Genstar Capital has acquired the Operational Excellence & Risk Management business of publicly traded IHS (Information Handling Services).
The Operational Excellence & Risk Management business (OERM) provides software that is used by companies to manage their environmental, health, safety, and sustainability processes. The business has over 2,500 customers and hundreds of thousands of individual users primarily in highly regulated industries such as oil & gas, chemicals, and manufacturing. OERM has more than 500 employees and is headquartered in Chicago (OERM).
Genstar is partnering with Paul Marushka on this carve-out transaction. Mr. Marushka will serve as president and CEO of OERM which Genstar will rebrand by the end of 2016. Previously, Mr. Marushka was the president of Marsh ClearSight, a business unit of insurance broker and risk manager Marsh, LLC. “With the support of Genstar, OERM is now very well positioned to pursue a reinvigorated growth strategy that will help our clients drive operational excellence as they face growing regulatory complexities in the US and internationally,” said Mr. Marushka.
“This represents a signature Genstar transaction. We backed a talented leader in Paul to bring differentiated insight to a non-core business unit within a large corporate parent,” said Ryan Clark, President and Managing Director of Genstar. “Building on our recent success in carve-outs such as Insurity and Genworth Wealth Management, we have developed a blueprint to create tremendous value and we are excited to begin the work of accelerating growth here.”
Genstar, which had a final close in August 2015 of its seventh fund with $2 billion in commitments, invests from $50 million to $400 million in middle-market companies that have enterprise values from $50 million to $1 billion and EBITDAs greater than $15 million. Genstar targets investments in the financial services, software, industrial technology, and healthcare industries. The firm was founded in 1988 and is based in San Francisco (www.gencap.com).
New York-based Willkie Farr & Gallagher (www.willkie.com) provided legal services to Genstar on this transaction. The Willkie deal team was led by partners Jeffrey Poss and Manuel Miranda.
IHS (NYSE:IHS) provides information, insights, and analytics to multinational companies, governments, small companies, and technical professionals in the aerospace, defense and security; automotive; chemical; energy; maritime and trade; and technology sectors. The company was founded in 1959 and is headquartered south of Denver in Englewood, CO (www.ihs.com).
© 2016 Private Equity Professional • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 6-2-16