Gryphon Investors has acquired a majority equity interest in Wind River Environmental, a provider of inspection, installation, repair, and maintenance services to non-hazardous liquid environmental waste. This transaction is Gryphon’s third investment in the environmental services sector.
Wind River Environmental inspects, services, repairs and installs non-hazardous liquid waste systems, including septic tanks, grease traps, pumping and industrial waste systems. The company offers its services to residential, commercial and municipal systems located in the eastern US. In 2016 the company serviced approximately 25,000 commercial and 52,000 residential sites. Customers include national food and retail establishments such as Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Whole Foods. Wind River has more than 25 locations and 500 employees and is headquartered west of Boston in Marlborough, MA (www.wrenvironmental.com).
Wind River was founded in 1999 and is led by its Co-founder and CEO John O’Connell. Mr. O’Connell and other members of Wind River management team have retained a significant ownership position in the company and will continue to lead Wind River after the closing of the transaction. “We are excited to partner with Gryphon as we continue to grow the company through acquisitions and national and local account sales efforts. We believe that Gryphon brings significant resources and expertise to support these efforts,” said Mr. O’Connell.
“Wind River has an impressive history of growth including completing more than 60 acquisitions. We are highly enthusiastic about providing capital and expertise to Wind River’s management team as they continue to build this market-leading platform through the execution of organic initiatives and add-on acquisitions,” said Phil Petrocelli, a Gryphon Partner and member of its Operating Resources Group.
Former Republic Services COO and Gryphon executive advisor Kevin Walbridge will become Chairman of Wind River as part of Gryphon’s investment. Republic Services is the second largest provider of non-hazardous solid waste collection, transfer, disposal, recycling, and energy services in the US.
Gryphon Investors makes leveraged acquisitions and growth investments in middle-market companies. The firm invests from $50 million to $150 million of capital in companies with sales ranging from $50 million to $500 million. Sectors of interest include business services, consumer and retail, automotive, chemical, general manufacturing, health care and hotels. Gryphon Investors is based in San Francisco (www.gryphoninvestors.com).
“This investment is a result of Gryphon’s longstanding proactive focus on the environmental services space and is a strong match with the past experience of Gryphon’s deal and operations professionals. We have enormous respect for John O’Connell and other members of management and are excited to partner with them to support the company’s continued growth both organically and through acquisitions,” said Alex Earls, a Partner at Gryphon and Head of its Business Services Group.
Gryphon’s past and current investments in the environmental services sector include Dallas-based Trinity Consultants, an environmental consulting firm which specializes in providing air quality compliance, toxicology, industrial hygiene and other environmental services (www.trinityconsultants.com) which Gryphon owned from 2011 to 2015; and HEPACO, a Charlotte-based provider of emergency response, environmental remediation and other environmental services (www.hepaco.com). HEPACO is a current portfolio company of Gryphon.
Stifel Nicolaus was the financial advisor to Gryphon and William Blair & Company was the financial advisor to Wind River.
© 2017 Private Equity Professional | April 5, 2017
