Sealed and Delivered: LLCP Acquires the Colt Group

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP) has acquired the Colt Group, a specialty industrial services company that repairs leaks and makes connections on pipes and equipment while they remain in service, from Capstreet.

Chief Executive Officer Jason Box and the existing executive team remain significant investors in the business and continue to lead it. Colt is the fifth platform investment of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners VII.

Colt Group exists to spare its customers a shutdown. When a refinery, chemical plant or power station develops a leak in a pipe, valve, flange or heat exchanger, the conventional fix is to take the unit offline, depressurize it and repair it cold — a process that can cost a plant more in lost production than the repair itself. Colt seals the leak with the system still running, clamping an enclosure around the defect and injecting a proprietary sealant compound under pressure.

The same principle runs through the rest of the company’s services line. Hot tapping cuts a new branch connection into a live, pressurized line. Line stopping isolates a section of pipe without draining the whole system, so a downstream repair can proceed while everything upstream keeps operating. Line freezing achieves the same isolation by forming an ice plug inside the pipe. Field machining, composite wraps, bolt torquing and weld test plugs round out the on-site mechanical work.

Behind Colt’s field crews sits an in-house engineering, fabrication and CNC machining operation that designs and builds the clamps and enclosures each repair requires, since the geometry of a leaking flange is rarely standard. Colt serves petroleum refining, chemical processing, electric power generation, nuclear facilities, pipelines, and municipal and industrial water systems from service centers across the United States.

The company began as a consulting business teaching plant operators to perform on-line leak repair themselves and became a service provider as demand outgrew the training model. Founded in 1981 and now past forty years of operation, the Colt Group, led by CEO Jason Box, is headquartered in Pasadena, Texas, about 15 miles southeast of Houston on the Houston Ship Channel.

“Capstreet has been an exceptional partner to Colt, supporting our team and investing alongside us as we have grown and strengthened the business,” said Mr. Box. “We are incredibly proud of what we have accomplished together and grateful for Capstreet’s partnership. We look forward to building on that momentum as we begin our next chapter with LLCP.”

Capstreet acquired Colt, a Texas-based provider of on-line leak repair, hot tapping and line intervention services, in August 2021. The firm then spent the next several years building the company from a regional specialist into a national platform. In December 2024, Colt acquired Plant Services, a Montana-based provider of leak repair, hot tapping, line stopping and field machining services; in January 2025, it added RJ Stacey, a Michigan-based provider of leak repair, hot tapping, line stopping and blast furnace repair; in December 2025, it acquired Garrison Enterprise, a New Jersey-based provider of line intervention services to utilities, contractors and infrastructure customers; and in January 2026, it acquired Watertap, a Michigan-based provider of line intervention services to utilities and contractors. Together, the four add-ons expanded Colt’s geographic reach, broadened its service capabilities and helped turn the business into a national provider.

“Colt is the kind of business Capstreet is built to partner with — a founder-owned and operated company with deep technical expertise, a strong safety culture, and a mission-critical role in its customers’ operations,” said Neil Kallmeyer, a managing partner at Capstreet. “Working alongside Jason and his team, we applied our Capvalue Framework to invest in the people, systems, and capabilities needed to support Colt’s growth, while executing a disciplined acquisition strategy that helped transform the company from a regional provider into a national platform. The strength of the business today is a testament to Jason and the entire Colt team and what we were able to accomplish together.”

A large part of the US industrial base was built in the 1950s and 1960s and is now operating well beyond its original design life. That means more maintenance, more repairs and more spending to keep those assets running, particularly across the Gulf Coast petrochemical corridor. At the same time, federal spending on infrastructure, semiconductors and clean energy is adding new plants to the installed base, including roughly 50 semiconductor fabrication projects and 200 clean energy facilities.

That is a favorable setup for Colt. Much of its work is non-discretionary — when a plant has a leaking line, the choice is usually to repair it or shut the system down. That makes demand less dependent on capital spending and more tied to ongoing maintenance and compliance. Capstreet also gave Colt a broader national footprint, allowing it to compete for multi-site contracts that smaller regional operators cannot easily service.

The market remains fragmented, with no operator holding a meaningful national share in the leak repair niche. That leaves LLCP with the same opportunity Capstreet had: continue building Colt through add-on acquisitions.

Levine Leichtman invests in middle market companies across franchising, education and training, engineered products and manufacturing, and business services. The firm has managed approximately $20.6 billion across nearly 20 funds and roughly 120 portfolio companies over 42 years, and currently manages $15.0 billion.

Colt is the fifth platform investment of LLCP’s $3.6 billion flagship Fund VII. Separately, in July 2026, the firm closed Lower Middle Market Fund IV at a $2.0 billion hard cap. LLCP is headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in New York, Chicago, Miami, London, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Colt management team and support the next phase of the company’s growth. Colt has built a market-leading platform distinguished by its technical expertise, exceptional customer service, and mission-critical value proposition,” said Matthew Rich, a partner at LLCP. “The company’s services help customers avoid costly downtime and extend the life of critical infrastructure assets, making Colt a trusted partner across a highly diverse customer base. We look forward to investing in the organization’s people, capabilities, and geographic footprint as the company continues to expand its leadership position.”

Capstreet primarily makes control investments in privately held, lower middle-market companies that have annual EBITDA between $3 million and $15 million and are active in the software, tech-enabled services, and industrial business services sectors. The firm is headquartered in Houston and has closed more than 50 platform investments and over 200 add-on acquisitions since its founding in 1990.

“Jason and the Colt team have done an outstanding job building the business and positioning it for continued success,” concluded Chas Richard, a principal at Capstreet. “We congratulate the entire team and look forward to watching Colt continue to grow.”

Harris Williams was the financial advisor to LLCP and Houlihan Lokey was the financial advisor to the Colt Group and Capstreet.