Aterian Investment Partners has acquired The Pace Companies, a provider of plumbing, HVAC, and fire protection services.
Pace provides its services in the New York metropolitan area and serves the residential, commercial, hospitality, healthcare and governmental markets. Pace specializes in both new construction and retrofit projects and works directly with many of New York’s largest general contractors. In addition to its core business the company also provides in-house design, engineering and drafting services.
Pace has worked on numerous marquee projects including The Statue of Liberty, JFK Airport, Carnegie Hall, United Nation’s Secretariat Building, Google’s New York headquarters, and Rockefeller Center. The company, led by its second-generation owner and CEO Andru Coren, was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Brooklyn, NY (www.thepacecompanies.com).
“I am very excited to form a partnership with the Aterian team on Pace’s next phase of growth,” said Mr. Coren. “I am appreciative of all the efforts of the company’s COO Adam Levy, as well as the rest of the Pace leadership team in transforming Pace over the last 50 years into what it is today. I believe the partnership with Aterian will provide Pace even more opportunities to pursue growth initiatives while still maintaining the highest quality contracting services to our customers.”
Aterian invests up to $65 million in small-to-middle market businesses with $25 million to $500 million in revenues. The firm’s sectors of interest are wide and include manufacturing, distribution, chemicals, metals and mining, industrials, retail, consumer products, restaurants, food and beverage, and health care services. Aterian held a first and final closing of Aterian Investment Partners III LP with $350 million of committed capital in July 2018. Aterian’s earlier fund closed in December 2013 with $257 million of capital commitments. The firm was founded in 2009 by Brandon Bethea, Michael Fieldstone and Christopher Thomas and is based in New York (www.aterianpartners.com).
“We are excited to partner with Andru Coren, Adam Levy and the rest of the Pace team,” said Mr. Fieldstone. “We believe Pace is a unique company with a highly talented team, having been able to navigate New York City’s everchanging real estate landscape – from commercial buildings to new residential high rises to hotels and institutional-government funded work. We look forward to supporting management in its strategic growth initiatives while preserving the company’s core values and family-like culture.”
“Pace is a premier contractor in the New York City market and has strategically evolved into one of the few companies that provides sole-sourced expertise across multiple areas of trade,” said Daniel Phan, a principal at Aterian. “Aterian demonstrated its solutions-oriented approach and ability to be creative in our partnership with Andru and Adam, and we look forward to supporting the company in its next phase of growth.”
Stout Risius Ross (www.stout.com) was the financial advisor to Pace. Kirkland & Ellis (www.kirkland.com) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (www.pwc.com) advised Aterian.
© 2019 Private Equity Professional | April 9, 2019