Southfield Capital has acquired American Refrigerator Company (ARC), the largest independent industrial refrigeration service company in New England.
ARC’s services include refrigeration and air conditioning system design, alternative refrigerant evaluations, freezing and cooling response evaluations, and energy studies. The company’s customers are active in the food and beverage, cold storage, pharmaceutical, and process industries.
ARC also provides construction and equipment maintenance and repair for industrial and commercial refrigeration systems. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Andover, MA (www.arc.cool).
Southfield Capital makes control investments in companies that have revenues of $20 million to $100 million and EBITDA of $4 million to $12 million. Sectors of interest include outsourced business services, specialty finance, and value-added distribution. In August 2017, the firm held a final close of Southfield Capital II LP with approximately $200 million in capital commitments. The close was at the fund’s hard cap and exceeded its original target of $175 million. Southfield Capital was founded in 2005 as the successor company to the private investment firm Levison & Company and is headquartered in Greenwich, CT (www.southfieldcapital.com).
Abacus Finance Group was the Administrative Agent and Lead Arranger for $20.5 million in senior secured credit facilities to support the buy of ARC by Southfield. “This was our second transaction with Abacus,” said Southfield Managing Partner Andy Levison, “and once again we were impressed with the flexibility of the financing structure that they proposed and the speed of their willingness to commit to the transaction.”
Abacus provides cash flow-based senior financing to private equity-sponsored, lower-middle market companies that have EBITDA between $3 million and $15 million. Debt facilities can be as large as $60 million with a typical hold size ranging from $10 million to $30 million. New York-based Abacus was formed in June 2011 and is an affiliate of New York Private Bank & Trust (www.abacusfinance.com).
“As Andy noted, this was our second transaction with Southfield,” said Tim Clifford, President and CEO of Abacus, “and as before, they brought us a company of exceptional quality. We were well prepared for due diligence having taken a deep research dive into the industry – an important step in what we call our Total Partnership Approach.” Other Abacus team members involved in the transaction included Aized Rabbani and Joe Lee.
© 2017 Private Equity Professional | November 14, 2017
