Building Products Distribution M&A Gains Momentum, BGL Reports
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The report examines the building products distribution landscape, identifies where deal activity has been concentrated, and highlights fragmented markets positioned for further consolidation. Among its findings: scale is becoming a strategic necessity rather than a growth lever, technology is emerging as a competitive differentiator, and distributors are expanding into specialty products and value-added services to capture a greater share of customer spending, with the strongest platforms moving beyond pure distribution toward integrated offerings.Andrew Petryk, BGL’s head of industrials, said building products distribution is attracting substantial capital as strategic buyers and private equity firms consolidate fragmented markets, expand product portfolios, and strengthen service capabilities.Brown Gibbons Lang is an independent investment bank and financial advisory firm focused on the global middle market, with offices in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and New York.StoneTree Invests in Aboveground Pool Maker Wilbar Group
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StoneTree Investment Partners, a private equity firm focused on lower middle-market industrial businesses, has made an investment in Wilbar Group, which comprises Wilbar International, Trendium Pool Products, and Crystal Water Investments.
Wilbar designs and manufactures hard-sided premium aboveground and semi-inground swimming pools, producing steel, resin, hybrid, and aluminum pool systems sold through dealers and distributors. Founded in 1961 by the Cohen family and headquartered in Hauppauge, New York, with two facilities in Quebec, the company sells across the United States, Canada, and international markets. Kelly Grindle continues as chief executive officer. Joel Stanwood and Chris Dupré, partners at StoneTree, led the transaction.
StoneTree Investment Partners, an industrials-focused firm with approximately $200 million in assets under management, invests in niche manufacturing and industrial companies.
Capstone Partners, a Boston-based middle-market investment bank, advised Wilbar Group, while McGuireWoods and Stikeman Elliott served as legal counsel to StoneTree.
Citation Capital Closes Inaugural Fund at $1.2 Billion
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Citation Capital, a Dallas-based private equity firm that buys control stakes in founder- and family-led businesses, has held the final close of its inaugural fund, Citation Fund I. The fund was oversubscribed, reaching its $1.1 billion hard cap in third-party commitments; with capital from the general partner and affiliates, total investable capital reached $1.2 billion, and Citation manages $2.1 billion in assets including co-investment capital.
Founded in 2023 by Tiffany Hagge and Lydie Hudson, alongside partners Spencer Almy and Santiago Castelazo, Citation Capital invests in middle-market services, industrials, and consumer businesses across North America. It has completed four investments to date: Cibo Vita, Aptive Environmental, Gallo Mechanical, and World Travel Holdings. Ms. Hagge is founder and managing partner and Ms. Hudson is co-founder and president. According to third-party sources, Citation Fund I ranks among the biggest first-time buyout funds of the past decade and is the biggest female-founded buyout fund launched to date.
Citation is headquartered in Dallas, with an office in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Warburg-Led Group to Acquire Control of PANTHERx Rare
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A Warburg Pincus-led investor group has agreed to acquire a controlling interest in PANTHERx Rare, an independent specialty pharmacy focused on rare diseases, from Nautic Partners, General Atlantic, and The Vistria Group. Nautic Partners and PANTHERx management will remain significant shareholders.
PANTHERx dispenses medications for rare diseases and supports patients, prescribers, and drugmakers in navigating complex therapy programs, helping patients access and stay on treatment.Founded in a Pittsburgh garage in 2011, the company is licensed in all 50 states. Bansi Nagji continues as chief executive officer. The transaction is expected to close in the coming months.
Warburg Pincus, founded in 1966 and headquartered in New York, is a global growth investor with more than $105 billion in assets under management. T.J. Carella, managing director and head of healthcare, and Adam Krainson, a managing director, led the transaction for the firm. Nautic Partners, a middle-market private equity firm based in Providence, Rhode Island, focuses on healthcare, industrials, and services and has completed more than 165 platform transactions over its 40-year history.
J.P. Morgan Securities served as financial advisor to Warburg Pincus, with Centerview Partners and Goldman Sachs advising PANTHERx. Cleary Gottlieb provided legal counsel to Warburg Pincus and Ropes & Gray to PANTHERx.
