IT consulting

Halfway to 100, Pfingsten Closes Buy of 50th Platform

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Pfingsten Partners has acquired Omega Systems Consultants in partnership with the company’s founders.

Omega is a provider of IT services including cloud-based data hosting, incident management, cybersecurity, help desk support, storage, backup, disaster recovery, and network monitoring.

Omega’s cloud services are maintained and supported through an on-premises Tier 3 data center. A tier 3 data center – one of the most common data center tiers – has redundant and dual-powered servers, storage, network links and cooling resources. Customers of Omega include small and medium-sized businesses that are active in financial services, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services. Omega also serves numerous educational institutions and state and local governments.

Omega, founded in 2002 by CEO Bill Kiritsis and COO Jennifer Kiritsis, is headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania with an additional office near Philadelphia in King of Prussia. The company’s disaster recovery data center is based in Columbus, Ohio.

“We are thrilled to partner with a rapidly growing company like Omega and support their next phase of growth,” said Phillip Bronsteatter, a managing director at Pfingsten. “We started to pursue a platform investment within managed IT services over 18 months ago and Omega is a perfect match to our criteria. We look forward to building upon Omega’s success with additional support and resources and actively pursuing strategic add-on acquisitions.”

“Pfingsten’s focus on culture, innovation and growth make them the ideal partner for our business,” said Mr. Kiritsis. “With Pfingsten’s financial backing, operational resources and experience supporting add-on acquisitions, we look forward to accelerating our growth through additional service offerings and expanded geographic reach.”

The buy of Omega by Pfingsten closed last month and is the eleventh platform investment made by the firm’s $382 million fifth fund which closed in March 2016. Both Bill and Jennifer Kiritsis have retained significant equity ownership in the company in partnership with Pfingsten.

In November 2019, Pfingsten acquired its tenth platform investment for its fifth fund with the buy of Advanced Lighting Concepts (DBA Environmental Lights), a San Diego-based designer and provider of commercial accent LED lighting used in retail, entertainment, trade show, hospitality, gaming and architectural applications.

Chicago-based Pfingsten invests in middle-market manufacturing, distribution and business services companies that have transaction values ranging from $15 million to $100 million, revenues from $20 million to $150 million, and EBITDA between $3 million and $12 million. Since completing its first investment in 1991, Pfingsten has acquired 144 such companies – including 50 platforms – through five funds with total commitments of $1.3 billion.

© 2021 Private Equity Professional | March 16, 2021

Bunker Hill Exits Rizing

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Bunker Hill Capital has sold Rizing, a provider of SAP functional and technical consulting services, to One Equity Partners.

Rizing was formed by Bunker Hill in December 2014 to serve as the parent company of Vesta Partners, a provider of SAP Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) services; and /N SPRO, a provider of SAP Human Capital Management (HCM) services. Rizing is headquartered in Stamford, CT (www.rizing.com).

Editor’s note: SAP is a multinational software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. The company’s Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software supports organizations by managing the lifecycle of physical assets resulting in reduced operating costs, better-managed capital expenditures, and asset utilization; and its Human Capital Management (HCM) software supports the process of recruiting, developing and optimizing an organization’s human resources.

“Together with an excellent management team, we built an SAP-centric consulting business through a combination of acquisitions and organic growth into one of the leading SAP consulting firms with 14 offices around the world,” said Mark DeBlois, a Managing Partner of Bunker Hill Capital.

Vesta was acquired by Bunker Hill in December 2012. The company operates a functional and technical consulting practice focused on EAM solution architecture and configuration for customers in asset intensive industries. The functional consulting practice is focused on architecting and integrating SAP EAM modules, which help customers track, manage and report on capital asset usage. Vesta has a specialization in the utilities, mining, rail, and oil & gas sectors. The company was founded in 2005 (www.vestapartners.com).

/N SPRO was acquired by Bunker Hill in August 2009. The company provides consulting services for SAP software such as SuccessFactors, SAP for Retail, SAP mobile solutions and SAP HCM (www.n-spro.com).

“We are very appreciative of Bunker Hill Capital and all they did to help us grow Rizing into the leading global SAP company that it is today,” said Mike Maiolo, CEO of Rizing. “The partners at Bunker Hill created a solid strategic framework while providing the right level of autonomy for us to successfully drive positive results.”

Bunker Hill makes control investments in companies with EBITDAs between $5 million and $20 million, and enterprise values up to $120 million.  Sectors of interest include industrial products, business services, consumer products, and specialty retail.  The firm has offices in Boston and San Diego (www.bunkerhillcapital.com).

“The Bunker Hill team was a true value-added partner and built a collaborative relationship with our team right from the beginning,” said Carl Graves, CFO of Rizing. “They took the time to understand our business and industry in order to provide a deep and comprehensive partnership with the Rizing management team.”

One Equity Partners, the buyer of Rizing, is a middle-market private equity firm that invests in industrial, healthcare, and technology companies that are based in North America and Europe. Since 2001, the firm has invested in more than 140 transactions worldwide. One Equity, founded in 2001, spun out of JP Morgan in 2015. The firm has offices in New York and Chicago, and an advisory office in Frankfurt, Germany (www.oneequity.com).

© 2018 Private Equity Professional | January 25, 2018

RLH Sells Bluewolf to IBM

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Riordan, Lewis & Haden (RLH) has sold its portfolio company Bluewolf Group, a provider of cloud computing services based on the Salesforce.com platform, to IBM.

Bluewolf became Salesforce’s first consulting services partner in 2001 and today is considered to be one of Salesforce’s top tier consulting partners. The company has 12 offices and just more than 500 employees in the United States, Europe and Australia.   Bluewolf is headquartered in New York (www.bluewolf.com).  The Bluewolf team, including CEO Eric Berridge, will join IBM and become part of the company’s Global Business Services group.

International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) manufactures and markets computer hardware, middleware and software, and offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. The company had revenues last year of $81 billion and is headquartered in Armonk, NY (www.ibm.com).

Riordan, Lewis & Haden invests in high growth, lower middle market companies that have revenues from $25 million to $150 million. Sectors of interest include business services, healthcare, and government services. The firm currently manages over $600 million of assets and is actively seeking new portfolio companies. Riordan, Lewis & Haden is based in Los Angeles (www.rlhequity.com).

© 2016 Private Equity Professional • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 5-17-16