Rhode Island-headquartered Nautic makes majority equity investments of $50 million or more in companies that are active in the healthcare, industrial products, and outsourced services sectors. Typical transactions include leveraged buyouts, buy-and-builds, founder transitions, corporate carve-outs, and public to private. The firm recently closed its latest fund, Nautic Partners X LP, in November 2021 with $3 billion in committed capital.
J.P. Morgan was the financial advisor to Sonepar and BMO Harris Bank, Capital One and Wells Fargo provided the debt financing for this transaction
© 2022 Private Equity Professional | March 10, 2022