IMB Acquires Strategic Land Services
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IMB Partners, a Bethesda, Maryland private equity firm focused on utility and infrastructure services, has acquired Strategic Land Services (SLS), a Georgia-based heavy civil contractor. SLS does the site-preparation and civil groundwork — land development, grading, erosion control, stormwater management, right-of-way clearing, and access-road and pad construction — needed to build and expand electric substations and transmission lines.
Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Oakwood, Georgia, the company has served Georgia electric utilities for more than two decades. Randall Humphrey continues as president. Lamar Warren, a director at IMB Partners, led the transaction, which was finalized in late May. IMB plans to expand the company’s service lines and build a regional site-preparation platform, drawing on its experience with utility services businesses including LaFata Contract Services, Carr & Duff, and Farwest Corrosion Control.
IMB Partners invests in utility, infrastructure, information technology, cybersecurity, and food companies with annual revenues between $10 million and $250 million.
Vance Street Names Jason Burmer Head of Business Development
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Jason Burmer has joined Vance Street Capital, a Los Angeles-based middle-market private equity firm, as managing director and head of business development. Mr. Burmer will lead the firm’s origination efforts in support of its sector-focused investment strategy. He joins from Edgewater Capital Partners, a specialty industrials and life sciences fund, where he led business development for seven years, and previously served as an associate director at H.I.G. Capital, originating investments in the industrials and services sectors. 
Vance Street invests in highly engineered businesses across the industrial technology, medical, life science, aerospace, and defense sectors, working with management teams and family owners to accelerate growth and pursue add-on acquisitions. Brian Martin is managing partner and Steve Sandbo is a partner at Vance Street.
Gemspring-Backed TRG Acquires Barcode Supply
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TRG, a Cleveland-based portfolio company of Gemspring Capital, has acquired Barcode Supply, a Greensboro, Georgia provider of barcode, RFID, labeling, and data-capture hardware, consumables, software, and services. TRG manages and secures the full lifecycle of enterprise endpoints — the devices employees use — from sourcing and configuration through deployment, repair, and ongoing management, and the acquisition adds complementary capabilities while expanding its presence in the U.S. Southeast.
Founded in 2003, Barcode Supply helps organizations source, deploy, and support barcode and labeling systems. Jason Littleton continues as chief executive officer and will lead the team as part of TRG. Sean Kennedy is founder and president of TRG.
Gemspring Capital, a Westport, Connecticut-based private equity firm with $5.1 billion of capital under management, invests in middle-market companies across a range of sectors.
Thrust Capital Acquires Aerospace Foundry Alphacasting
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Thrust Capital Partners (TCP), a Canadian private equity firm dedicated to the aerospace and defense industry, has acquired Alphacasting, a Quebec-based foundry that casts precision titanium and aluminium components for aerospace and defense customers.
Founded in 1991, Alphacasting uses the lost-wax investment casting technique to manufacture high-complexity parts across more than 120 alloys, and is the only Canadian foundry with titanium casting capabilities. Louis Marc Pinard, former chief operating officer of AP&C, a GE Aerospace company, joins as chief executive officer, while Frederik Centazzo, who built the company alongside his father, Arduino Centazzo, continues as vice president of sales and business development. Frédéric Loiselle, a partner at TCP, led the transaction.
Thrust Capital Partners is a Canadian private equity fund dedicated to the aerospace and defense supply chain. Norton Rose Fulbright Canada and KPMG served as legal and tax advisors to TCP, while Spiegel Ryan and MNP Corporate Finance advised the sellers on legal and financial matters.
HighVista Adds Ramit Malhotra to GP-Led Secondaries Team
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Ramit Malhotra has joined HighVista Strategies, a Boston-based employee-owned alternative asset manager, as a principal on its New York-based GP-led secondaries team. Mr. Malhotra arrives from CPP Investments (Canada Pension Plan Investment Board), where he was a principal on the private equity secondaries team; earlier he was a vice president at Spring Bridge Partners, held a secondaries role at Credit Suisse, and began in investment banking at Wells Fargo.
His hiring follows the recent addition of Michelle Santos as a vice president on the team, which HighVista launched earlier this year under managing director and head of private equity secondaries Raudel Yanez. The strategy focuses on GP-led secondaries and continuation vehicles in the lower middle market. Raphi Schorr is deputy chief investment officer at HighVista.
Founded in 2004, HighVista manages $14 billion across private markets, public markets, and multi-asset alternatives.
