Ares Management and Harvest Partners have sold Valet Living, a provider of multi-family residential services, to GI Partners.
Valet Living’s services include doorstep waste and recycling collection, maintenance services, apartment cleaning, apartment turns, porter services, pet services, and other app-driven on-demand amenity services.
The company’s customers includes both property managers and residents, and it serves more than 1.6 million homes across 40 states. According to the company, it is the largest provider of amenity services in the US with more than 30 times more homes than its nearest competitor. Valet Living, led by CEO Shawn Handrahan, was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Tampa.
“We are delighted to partner with Shawn after spending many years watching him and his team build an incredible resident services platform in Valet Living,” said Hoon Cho, a managing director and co-head of private equity at GI Partners. “They have led the creation and growth of an entire industry focused on delivering a better resident, owner, and property manager experience, and we look forward to working with the entire Valet Living team to continue to grow the company’s gold-standard suite of products and services.”
San Francisco-based GI Partners makes control equity investments in companies with enterprise values of $250 million to $1 billion that are active in the IT infrastructure, healthcare, software, and services sectors. In November 2017, the firm held a final closing of GI Partners Fund V LP at an oversubscribed and hard cap of $2.8 billion.
In September 2020, GI acquired American Residential Services, a provider of residential heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) and plumbing services. The Memphis-based company operates a network of more than 70 service centers in 23 states, with approximately 6,500 employees.
Ares and Harvest acquired Valet Living (then Valet Waste) in September 2015 from New Mountain Capital. “I want to thank the Ares private equity team and Harvest for their support during the last five years as we expanded our solutions to over 1.6 million homes across the country,” said Mr. Handrahan. “We are excited for this next phase in the history of our great company and look forward to continuing to deliver exceptional living experiences to the residents of the communities we serve.”
“Since partnering with management to acquire Valet Living in 2015, we are proud to have supported the company during a period of strong double-digit top-line growth, which included both geographic expansion and the expansion of services from doorstep trash collection to turnkey rental unit turnover, front desk concierge, package management, housekeeping, pet walking, fitness classes and more,” said Matt Cwiertnia, a partner and co-head of Ares’ private equity group. “We would like to thank Harvest for their partnership, and we wish the Valet Living team continued success.”
Ares Management (NYSE: ARES) has approximately $130 billion of assets under management and invests in private equity, leveraged loans, high-yield bonds, distressed debt, and private debt. Within Ares, its private equity group manages $23 billion of assets and is currently investing its fifth private equity fund with $7.8 billion of committed capital. Ares is headquartered in Los Angeles with offices across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
“It has been a pleasure working with Shawn and his team over the past several years, during which time we entered several new geographies and added adjacent services,” said Michael DeFlorio, the president of Harvest. “This has been a great partnership with Ares, and we expect continued success for Valet Living and GI Partners as they continue to grow the business.”
Harvest Partners invests in companies that have from $100 million to $1 billion in revenue and $20 million to $100 million in EBITDA. Sectors of interest include business services, consumer services, healthcare services, industrial services, manufacturing and distribution. The firm was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in New York.
Harris Williams and Baird were the financial advisors to Valet Living and Kirkland & Ellis provided legal services. Moelis & Company was the advisor to Ares and Harvest.
© 2020 Private Equity Professional | November 24, 2020