McDermott Will & Schulte Names Robert Rizzo Global Co-Head of Private Equity
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Robert Rizzo has joined McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm, as global co-head of its private equity group, arriving from Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Mr. Rizzo advises private equity sponsors and funds, along with related businesses and asset managers, across the investment lifecycle, with a practice spanning leveraged buyouts, mergers and acquisitions, independent sponsor transactions, growth equity investments, recapitalizations, carve-outs, fundraising, divestitures, SPACs, and cross-border transactions. He brings more than 22 years of experience advising private equity sponsors.
Mr. Rizzo’s appointment comes as McDermott expands in New York, where the firm has grown its footprint roughly tenfold over the past decade and risen into the ranks of the city’s ten biggest, a trajectory that accelerated with the 2025 combination that created McDermott Will & Schulte. Ira Coleman is chair of McDermott Will & Schulte, and Harris Siskind is global head of the transactions practice group.
McDermott Will & Schulte has more than 1,700 lawyers across more than 20 offices globally.
DC Advisory Expands Global Financial Sponsors Coverage
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DC Advisory, an international investment bank that advises companies and private equity firms on mergers, acquisitions, debt raisings, and restructurings, has expanded its global Financial Sponsors Group (FSG) across Asia, Europe, and the US. The team now numbers more than 40 professionals, including a UK group led by Andrew Strudwick, senior bankers who manage sponsor relationships across Europe, and a growing US presence following three FSG hires in 2026, among them Yaron Redlich and Matthew Eichenblatt. In Asia, the firm’s Japan team provides dedicated sponsor coverage, complemented by an expanding Southeast Asia presence after the appointment of Roy Toledano as managing director and head of Singapore investment banking.
Financial sponsors account for a substantial share of DC Advisory’s client base. Over the past 12 months, the firm advised on 184 transactions globally, 60 of them cross-border, with 88 — or 48% — involving sponsors or sponsor-backed companies, and 116, or 63%, involving a sponsor-related client or counterparty. The firm’s coverage spans aerospace, defense and government services; business and tech-enabled services; consumer, leisure and retail; education; financial services; healthcare; industrials; infrastructure; media and telecom; real estate; and technology and software, alongside product teams in debt advisory and restructuring, GP strategic advisory, and private capital markets.
DC Advisory has more than 750 professionals across 24 locations in Asia, Europe, and the US, and is part of Daiwa Securities Group.
Gridiron Backs Oracle Cloud Specialist Centroid
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Gridiron Capital has made an investment in Centroid, a Troy, Michigan-based technology firm. Centroid helps enterprises move their systems onto Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and then runs and supports those environments for them. Its Oracle-focused services span consulting and cloud migration, managed services and support renewals, OCI capacity and consumption, and engineered systems, serving enterprise and mid-market clients across a range of industries on a largely recurring basis.
Founded in 1997 by Scott Morrell, Eric Reed, and Jim Brull, the company has built a nearly 30-year partnership with Oracle and supports enterprise adoption of OCI. Mr. Morrell continues as chief executive officer. The transaction is the final platform investment in Gridiron’s Fund V, now fully deployed, and Gridiron will partner with management to accelerate growth organically and through acquisitions.
Steve Lamb, a managing director at Gridiron, worked on the investment. Gridiron partners with founders, entrepreneurs, and management teams to build middle-market companies across business services, consumer products and services, and industrial growth in the United States and Canada. Tom Burger is co-founder and managing partner.
Moelis & Company served as financial advisor and Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff as legal counsel to Gridiron. Guggenheim Securities served as financial advisor and Willkie Farr & Gallagher as legal counsel to Centroid.
Veritas Capital to Acquire Facilities Manager BGIS
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Veritas Capital has agreed to acquire BGIS from CCMP Capital Advisors and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). BGIS runs and maintains buildings and facilities — offices, data centers, and government, healthcare, and industrial sites — for large public and private organizations, handling the engineering, operations, and technology that keep those properties running, a service known in the industry as technical integrated facilities management (IFM).
The company oversees more than 65,000 facilities totaling over 620 million square feet globally with a team of more than 12,000. Gord Hicks continues as chief executive officer and will lead the business with his management team. CCMP and AIMCo had backed BGIS since 2019.
Veritas Capital, a technology investor focused on companies operating at the intersection of technology and government, manages over $54 billion in assets. James Dimitri, partner and co-head of flagship private equity at Veritas, led the transaction for the firm.
Citi served as lead financial advisor to BGIS, with TD Securities as co-advisor and BMO Nesbitt Burns and CIBC World Markets also advising.
Granite Creek Promotes Pete Pacelli to Managing Director
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Granite Creek Capital Partners, a Chicago-based private investment firm, has promoted Pete Pacelli to managing director as it expands its investment focus across the agriculture value chain.
Mr. Pacelli joined Granite Creek in 2023 as a principal and has been central to the firm’s agribusiness strategy, contributing to transaction sourcing and execution, portfolio company management, and investor relations. He holds several board seats with Granite Creek portfolio companies, including Global Animal Products, which makes trace mineral feed additives that ranchers and farmers add to livestock diets to keep beef, dairy, and poultry animals healthy. Before joining Granite Creek, Mr. Pacelli held investment and advisory roles at Knox Capital, Wind Point Partners, and Bank of America, and founded Victory Views, a software-enabled managed services business. A U.S. Navy veteran, he holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Mark Radzik is co-founder and managing partner of Granite Creek.
Founded in 2005, Granite Creek provides growth capital and strategic resources to lower middle-market companies across manufacturing, business services, healthcare, agribusiness, and aerospace and defense.
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William Blair Hires Biopharma Banking Head Michael Allwin
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Michael Allwin has joined William Blair, the global investment bank, as a managing director and head of biopharma investment banking, based in New York.
Mr. Allwin arrives from Truist Securities, where he held the same title, and will lead the firm’s global efforts advising public and private biopharma companies across all stages of development, along with financial sponsors and venture firms focused on the sector. He brings nearly 15 years of biopharma experience, including investment banking roles at Credit Suisse, RBC Capital Markets, and Deutsche Bank, spanning M&A, equity and equity-linked transactions, IPOs, follow-ons, private placements, debt securities, PIPEs, and venture capital funding. He holds a B.A. in political science and economics from Bucknell University. Steve Tole is managing director and head of healthcare investment banking at William Blair.
Mr. Allwin is the latest senior banker to join William Blair in 2026, following additions including Jayant Dey in energy, Alain Harfouche in chemicals, and Rishi Sethi in FinTech in London, alongside the firm’s acquisition of Inner Circle Sports.
Braemont Strengthens Origination Efforts With Two Key Hires
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Braemont Capital has hired Daniel Grinnan as managing director and Will Olson as vice president of business development. Mr. Grinnan joins from the Riverside Company, where he served as principal focused on originating, executing, and managing investments; he previously held roles at Newstone Capital Partners and Raymond James, and holds an MBA from the Wharton School. Mr. Olson joins from Vixxo Facility Solutions, a Braemont portfolio company, where he served as vice president of corporate development; he previously held roles at Farmers Business Network, Stax, and EY-Parthenon. Robert Covington is founder and managing partner of Braemont Capital.
Ridgeline Raises the Roof in Illinois With Seventh Acquisition
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Ridgeline Roofing & Restoration, the Bertram Capital-backed provider of residential and commercial roofing solutions, has acquired Freedom Roofing & Construction, a Champaign, Illinois provider of roofing installation and repair, siding, gutters, and storm damage restoration services. Freedom Roofing was founded in 2014 by Kurt Kiser, who will remain with the business following the close. The buy of Freedom is Ridgeline’s seventh add-on acquisition since its founding in 2020. Zach Bassi, a vice president at Bertram Capital, led the transaction.
Ridgeline provides residential and commercial re-roofing and restoration services including roof repairs, full replacements, and storm damage restoration, along with siding and gutter installation, across Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Minnesota, Nebraska, and now Illinois. Chris Baldus continues as chief executive officer. Bertram Capital invested in Ridgeline in January 2024 as the first platform for its Bertram Ignite strategy targeting companies with EBITDA of $3 million to $7.5 million.
DLA Piper Strengthens Sponsor-Side M&A Team
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Kevin O’Mara has joined DLA Piper as a partner in its private equity practice in New York. Mr. O’Mara advises private equity sponsors and portfolio companies on cross-border transactions, including platform and add-on acquisitions, divestitures, and general corporate matters, across manufacturing, media, oil and gas, business services, education, healthcare, and technology. His practice includes coordinating counsel across finance, healthcare regulatory and compliance, and tax structuring in complex domestic and international PE transactions.